John Batres
Marketing, Communications, & Events Specialist
What is your role with the SPP?
I’m currently the Marketing, Communications, and Events Specialist. I’ve been in this role for almost 4 years now, but my time goes back to 2016 when I started out as a Marketing Student Assistant. I like to say I’m SPP’s digital guru as I handle all things social media, email marketing, digital advertising, and web management as part of our virtual engagement efforts. Need something shared on Facebook or Twitter? I’m your person. My inner organization skills get to come into play with the event planning side of things. During my time I’ve been able to plan an array of events including seminars, webinars, student success events, symposia, conferences, donor related events, etc.
Tell us about your background?
I am a first generation college graduate – I received my bachelor’s degree in business / marketing from UCR. Woo go Highlanders! So I’m a proud alumnus who gets to give back to the UCR community. I knew I always wanted to do something in business, but it wasn’t until I took the intro. to marketing course where I knew what exactly what I wanted to do. I enjoy the creativity that comes with Marketing because I’m part of a team who gets to put the School’s message out to the external community and give the School a personality that the students can resonate with.
What do you enjoy about working with SPP?
I enjoy that my customers range from students to staff to faculty! All the interactions and professional relationships I’ve been able to build over the years is so extensive. I like that my work for each customer audience is so different. One day I might be promoting a student’s spotlight event on social media, the next day I might be helping graphically create a research report for one of our research centers, and the next day I might be putting together a faculty video where they are addressing the students. Every day is so different and it keeps things exciting. And, overall, I really enjoy the work environment. The staff in SPP are like a second family to me since I’ve become close to so many colleagues over the years.