It is fairly easy to say there are great people in the Sonoma State community, and amongst these great people is Susan Kashack.      

Kashack is the associate vice president for marketing and communications and chief communications officer for Sonoma State, and handles many different types of tasks and jobs.  

As a student, one may have seen e-mails from her name and that is because Kashack’s job involves “oversight of all internal and external communications and content of the administrative sites of the SSU website.”

She is also editor of the university magazine “Insights,” crisis communications manager and university spokesperson.  Kashack oversees others who manage media relations, social media and the employee newsletter “Work Place.” 

Kashack handles communication studies in the same school she received her Bachelor’s degree in, as she was a communications student at SSU herself.  She received her Master’s degree at San Francisco State right after.

Kashack likes her field of study because she believes the most important thing in any situation is communication.  

“As long as people know what’s going on, why and how it affects them, everyone will work together to solve problems,” said Kashack. “I want to always help with that effort.”  

Kashack stands as a communicator for the entire community and communicates with people every single day to complete work for SSU.  She is inspired by other people as well. 

“I’m inspired by anyone who works to accomplish what they want. It’s rarely easy, and requires planning and time, but knowing what you want and doing what you have to do to get there. That’s inspiring to me,” said Kashack. 

Kashack loves hard workers because these are the people she deals with on a consistent basis.  She has to meet important people outside of SSU at events to promote the great work the university does on a daily basis. The job Kashack holds is very important and necessary for Sonoma State to thrive and move forward.  

As for the future, “I hope to work at Sonoma State for the next four or five years,” said Kashack. “Then [I want to] retire and do all those things I just can’t get to on a daily basis.” 

She wants to see places such as Mount Rushmore and the Panama Canal which she believes are crazy, amazing places.  Kashack also wants to visit every ballpark in America to see the different baseball teams’ homes in Major League Baseball.  Kashack wants to see more of the world and do things she has never had the opportunity to do.

When speaking overall about Sonoma State, Kashack has nothing to call it other than “home.”  

“I’ve been at SSU almost 30 years and the car almost drives itself there,” said Kashack.  

She gets to see and interact with friends and colleagues who also work here at Sonoma State on a daily basis.  Kashack also applauds SSU’s campus, calling it “beautiful” and “park-like” and giving thanks to Sonoma’s landscaping staff.  

As one can see, Kashack has a love for this school and serves it with great pride when working here to better the school and its success as time goes on.  

You may have heard of her, you may have never heard of her, you may have seen her and you may just be a great friend of hers.  

Whichever way it is for you, know that Kashack puts in lots of effort to improve Sonoma State and make it a great university. She is a good person to know on campus because she has a great amount of knowledge and knows this school like the back of her hand.