UA Little Rock Alumnus Lands Dream Job at Veteran Affairs
U.S. Army Veteran. Embalmer. Information Technology Manager. Professor. Author.
At just 34, Dr. Tori Dodla (formerly Tori Johnson), a 2014 graduate of UA Little Rock, has worn many hats over her unique and accomplished career. The latest title that she is adding to her list of achievements – Dream Job.
That’s how Dodla is describing her new position as the chief of digital resource management for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, a position that perfectly blends her unique education and work skills.
“It’s really my dream position,” Dodla said. “I’m excited because I get to serve the people who have fought for this country. I never thought in a million years that I would be at this point in my career.”
In addition to working for Veteran Affairs, Dodla is an adjunct professor at Trine University teaching advanced database management, has just been named a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council, and is a new author. Her book, “Mastering Knowledge Management Using Microsoft Technologies,” was published in July.
“This is a project that I am very excited about that I wanted to do for a long time,” Dodla said. “I knew that we had a knowledge management problem that could be solved by getting the right information to the right people at the right time. I started thinking about it when I was an officer in the Army. I knew people getting the right information when they needed it was critical to mission success. That is when the seed was planted, and I started writing my book as soon as I finished my dissertation at Capitol Technology University.”
Dodla, a native of El Dorado, got started in an IT career after receiving a bachelor’s degree in funeral service and mortuary science from the University of Central Oklahoma.
“I worked in funeral services all throughout college,” Dodla said. “When I graduated, I had a conversation with one of my mentors about pursuing IT as a backup plan, and I thought it was a good idea. I’m still a licensed embalmer, but maybe it’s not the most family friendly career. I thought IT would be a little more fun, a little less gloomy, and a little better for motherhood.”
She enlisted in the U.S. Army and worked in the 489th Engineer Battalion at Camp Robinson. Dodla joined UA Little Rock from 2012 to 2014 to earn a Master of Science in Management Information Systems (now the Master of Science in Business Information Systems and Analytics), all while completing her Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program and working as a graduate assistant.
“It was an awesome experience, and it was a great campus,” she said. “My time as a student was very busy and very rewarding. My schedule was very tight, so I had to take time management seriously. I was up at 5:30 a.m. every morning to go to physical training, come back and go to my grad assistant job, get to ROTC classes, and then I would do night classes. On the weekends, I was either drilling or in the field.”
She is grateful to professors like Dr. Sung-kwan Kim, professor of management, marketing, and technology, who really made an impact during her graduate degree.
“Dr. Kim was my information systems professor and was very instrumental in my success,” she said. “I always liked the way he explained things and would make them simple and easy to understand. I always felt like he was a genius and a good teacher, and I have a lot of respect for that. “
If there is one piece of advice that Dodla would give to today’s graduate students, she would tell them to choose a specialization.
“My advice would be to pick a specialty or a vendor and really focus on that,” Dodla said. “That was something I didn’t know to do when I was starting graduate school. Become an expert on something specific such as Splunk, Azure, or Oracle. That will make you valuable. Once you become a specialist, become a generalist afterward.”
After UA Little Rock, Dodla served for three years in the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade of the U.S. Army stationed in Katterbach Airfield in Germany. She then returned home to work as an IT project manager at UAMS, bought a house, and thought she was going to settle down in Arkansas until a unique job opportunity came up.
“I had no intention of leaving Little Rock until I got a call from a former colleague about a unique position,” Dodla said. “They were looking for a programmer who knew aviation logistics and was a former Army officer.”
In 2018, Dodla moved to Washington, D.C. to work as a senior program analyst on contract with the Army National Guard Bureau. She managed the Aviation Scorecard Program for three years. Additionally, Dodla has worked as a federal consultant for the U.S Department of State completing a scorecard for crisis communication for foreign operations.
She also earned a Ph.D. in Information Technology from Capitol Technology University, where she completed her dissertation on “Navigating the Risks and Maximizing the Rewards of Knowledge Management Systems: Best Practices and Strategies.”
Overall, Dodla is quite satisfied with the success she found in her career after graduating from UA Little Rock and hopes that her story will inspire more students to join the university.
“It’s been quite the journey, and I am grateful for the opportunity that UA Little Rock gave me to complete graduate school and all the connections I made there,” Dodla said. “I hope sharing my success story will inspire and attract new talent to UA Little Rock.”
