Fast 15: Kimberly Kay

Seeing the confidence she inspired in seventh and eighth graders in area rural schools through a robotics curriculum she developed and taught as a homeschooled eighth grader set Kimberly Kay’s path to her work at the Amazeum today.

“I love engineering and science, but I love using those to help engage others,” she said. “Now I get to work in a space where we’re helping create mindset shifts and build confidence and capabilities.”

A Simi Valley, Calif., native, Kay’s family moved to Northwest Arkansas when she was 12. In 2017, at age 17, she went to work for Smashburger in Bentonville and was promoted to assistant general manager after a year. After turning 18 she also began working as a part-time play facilitator at the Amazeum.

“I saw two very different industries and a vast difference in culture and business sense,” she said. She juggled those two jobs while taking science and pre-engineering classes at NorthWest Arkansas Community College, also serving as student government president and as a student trustee on the NWACC board.

During the pandemic, Kay was part of the team helping the museum pivot and re-program during the shutdown. When the museum reopened, Kay went to work full-time for the museum, completing her business administration degree online at the University of Arkansas in 2020. In 2021, she took a job in the Amazeum’s retail store, becoming store manager and buyer in 2022. Now, she leads a team of six. Store revenue increased more than 200% with her management, as she’s worked to relate store inventory with on-the-floor programming in the museum and highlight local craftspeople and their products to sell in the store. Speaking last year at the Association for Science and Technology Conference about an onboarding program she helped develop has been the highlight of Kay’s career.

Kay’s passion for robotics and facilitating opportunities for others remains. She’s a FIRST Robotics coach/mentor, the Technobotics 4-H Club’s main leader and the Technobotics Foundation’s education director, ensuring that 750 kindergarten through 12th-grade students benefit from programming, such as robotics teams and coding workshops.

A member of the UA’s graduate professional student congress, Kay is also president of the Arkansas/Oklahoma Phi Theta Kappa alumni chapter.

She enjoys reading, camping and is getting into biking.