{"id":71300,"date":"2024-02-06T15:32:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T22:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=71300"},"modified":"2024-02-06T15:32:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T22:32:31","slug":"planning-for-black-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/planning-for-black-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Planning for Black success"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAU student and event planning professional <\/span>Timmesse Thompson<\/span><\/b> has been coordinating events since she was a teenager planning her high school\u2019s Black Student Union and multicultural events. \u201cAfter proposing and planning so many social impact events, I became the go-to student affairs coordinator,\u201d she said. At that time, no one talked about an \u201cevents industry,\u201d so she had no idea that the work she loved to do was a paying career track. \u201cI was obsessed with the movie \u2018The Wedding Planner\u2019 but thought it was a fairytale to be a logistics beast like J. Lo.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though a career in event planning felt out of reach for young Thompson, she couldn\u2019t be kept from what she loved. She continued putting together events at Phoenix College as an officer in student government and president of BSU. She eventually dropped out of college after becoming homeless, but she continued volunteering to take on event coordination roles at work. As a secretary at Liberty Mutual Insurance, she planned a grand opening event and won two Bravo employee recognition awards. That\u2019s when she knew this was the career she wanted full-time.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thompson talked to her Liberty Mutual boss about applying for a role in the events department, but he would not support the move, claiming she didn\u2019t have the skillset to become a full-time corporate planner. So, with a little encouragement from her husband, Thompson decided to strike out on her own.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Thompson<\/a>Timmesse Events opened on Aug. 15, 2016, with Thompson doing everything from coordinating to decorating to bartending. As a new business owner with no established clients, she took every job she could get. \u201cMany people in my community reached out to me because they wanted my services, but they couldn\u2019t afford an event planner,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you only had $200 and needed something for your kid\u2019s party, I\u2019d make it work.\u201d After years of building up her business, Thompson earned her first five-figure paycheck in 2019.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thompson\u2019s success didn\u2019t come without obstacles. Her early life was marked by violence: She grew up in a domestically violent household and survived an unrelated homicide attempt as a young child that left her with third-degree burns over 30% of her body.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI fought so hard to be alive at such a young age. As a survivor of that, my perspective on life has been shaped by the realization that our time on this Earth is limited,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cIn a world filled with darkness, I have found purpose in bringing light through celebrating every aspect of life.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her professional life, Thompson faced different kinds of obstacles. \u201cThe constant struggle to work harder than my counterparts and endure blatant disrespect is the norm,\u201d she said. After tiring of dealing with unsupportive management and being told that racist jokes from coworkers were \u201charmless,\u201d she began delivering talks on diversity, equity and inclusion at the corporate level. Then, realizing that others in her industry could benefit from her experience, Thompson created Black Event Professionals of Arizona (BEPA), an organization dedicated to meeting the networking and training needs of her peers.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Thompson<\/a><\/span>\u201cIt all began with three Black women\u2014Stephanie White, Jeryse Kelly and I\u2014three event planners coming together,\u201d she recalled of the group\u2019s first meeting in August 2022. Today, BEPA is a flourishing online community with more than 1,200 members who share best practices and provide resources and support to one another, including how to identify, report and cope with discrimination at work.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thompson wants to see BEPA grow into a non-profit resource center that offers housing assistance, education and training that will empower Black professionals to recognize and address racism in their workplaces. \u201cMy aspiration in life is to plan epic fundraisers to expand the financial and career success of my people through BEPA.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where her degree in applied human behavior from NAU comes in. Thompson\u2019s studies are providing her with the foundation to turn this aspiration into a reality.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn this program, I am learning from professors in the human behavior program who have been where I am and have made it to the other side,\u201d she said. \u201cI envision a future where hundreds of thousands of financially successful Black event professionals thrive in Arizona, breaking generational curses unapologetically.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/p>\n

Jessica Clark | NAU Communications
\njessica.clark@nau.edu\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAU student and event planning professional Timmesse Thompson has been coordinating events since she was a teenager planning her high school\u2019s Black Student Union and multicultural events. \u201cAfter proposing and planning so many social impact events, I became the go-to student affairs coordinator,\u201d she said. At that time, no one talked about an \u201cevents industry,\u201d…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":71301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}