{"id":11361,"date":"2022-03-07T10:32:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T15:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/?p=11361"},"modified":"2022-03-07T13:24:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T18:24:51","slug":"alumna-draws-on-elizabethtown-college-education-for-successful-career-in-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2022\/03\/07\/alumna-draws-on-elizabethtown-college-education-for-successful-career-in-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumna Draws on Elizabethtown College Education for Successful Career in White House"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

DeFrias in front of the South Portico<\/p><\/div>\n

Theatre had never played a leading role in Kara (Vichko) DeFrias \u201997 life before taking a leap of faith as a first-year Elizabethtown College student and auditioning for Irish playwright Brendan Behan\u2019s, \u201cThe Hostage.\u201d DeFrias didn\u2019t know it at the time, but that decision would allow her to find her voice, both literally and figuratively in the College\u2019s Temptest Theatre.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her decision would also instill the confidence to lead a successful career in the user experience (UX), operations management, and executive communications fields, taking her to exciting places in the sports and entertainment industries and, eventually, all the way to the White House where she currently serves as a Senior Advisor in the Office of Technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom giving talks and writing speeches to executive producing TEDx shows, I can draw a through-line from all of those things back to a tiny black box theater in the middle of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,\u201d DeFrias said, who majored in English and Theatre at Etown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although DeFrias initially joined the Temptest Theatre as an actress and dialect coach, she quickly transitioned to the technical side of production, taking on a leadership role as stage manager for the College\u2019s first musical, \u201cWest Side Story.\u201d She found herself organizing the large production, leading a cast and crew, and learning how to stay cool, calm, and collected during the madness of show day to ensure that a complicated, intricate production went off without a hitch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my earliest days I\u2019ve enjoyed being the person in the background, making sure everything – and everyone – is humming along smoothly,\u201d DeFrias explained. \u201cI really dig the work about the work. Doing that well allows me to focus on the people, and giving them opportunities to shine and grow and show up as their best selves.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The skills she learned as a stage manager have served her well in a fast-paced career that has included production and operations roles for high-profile events such as the <\/span>Super Bowl XXXVII Halftime Show, <\/span>Women’s World Cup,<\/span> Emmy Awards, Oscars, and various TEDx Conferences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

DeFrias sitting directly to the right of President Barack Obama during her time as a Presidential Innovation Fellow<\/span> (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re on live TV, you have to make a decision in a split second, and then hope your experience led you to make the right one,\u201d DeFrias said. \u201cBeing a stage manager you have to be organized and efficient while being simultaneously tough and empathetic. You have to make crazy calls in the moment – you don’t have time to call three meetings and build 10 PowerPoint decks to get to a decision.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

DeFrias was a part of the Biden-Harris Transition Team in the fall of 2020 as a senior staff member on the Technology Strategy & Delivery team before joining the Biden-Harris Administration in March 2021. She currently serves as Senior Advisor in the Office of Technology, where she focuses on customer experience and workforce professional development.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy work centers on using technology to make interacting with services easier and, ultimately, to make people\u2019s lives better,\u201d said DeFrias.<\/span><\/p>\n

She originally got her start in the White House after serving in the Obama Administration\u2019s first class of Presidential Innovation Fellows<\/a> in 2012, an exclusive opportunity for DeFrias as she was one of only two women, and 18 total Fellows, chosen from a pool of 800+ applicants. She would later go on to be Director of Experience Design for then-Vice President Biden on his Cancer Moonshot initiativ<\/a>e in 2016.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeFrias, who recently began serving on Etown\u2019s President\u2019s Leadership Council, credits her Etown education and the College\u2019s \u201cEducate For Service\u201d motto with shaping who she is today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI always rave about the excellent education I received at Etown, but it really was so much more than what we learned in the classroom,\u201d DeFrias explained. \u201cIt was how to live a good life in service to others, without expecting anything in return. A life where one person can do the most good for the most people.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theatre had never played a leading role in Kara (Vichko) DeFrias \u201997 life before taking a leap of faith as a first-year Elizabethtown College student and auditioning for Irish playwright Brendan Behan\u2019s, \u201cThe Hostage.\u201d DeFrias didn\u2019t know it at the time, but that decision would allow her to find her voice, both literally and figuratively […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":11365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[197,1350,1494,1493],"class_list":["post-11361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","tag-elizabethtown-college","tag-etown","tag-presidential-innovation-fellows","tag-white-house","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11361"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11379,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11361\/revisions\/11379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}