Hey! My name is Russell Norman, and this section is a way for you to get to know a little more about me! I grew up in Central Texas and have lived in this area most of my life. In school, I was involved in marching band, concert band, jazz band, and theatre. These activities helped to grow my teamwork skills, as theatre specifically grew my passion for learning and technology.

I started working the week I turned 16; both of my parents retired from H-E-B, so needless to say, a job wasn’t hard to get, haha. During that time, I worked in various departments throughout the store and also completed H-E-B’s SORM (School of Retail Management) program, from which I graduated and became an Assistant Department Manager.

Growing up, my parents normally had Sunday off from work, and we would use this day to work around the house, visit friends, and relax. Throughout school, I had some friends who would invite me to church, and I occasionally would attend. It wasn’t until I was working at H-E-B that I started exploring my faith and learning about Jesus through the support of my family, friends, and co-workers. In 2013, I accepted Christ into my life and was baptized. This was a major turning point in my life, as I believe that my relationship with Jesus really started to strengthen what the next steps of my life looked like.

In 2015, I began a new chapter in my life and began working at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. It was my first real opportunity to be able to attend and become more involved and connected with my local church.

While at UMHB, I was given an opportunity to move to the Media Services team. In this role, I was able to work with a team of about 8 student workers and a full-time assistant to work with departments, student organizations, and external events. We would assist with approximately 600 events per year, including weekly chapel services, kick-off events, an annual outdoor revival, and a variety of other events. In this role, I took time to really focus on my skills with building and training a team, as well as using the equipment we had to try to accomplish the goals and visions of the event organizers. I also worked with the athletic AV team to assist them with upgrades, troubleshooting, and running their equipment during games.

After some time in this role, I left UMHB with the goal of working more freelance and contract work. I took on a role at Grace Covenant Church, where I worked with their communications team to rebuild and maintain their website, some stock photography, and a few event promo or recap videos. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I moved back to the Temple area and began working more with Vista Community Church, where I’d been serving and working on special events. During this time, I got to focus more on the video side of production by recording, editing, and live-streaming events and announcements. About a year later, our Production Director took on another position at another church, and I unofficially became the interim Production Director.

That summer, I was promoted to full-time and became the Assistant Production Director. For me, there weren’t many changes as far as job tasks. My main areas of focus were weekday ministries, photography, video editing, live streaming, and kids and students during Sunday services. I worked with our Production Director and one of our volunteers on ways to provide training and team-building opportunities with our volunteers.

A year after this, the executive team approached me about a new position that was being created after another staff member took on another role. This was the Director of Facilities & Technology role, where I maintained some of my previous duties, such as networking, photography, and video/media. I gained experience overseeing facility usage and maintenance, full IT infrastructure, including maintaining all church owned computers and equipment, and continuing to work on our new Safety & Medical volunteer teams. In this role, I was able to start a volunteer photography team, provide ways for our safety team to give meaningful feedback, ideas, and training opportunities. After a couple of years in this role, I began to look for opportunities to move back into a production team position.

Unfortunately, there weren’t any current opportunities at Vista, and I began talking with a former volunteer who owned a local production company. In the fall of 2024, I accepted a position with him where I would become the primary video and lighting technician.

Since taking this role, I’ve been able to work with the owner on building out plans and diagrams before events, so we all know the plan and can make sure that equipment and cables are prepped and ready. I’ve worked around the shop on getting equipment organized and maintained, providing admin support as the owner requests, and after taking a brief break from volunteering at Vista, I began volunteering again as my work schedule allows.

Currently, I am open to new opportunities working with Church production, where I can use my skills and gifts to train and build a volunteer team where they can also show their gifts and talents together, creating services of excellence with minimal distractions.