Sarah Goehrke has been covering the 3D Printing industry since 2014, in a leadership position since 2015, and loves the opportunity to gain first-hand looks and inside knowledge through traveling to events and sites.
As the Editor-in-Chief of 3DPrint.com, Sarah helms content operations, overseeing full-time and freelance writers, heading social media efforts, and encouraging unique content creation. No matter for how long you’ve been in the industry, Sarah’s name is probably familiar to you, and she knows about you and your company too! We are thrilled to share a bit of her and how she got into this industry in this interview.
Nora Toure: Sarah, could you let us know about your background and what brought you to 3D printing in the first place?
Sarah Goehrke: Growing up in a family where both of my parents and all three of my sisters taught, I was naturally inclined toward teaching as a profession, and was an education major through my sophomore year of college; the plan was to teach high school AP English and direct the plays. I eventually accepted that I don’t have a teacher’s patience or disposition and dropped the education major. I graduated in 2007 with my bachelor’s degrees, Summa Cum Laude, in English and theatre, with a Spanish minor. And with no plan.
Over the next decade, I learned that career trajectory often comes down to two major factors: luck of timing and hard work. The unpredictable economic environment I graduated into made me drop my plans to move to the UK for a master’s degree in theatre direction, and I instead went full-time at the manufacturing company where I’d been temping. From there, I embarked on a six-year career with a Cleveland-based industry research/market forecasting company where I became the lead copy editor, managing departmental project flow. I also authored about ten studies as a research analyst, projecting growth in US markets for chemicals, animal health products and services, and various other industries.
It was a great company but six years on, I was ready for my next move. That’s where it really came down to timing and luck; I was interviewing everywhere. I came very close to working with a restaurant management company, overseeing and editing menus in high-end restaurants; with a tire company as the content manager; and with a small manufacturing company working with data assets. I had also subscribed to a national email list collating remote writing opportunities, where I happened to see a small listing, via a Florida Craigslist post, for a tech news site hiring for an editor/writer. It turns out that was 3DPrint.com, and with a leap of faith I started less than a week later as one of the site’s earliest full-time employees in October 2014.
In September 2015, less than a year after my start date, the site was acquired and in the changeover of operations, I was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of 3DPrint.com, a position I have held since. The happenstance of seeing the Craigslist ad – and of even responding to a Craigslist ad – was my jumpstart, but I pushed myself to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could about every aspect of the technology and the job. Trade shows, interviews, site visits, and summits have exponentially increased my access to, and understanding of, the technologies; on-the-ground learning has been critical.
Read the rest at Women in 3D Printing
