Kim Killoran has worked for Stratasys in Marketing for over 12 years, first as a Marketing Specialist for the Dimension 3D printing product line, then with growing responsibilities across all Stratasys products.
She also served as a Marketing Events Manager for the Americas region from 2016-2018. A few highlights of Kim’s time at Stratasys include a “Capitol Hill Day” event at the Capital in Washington, D.C., a bell ringing event at the Nasdaq facility at Times Square in New York City, other worldwide events, customer projects and more.
Kim served as Secretary on the Additive Manufacturing Users Group’s Board of Directors for 5 years and is still involved today as the Chair of the Marketing Committee. She has a passion for additive manufacturing, events and connecting people within the industry.
Before joining the company, Kim worked as a marketing project manager at Wilson Learning for 6 years. She earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Marketing, from North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND.
Nora Touré: Kim, could you let us know briefly about your background and your journey into Additive Manufacturing (AM)?
Kim Killoran: I started in the AM industry in 2008 at Stratasys as a Marketing Specialist for the Dimension 3D Printer line. My role included everything from managing a trade show schedule of 50 events/year to website updates, social media, leads management and more.
What I look back on and think was really unique about my first role at Stratasys, and really helped engrain me in the technology and stoke my excitement for it, was that I was assigned to run 4 Dimension 3D printers used as demo machines for people that visited the office. In doing so, I learned things a typical marketing person might not learn. For instance, STL files, how to process them through our print software, as well as what a good STL file looked like and more. I learned how to run and maintain the printers, load and unload material, as well as how to remove the soluble support material via a wash tank. We printed all sorts of parts from marketing samples, giveaways to students, parts for schools, contests and other similar items. I learned a LOT about the printers, including how to avoid my own user error in processing and sending the print file to the printer, which the printer didn’t react well to!
Since that first position at Stratasys, I’ve had multiple roles within the company (all in marketing), including event manager, and project manager for global marketing, helping our regional marketing groups and other business units navigate through the marketing processes and structure.
Nora Touré: What are some of the key moments in your career from spending 12 years with Stratasys?
Kim Killoran: Trade show and marketing events always have been a great love of mine (even when the freight doesn’t show up or the booth is set up wrong, or any multitude of issues that need to be problem-solved on the spot). It’s really all about the experience, the people and the bonding. So, it’s natural that most of my highlights center around events or key interactions:
- We had a “Capitol Hill Day” event in Washington, D.C., October 2014. We set up a booth in one of the town hall type of meeting rooms at the capitol with two running 3D printers and a lot of parts to show.
- We held a bell ringing event at the Nasdaq facility at Times Square in New York City in May of 2013.
- Stratasys Global Partner Sales Meeting in 2012 where the Mojo 3D printer was first announced to partners, but not yet publicly, as well as our impending merger with Objet.
- My first AMUG Conference in Costa Mesa, California, in 2012, which was the week after our partner meeting. I remember some colleagues saying we needed to get to know the people from Objet as we’d be seeing a lot more of them!
- Many other worldwide events, customer video shoots, tours, and campaigns.
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