Just do it

Gina Ambrose had a goal: Run a 26-mile marathon the year she turned 26.

“I’d been tossing around the idea of running a marathon, and I needed a deadline,” Gina said. “When I turned 26, I thought, ‘This is it.’ I moved to Oregon and started training for the Portland Marathon.”

The achievement of her goal gave Gina much more than a pumped-up fitness routine. It allowed her to explore her new city and find hidden gems along the way.

“I like running, and I like exploring my neighborhood,” she said. “It’s really social.”

Gina (’08 marketing, international business, and French) moved to Portland to work at Nike, headquartered in nearby Beaverton, Ore., as part of the marketing team for the website Nike.com.

“It’s fabulous to work at Nike,” she says. “I volunteer to give tours to guests because I love to tell the Nike story.”

Her work focuses on digital marketing and target-market advertising. She says the job is the perfect balance of art and science.

Though she grew up in the small Iowa town of Webster City, Gina says she always liked big cities, and she landed her first job at Gap in San Francisco. But Portland and Nike are the perfect fit for her.

“My dream of dreams was to work for Nike,” she says.