Hailing from San Diego, Rebecca Hamilton, Director of College Administration & Operations at the Marilyn Davies College of Business, began her educational journey and her career with UHD after moving to Houston in 2010. 

While she enjoyed the pleasant weather and sunny beaches of California, it became challenging to maintain the high cost of living, particularly after being laid off from her position at a major telecommunications company.  

Working at her corporate job in California, Hamilton was stable and content and did not realize the importance of having a college degree until her layoff. In the job market, she found it difficult to get another job that offered the same level of financial stability without requiring a degree. This realization motivated her to complete her bachelor’s degree and later finish her MBA.  

“As an older person, I was a bit of a late bloomer,” Hamilton explained. She attended college after high school but later dropped out. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Houston in 2015 and pursued her MBA at UHD in 2022, proudly graduating December 2023. 

When she moved to Houston, she got her first job in higher education at Texas Southern University, where she would work for the next five years. She saw opportunities for growth at UHD, mentioning its wide range of programs as one of her main reasons for enrolling, as well as its supportive community. 

Hamilton also said the kindness and support of the supervisors and leadership at MDCOB are near and dear to her and appreciates the potential they saw in her when they hired her as Director in October 2023.   

In her role she oversees the financial and human resource aspects of the college, managing the administrators and the administrative assistants. She also collaborates across departments, including closely working with Dean Davis in overseeing the budget, recently collaborating with him to manage difficult budget cuts. 

Currently, Hamilton finished budget development for the new fiscal year and is working on her report to the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), which shares budgetary and salary-based information with other AACSB-accredited universities.  

But it isn’t always about business—Hamilton and her department are a close-knit family, going out to celebrate birthday lunches and even organizing an annual Secret Santa gift exchange. 

In the long term, she expresses interest in moving up to Executive Director but acknowledges that she has much to learn in her current job and would like to spend the next three to four years growing her experience. Her long path from San Diego to Houston, from bachelor’s to MBA to Director, proves that whether in school or in the business world, learning is a journey that never ends.