Liz Ring Carlson on Authenticity, Soft Skills, and What Makes Lincoln Work

Episode Summary

Liz Ring Carlson has spent almost thirty years in corporate communications and most of her adult life in Lincoln. She is vice president of corporate communications and community relations at Ameritas, a founding board member of ECHO Collective, and — by training — a history major who never planned on any of it. In this conversation with Randy Bretz and Dr. Marilyn S. Moore, she traces the route from climbing Omaha rooftops as a young insurance adjuster to leading a corporate communications team and talks candidly about what she has learned along the way about leadership, mentorship, and staying recognizably herself inside a large organization.

About the Guest

Liz Ring Carlson is vice president of corporate communications and community relations at Ameritas, the Lincoln-based insurance and financial services company, where she oversees corporate communications, community relations, and events. She holds a degree in history from Kansas State University and began her career at State Farm Insurance, first as a field adjuster in Omaha and later in public affairs.

She chairs the Lincoln Public Schools Superintendent Advisory Council and serves on the University of Nebraska President's Advisory Council. She is a founding board member of ECHO Collective, which supports refugee and immigrant women starting businesses in Lincoln, and also serves on the boards of Lincoln Littles and the St. Elizabeth Foundation. She and her husband, Justin Carlson, who represents District 3 on the Lincoln City Council, have three children.

About the Conversation

The conversation begins where these often do, with a mug. Liz brought a paper cup from the roastery that morning — it has birds on it, which delighted her — and explained that her real mug, the one at home, has a peacock on it. She has an affinity for peacocks. She wears them as brooches. And after years of trying to fit quietly into corporate culture, she came to treat the bird as a reminder: that she was a better leader, and a more creative one, once she stopped smoothing herself down.

From there the conversation moves through a life that has run on two tracks at once. There is the professional track — State Farm, then Ameritas, a career in public relations that she stumbled into by noticing what people kept asking her to help with. And there is the civic track, which started early. One of her first dates with Justin involved holding campaign signs on Capitol Parkway for a gubernatorial candidate, followed by pizza and hours of conversation. Nearly thirty years later, the two are still braided together.

Randy and Marilyn draw her out on the boards she has chosen, and why she has narrowed them to education and to women and children. The ECHO Collective section is the heart of the episode. Liz describes a cold call from founder Kelly Ross — who had, quite literally, googled women in Lincoln — and the Zoom conversation that convinced her to say yes to one more thing during a year when she had no room for it. She talks about the women who have come through the program, the map in the conference room marking the countries they came from, and the metric she is proudest of: several have earned enough through their businesses to buy houses for their families.

Marilyn offers an observation that lands quietly and stays. She had watched two women leaving a literacy class at her church maneuver large vehicles out of an underground parking garage, and thought about what an ordinary act that is for most of us, and what it represents for someone still building a life here.

The final stretch turns to Lincoln. Liz left for Kansas State because she wanted to see something else, spent time in Washington, wanted California in her twenties, and came home for family. What kept her is what she now describes as two degrees of separation — a city where someone always knows someone, which makes it unusually easy to get something started. Asked what Lincoln should attend to as it grows, she is direct: roads and public safety are the laundry, the work that simply has to be done every day. The real question is what the city decides to want.

The Mug

Liz's everyday mug has a peacock on it. She thinks she bought it at Target about ten years ago and is clear that there is nothing fancy about it. The bird is the point. She keeps a second one in reserve — a College of Journalism and Mass Communications mug, given to her by Dr. Shari Veil after Liz spoke to one of her classes — which is considerably larger and reserved for mornings that require it.