Leadership Profile: Angie Eastman-Aytes, PMP

By Kelley Duron, M.Ed, CSM

You might say Angie Eastman-Aytes has been steeped in business, project management and servant leadership most of her life. The oldest of five children, she used to accompany her father as he went store to store serving existing clients, developing new business and posing endless questions to his daughter about the experience as they went. 

“I got a full business education spending summers riding around in a minivan through my middle and high school years,” she explains. “My dad used questions as a means to teach by making me think.”

Angie applied those thinking skills by completing a year of college while still in high school, graduating early and enlisting in the Navy where she was well matched to her first supply chain management job. Initially her role included projects as well as daily operations, but she quickly found herself assigned predominantly to the project side of the work.

“I think that happened because I asked so many questions and they wanted to keep me busy!” 

Her military career took her to North Carolina and Bahrain and, she says, taught her to become very adaptive. “Over time, our operations became a reliable routine, but we literally found ourselves handling weekly ‘one-off’ projects, like when dignitaries scheduled last-minute visits. I got very good at adapting my planning and execution to fit very different situations.”

Public service continued to call Angie; on leaving the Navy, she got her teaching degree and ultimately became a program administrator overseeing multiple projects aimed at struggling students in Alaska while her Coast Guard husband was stationed in Kodiak and Sitka. While in that role, Angie added skills in applying new technology as she had to frequently find ways to engage with students and teachers in remote, isolated villages.

Faced with few teaching options when her family moved to Portland in 2010, Angie returned to supply management and added buyer to her resume with several local firms. She went to work last year for A-Dec, a dental equipment manufacturing firm in Newberg, where she functions as both a buyer and project manager. She credits their support for allowing her time to take a pivotal course on project management taught by Connie Plowman at PCC and encouraging her to earn her PMP last spring.

Now, Angie is PMI Portland Chapter’s current Assistant Director of Military Outreach. She enjoys the opportunity this role provides to meet folks who are new to PMI and project management. “I like the idea of making our practices accessible to professionals who fill a range of roles. Volunteering with PMI allows me to educate non-PMs about how their work can fit in as well.”

Her service doesn’t end with PMI; she’s also a long-time volunteer for Remote Area Medical, a non-profit that brings together medical professionals to run healthcare clinics around the world for those in need. In her spare time, she loves kayaking and continues travelling the world. “I loved our camping trip in the Netherlands,” she says. “A duffle bag, tent, sleeping bags and a rented station wagon with my husband. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”