The Miller Tanner Associates’ (MTA) difference is our people. That’s why we want to introduce you to our team of superstars that brings our corporate meetings and events to life for our customers. Today we introduce you to Billing Associate Shelly Lovins. As a billing associate, Shelly’s role requires attention to detail and sharp focus as she executes the final bill budget reviews for our customers.
Meet Shelly Lovins, Billing Associate
Strengths (based on CliftonStrengths): Empathy, Input, Learner, Positivity, and Context
Languages spoken:
Languages are certainly at the top of the list. While I am not fluent in anything other than English, I love my DuoLingo membership. At present, I could toast, politely ask for things, excuse myself, and mix and match words to create an entirely new language in the following: Slovak, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and Swedish. My husband and I are currently working on Japanese together with hopes of visiting Japan one day soon.
Tell us about your current role with MTA. What are your primary responsibilities?
I joined the MTA team in August 2023 as a billing associate. I perform final budget reviews, mainly for investigator meetings, and prepare and send final bills to our customers. Reviewing final budgets puts me in connection with all sorts of MTA staff, which I love! When our 2024 Workshop theme of “Connection” was announced, I ran with it and have taken every opportunity to connect with as many Global Experiences Team members as I can!
What did you do before joining MTA?
Prior to MTA, I worked in accounts payable for a general contractor as well as in contracting with their sister company in renewable energy construction.
What do you feel are the most fulfilling aspects of your job?
One of my favorite parts of my role as a billing associate is the research and navigation of the MTA system’s myriad pathways. There is never just one way to find an answer to a question; an “easy answer” usually means I’ve overlooked something. This job requires attention to detail that in part is mentally exhausting but also provides a nerdy exhilaration when real discovery and comprehension is achieved. Accountants generally believe that we are seen as boring rule-followers, but the truth is when I find “the answer” to a budget mystery in the haystack of receipts, invoices, credit card statements, and historical experiences, I ABSOLUTELY punch the air Rocky-style, yell “SUCCESS!!!” and celebrate my victory with GIFs sent to my fellow accountant-nerds, because we love supporting each other’s discoveries and learning from one another how to support MTA that much better. I have truly found a welcoming environment here with MTA’s Finance Team that nurtures my interest in learning, growing, and, most importantly, supporting the team I am so grateful to work with each day.
Why do you think that the MTA Workshops are important? What do you get most from this time together?
Being that MTA is such a widespread group of people across the globe, the opportunity to convene in new and interesting places, learn about each other, develop new friendships or strengthen old ones, and learn how to create a stronger working system is so enriching. It provides people in administrative roles an opportunity to get outside their more routine work life and experience something of what the Global Experiences Team sees weekly; it offers a chance for all teams to cohesively develop solutions to frequent pain points and brainstorm improvements from our multiple perspectives in real-time. I very much look forward to meeting everyone and making new CONNECTIONS at this year’s Workshop in Ireland.
What do you do for fun?
My husband and I just started mountain biking and have plans to one day start bike-packing (a mixture of backcountry cycling and backpacking). We also like hiking and are more than a little excited about the trip to Ireland for all the green space we will adventure through.
I am currently nourishing an old desire to garden, starting with flowers, herbs, and grapevines. My husband and I just moved to my childhood home in Nashville, TN. Our goal is to bring the boring, grassy yard to a vegetative glory it has never yet experienced!
Reading is also an old love, having majored in English literature at university; my favorite books are non-fiction memoirs of people and their crafts and I can never read just one book. I probably currently have 5 books in circulation, and I read based on the world I feel like living in at that time.
And for my true life passion: FIBER. I have worked with fiber crafts since I was very young. I knit, I sew; I spin yarn; I weave. I’m obsessed. I am also very much looking forward to Ireland for finding all the yarn stores and possibly even doting upon a sheep or two!
To learn more about the MTA Team, visit www.millertanner.com.
