We’re ecstatic that Kate Hawkins has joined Pavilion as our first Product Manager! Kate is a product manager who enjoys building technology for social good. Prior to joining Pavilion, she built products at Bay Area public media organization KQED, internet radio service Pandora, and edtech startup Coursera. Kate enjoys being outdoors, cooking for friends, having many beverages on hand at all times, and writing crossword puzzles.We asked Kate a few questions about herself and the experiences that led her to Pavilion.
Why Pavilion?
Governments touch nearly every part of our lives, and the goods and services they purchase support our schools, our libraries, our transit systems, our social welfare system. Professionally, I love building digital products. Building digital products at a young, mission-driven, product-focused organization working to help build a more efficient future for government procurement? Joining Pavilion as a product manager couldn’t have been a more perfect next step for me. Also, I’m so excited to get to work every day with such a stellar team.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
One of my many hobbies is writing crossword puzzles! You can solve my puzzles in places like The New York Times, USA Today, and The Atlantic as well as in a number of indie publications. Writing a puzzle is its own sort of puzzle, one where you get to choose what words go into the grid. While I’m serious about puzzles, in other realms, I’m a serial dabbler. In the past few years I have gotten into pickleball, canning our garden produce, baking sourdough bread, and raising backyard chickens. Don’t ask me about the roller skates, banjo, or disc golf equipment stored in my garage…
What’s something someone who didn’t know you wouldn’t expect about you?
I love reading and collecting rulebooks and manuals. Think handbooks and training materials for jobs I’ll never have, schools I’ll never attend, clubs I’ll never be part of, etc. Why is this unexpected? Well, I love questioning authority and I’m not always the best at following rules… but I can sure tell you a lot about the Postal Exam or how to give away your fraternity pin to your sweetheart.
What’s something you’re not good at, but working on?
I love to bike, but I am not very good at biking up hills. I live in Oakland, which is home to some incredible bike rides that all involve biking up hills from the flats where I live. I understand that in order to scale hills, I need to learn to stand up while pedaling– somehow this hasn’t happened yet. My hope is that if I keep at it, I’ll learn to enjoy hills rather than to avoid them at all costs.
