Meet Krista.
As REBA’s Product Manager, Krista’s job is to listen to clients, prospects, and our product advisory committee and translate needs and wishes into tangible development requests to build and improve REBA’s budget & forecasting application and drive its success.
She likens herself to a puzzle-solver, building and assembling pieces together, in the right place, to create a solution that offers a better experience to our customers through user stories and wireframes.
Krista doesn’t just talk the talk, she’s walked it. She has over 20 years of experience in the multifamily industry working for leaders like Archstone Apartments and the Laramar Group. Krista has truly lived the budget process, from creating the model to assisting the users of the model, to analyzing results. So much so, she’s become quite the budget guru and budget queen.
“Working for REBA is a full-circle moment for me. Property managers have a tremendous job, every single day. Budgets are hard and stressful, and make an already big job, tougher. When I look at the value of my work, I'm giving these managers time back through a better budgeting experience.” - Krista Wilson
Krista spent her summers growing up working on her father’s ranch in New Mexico, where there was always plenty of work to do from tending to cattle and horses to sweeping, cleaning, and fixing fences. This early experience drove her work ethic, resourcefulness, and her tenacity for diving deep into projects to find the best solution to the problem, and (possibly) her love for hats.
Should you be lucky enough to come across the family homestead located off the beaten path, you’ll find Krista’s father’s hats hanging in the original house that he built, from the deer horns above the fireplace. Just where he left them, and as she says, “Where they have the most meaning.”
Get to know Krista better below and find out just how many hats she owns and how the collection happened.
1. Describe yourself in 3 words?
- Independent
- Honest
- Spontaneous
2. What is a dream country you’d like to visit?
Greece is just beautiful – the white, the blue & the red geraniums.
3. What’s the biggest surprise you’ve had?
Being told I was going to become a grandmother was a great surprise. I knew it would happen, but I didn’t expect the timing. I have 3 grandkids, and they’re why I live in Texas.
4. Who is your style icon?
I like Diane Keaton. The style of her home featured in Architectural Digest is my kind of style. Spanish-style roof, big, tall arches. Comfortable, clean, and bright but not minimalist. I follow her on Instagram and if I could have her home, I would have her home – from her tile floors to her closet full of hats.
I also own 40 (or so) hats. It’s mostly the same hat over and over because I happen to be walking through the farmer’s market and I don’t have the hat I need to have at that moment... even though I have the hat at my house, I buy a new one. I have 4-5 floppy, unconstructed packable hats, 4-5 cowboy hats, a variation of the floppy hat with some beading for Mexico, some wide-brimmed hats for the garden to protect from the sun, and more. The funny thing is that when I was a kid at the ranch, I would lose my hat the first week of summer, so maybe I’m just trying to replace those lost hats.
5. What 3 people living or dead would you have over for dinner?
- My dad because I just didn’t get to spend enough time with him. I only lived with him in the summers, and we didn’t have FaceTime back then. I wish I could ask him all the questions that I now know I should ask.
- Lyle Lovett because I just love him. He’s a poet and I love his storytelling, you wait with bated breath during his concerts & shows. I’m a little bit of a Lyle groupie. I’ve seen him at backyard-style shows, at Red Rocks (10+ times), and at fancy concert halls. I’ve also met him. If he came to dinner, I’d have him play “If I Had a Boat" because it’s a lot of fun to sing to. If I was ever on a desert island and could only take 5 songs with me, I’d take his songs and be set.
- Eleanor Roosevelt. I love all the good things she was able to accomplish despite her story about being insecure as a kid and being beaten down. She shouldn’t have been as successful, yet she was.
6. What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?
“You know more than you think you know.”
This is something that was told to me when I was studying for my CPA exam. If you get beaten down and think you’re going to fail, you will. You need confidence. It helps a lot to just know that you know more than you think you do.
7. What is a book that everyone should read or a podcast that everyone should listen to?
I listen to Audible a lot. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a great book that I read on the way to India.
The Hidden Brain is a podcast I listen to religiously. The host presents wonderful guests and stories about the way your brain works and it’s entertaining and educational at the same time.
8. What is a quote or affirmation you live by today?
“Is this going to be important in 5 years?” is a question I use to ground myself and keep out of the anxiety or the OMG feelings about forgetting to do something. In the big picture, it’s not worth losing sleep over and you can fix it in the morning.
This ties into another quote, “Everything looks better in the morning.” You can have the worst day today, but tomorrow you’ll feel better. It’s another day.
9. What’s your favorite time of day?
I love the morning. Not only because I love coffee, but I look at it like anything can happen today, I can make it happen.
Every morning, I have a confident attitude and everything seems doable. That thing I was thinking about yesterday that seemed hard, I figured it out overnight. I'm a big proponent of sleeping on it.
10. What is one thing no one knows about you?
I’m a 2nd-degree black belt in Kuk Sool Won, a traditional Korean comprehensive martial art. I did it because my kids were yellow belts and thought it would be too hard to black belt. They later quit but I continued practicing, learning forms, joint lock movements, Korean words, and counting. Then I went through the grueling testing period to level up and earn my black belts
Connect with Krista Wilson on LinkedIn.
*Questions inspired by Vogue’s 73 Questions Video Series.
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