Alumni
Portland Magazine
June 9, 2020
By Amy Shelly ’95, ’01
Those among you who have attended a Rock the Bluff concert, a mainstay event at UP since 2012, probably didn’t know you have Sean Ducey ’13, ’19 MBA to thank for the tradition. He was only a junior when he founded the annual concert and learned that event planning and behind-the-scenes work was his calling.
Of course, it was tough to accept that all the events this spring and summer couldn’t happen as planned. Sean is now associate director in the University’s Office of Events, a role he’s held for the past five years, and he helps to plan and execute events like Commencement, Orientation, Parents and Families Weekends, and Reunion.
For Sean and his team, the pivot to an online Commencement involved a lot of detail work, and all of it was for the graduating seniors, which fits with Sean’s events philosophy: he puts relationships and logistics on an equal plane.
“I do what I do so that students will have a great experience. An event might take hours upon hours [really months] to prepare, even if it’s really short,” he says. “There’s so much that goes into every event that people will never see—and honestly there’s no reason for them to see—because that’s what our job is.” As for the future, in-person Commencement? He’ll be working on that too, and for the same reasons.
As a lifelong Boy Scout and Eagle Scout, Sean likes to be prepared. While he shies away from being called an earthquake preparedness expert, his comprehensive earthquake kit is packed and at the ready, and he gives informal and impromptu talks about creating an earthquake kit on a budget.
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