Westminster College's 14th Hancock Symposium opened Wednesday morning in Champ Auditorium with a lecture from an alum who has worked 25 years as a Hollywood television producer.
Gretchen Kinder graduated from Westminster in 1994 with a degree in English and took her talents directly to Hollywood. Kinder has produced for a variety of shows including "Project Runway," "Fear Factor," "The Bachelorette" and "The Apprentice."
"I'm not sure how an English major somehow budgets multi-million dollar projects. However, all of my experience in learning about finances and research started here at Westminster and then I combined them with being open to experiences when I moved to Los Angeles," Kinder said.
Kinder started off in Hollywood as a production assistant, which she described where "everyone" wanting to go into production start off. Tasks as a production assistant included taking out trash, cleaning bathrooms and grabbing coffee. Once, she had to vacuum the entire ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
"I worked 12, 14, 16-hour days seven days a week; if you don't do it, somebody else will," Kinder said.
She stressed the importance of listening and keeping open eyes when coming up as a production assistant or in any other field. Kinder succeeded in her competitive field by applying these lessons.
She also divulged about the impact of reality television on society. One dramatic example of impact she shared was how President Donald Trump used his platform on "The Apprentice" to ascend to the presidency. She explained while this is a unique instance, there are thousands of people joining Crossfit and building rock walls so they can be on "American Ninja Warrior."
"I read yesterday that children in China want to be astronauts, but children in the United States want to be YouTube stars," Kinder said.
During her speech, she also touched on gender imbalance in Hollywood and gender stereotyping. She shared statistics that show women in Hollywood only make up 7 percent of directors, 10 percent of writers and 20 percent of producers, according to the organization Women in Film.
"You're not going to have gender equality or have women represented if you have 90 percent telling the stories with a one-sided voice," Kinder said.
Despite her success over her 25-year career in Hollywood, Kinder still aims to reach higher in the industry. Her goal is to become a vice president of production. She's only encountered two women filling that role in her whole career.
"I have a good friend who is a vice president of production, and we have both been working and living in (Los Angeles) for about the same amount of time and have had very similar career paths." Kinder explained. "He has been a vice president for five years. Don't get me wrong, he deserves his position, but he will be the first person to admit that he had men who helped him and mentored him. That made me realize that I haven't had any women mentors because we're not there."