As Events and Operations Coordinator at San Diego City College, Ginger Broussard is the person who can get things done.
Looking for the perfect downtown location to hold a meeting? Ginger is who you’re looking for. Need space for specialized trainings? Ginger is the front-line manager you’ll need. Planning to film a commercial? Ginger is the point person to get it done.
“We make things happen,” Broussard said of her office, which works hand in hand with Facilities Services. “We are here to make sure that any event that is planned will come to life.”
That includes scholarship awards ceremonies, classified and faculty appreciations, Fall Fests, Winter Wonderlands, Sneaker Balls, spring and fall convocations, and more than a dozen annual commencement ceremonies.
It was a career, she says, that she sort of fell into. Born and raised in San Diego, the Patrick Henry High School graduate and current Paradise Hills resident is a first-generation college student with extensive experience in property management and client services. “I was looking for something different, an opportunity came up at City, and I took it,” she said.
She was hired as a NANCE employee assigned to Business Services to assist with covid personal protective equipment during the pandemic in 2021, when the campus was shut down. “I was always getting lost, hardly anyone was here, and I didn’t know anyone who was here,” Broussard said.
That changed nearly a year later when the campus fully reopened in spring 2022. About 18 months later, in summer 2023, Broussard was promoted to Events and Operations Coordinator. She hasn’t looked back.
“Every day is different,” she said. “There are so many student events happening here, and it really underscores how they belong.”
The Events and Operations Coordinator manages the full lifecycle of campus space use, from the initial request through event completion. Broussard oversees reservations for rooms, lecture halls, and multipurpose spaces, maintains the master calendar, and confirms dates, times, and setups. She also coordinates the logistical details of events, including room layouts, furniture and equipment needs, and scheduling of support staff, custodial, maintenance, audiovisual, and security personnel.
Highlights include 13 smaller, department-wide graduation ceremonies and the main commencement every spring at Balboa Park. “It’s a lot of work that requires months of planning,” Broussard said. The day of commencement begins before dawn, with Broussard and others joining a Facilities Services team cleaning benches at the Organ Pavilion and setting up chairs and canopies.
Broussard also serves as the primary contact for community groups renting campus facilities, explaining district policies, fees, blackout dates, insurance requirements, and deadlines. It’s a significant part of her responsibilities: organizations often submit requests to host seminars in lecture halls, dance groups frequently inquire about renting the Saville Theatre, and companies and corporations ranging from Adidas and Mission Fed Credit Union to Crocs and Meta are among those who have filmed on campus.
This is a great place to be,” she said. “There’s never a dull moment, and there’s always a new project to work on.”