bluesooner17
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Crisis Response Team at Facebook Age: 33 Residence: Seattle
Brooke Pryor
bpryor@oklahoman.com
NORMAN — Before arriving at the Lloyd Noble Center Friday night, Leah Rush hadn’t been back to her alma mater in about a decade.
She’s been too busy, filling the pages of her passport with stamps from the far-flung corners of the world.
After finishing her OU women’s basketball career in 2007, Rush played professional basketball in the WNBA and overseas for a couple years.
When she retired, she decided her global adventure wasn’t over yet.
She began working with humanitarian groups, traveling to areas in crisis to provide whatever assistance she could.
Following a decade of international living, Rush returned to the United States to help stateside companies contribute to the areas around the world that needed it most.
After working with the American Red Cross and managing The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s humanitarian portfolio, Rush recently took a job with Facebook’s Social Good team.
It’s been a wild ride since she left Norman, and Rush isn’t slowing down any time soon.
My interest was never in coaching or staying in the game beyond playing. I wanted to shift into humanitarian action. Working in emergency and disaster sector.
I always thought that I could do whatever I wanted. I had that foundation from my family and certainly I had a fantastic jumping board from here playing at OU and getting my degree here.
I suppose when I retired I was thinking, ‘What’s the next thing?’ Obviously, I’m going to work in crisis.
At the time, it was food crisis in West Africa, so I lived in Africa, worked all over the Middle East, most recently in Syria.
I think cultures are fascinating, and when they’re faced with massive disasters or crisis or whatever atrocity may be, I think it’s amazing to see how cultures and people come together in those times.
I have a particular love of the Middle East. The hospitality in that region is tremendous. I’m curious by the Middle East in a way that I perhaps am not in other regions.
It’s a matter of just opening your mind. It’s really easy for people to look inward in their own little bubble, in their own communities and just make massive generalizations about the world and the people in it. I would say for one, don’t do that.
Globally, people all over the world want a lot of the same things, need a lot of the same things, and are ultimately good. There’s a massive variety of the ways that we approach life, that humans engage in the world.
During times of crisis, you really see some of the common threads of humanity come together and support one another.
After being overseas for about a decade, I figured I should move back to the U.S. for a little bit and get to know my own country as an adult.
Facebook has a social good branch. I work specifically with their crisis partnerships. Anytime there’s a crisis, I work with a whole host of humanitarian partners or corporate folks that are engaged in the crisis space.
When I was playing ball here, I knew I was curious about the world and I wanted to travel and see different things and participate in the world in a bigger scale, but I didn’t know what that looked like. So when opportunities presented, I ran with them.
Be open-minded to serendipity. You can surprise yourself with where you’ll end up.
Brooke Pryor
bpryor@oklahoman.com
NORMAN — Before arriving at the Lloyd Noble Center Friday night, Leah Rush hadn’t been back to her alma mater in about a decade.
She’s been too busy, filling the pages of her passport with stamps from the far-flung corners of the world.
After finishing her OU women’s basketball career in 2007, Rush played professional basketball in the WNBA and overseas for a couple years.
When she retired, she decided her global adventure wasn’t over yet.
She began working with humanitarian groups, traveling to areas in crisis to provide whatever assistance she could.
Following a decade of international living, Rush returned to the United States to help stateside companies contribute to the areas around the world that needed it most.
After working with the American Red Cross and managing The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s humanitarian portfolio, Rush recently took a job with Facebook’s Social Good team.
It’s been a wild ride since she left Norman, and Rush isn’t slowing down any time soon.
My interest was never in coaching or staying in the game beyond playing. I wanted to shift into humanitarian action. Working in emergency and disaster sector.
I always thought that I could do whatever I wanted. I had that foundation from my family and certainly I had a fantastic jumping board from here playing at OU and getting my degree here.
I suppose when I retired I was thinking, ‘What’s the next thing?’ Obviously, I’m going to work in crisis.
At the time, it was food crisis in West Africa, so I lived in Africa, worked all over the Middle East, most recently in Syria.
I think cultures are fascinating, and when they’re faced with massive disasters or crisis or whatever atrocity may be, I think it’s amazing to see how cultures and people come together in those times.
I have a particular love of the Middle East. The hospitality in that region is tremendous. I’m curious by the Middle East in a way that I perhaps am not in other regions.
It’s a matter of just opening your mind. It’s really easy for people to look inward in their own little bubble, in their own communities and just make massive generalizations about the world and the people in it. I would say for one, don’t do that.
Globally, people all over the world want a lot of the same things, need a lot of the same things, and are ultimately good. There’s a massive variety of the ways that we approach life, that humans engage in the world.
During times of crisis, you really see some of the common threads of humanity come together and support one another.
After being overseas for about a decade, I figured I should move back to the U.S. for a little bit and get to know my own country as an adult.
Facebook has a social good branch. I work specifically with their crisis partnerships. Anytime there’s a crisis, I work with a whole host of humanitarian partners or corporate folks that are engaged in the crisis space.
When I was playing ball here, I knew I was curious about the world and I wanted to travel and see different things and participate in the world in a bigger scale, but I didn’t know what that looked like. So when opportunities presented, I ran with them.
Be open-minded to serendipity. You can surprise yourself with where you’ll end up.