Fast Five: Arwyn Robinson: Strategist, gamer, KCYP hall-of-famer

Meet Arwyn Robinson, a 28-year-old Kootenai County resident with a passion for her work, community and her relationships. A resident of North Idaho since age 15, Arwyn loves painting, white chocolate mochas and traveling to new and exciting cities in the U.S. She can usually be found working at home, working at school or occasionally at Seasons enjoying her favorite basil lemon martinis.

Generation:

Millennial by birth, but I don’t really feel like I fit into the stereotype at all. I bought my first house when I was 23, never went to college because I didn’t want student loans and have been with the same company for 6-plus years. I do love a good slice of avocado toast, though.

Career and community involvement:

I am the multimedia strategist at Advanced Benefits, which means I am responsible for our marketing and communications within the firm. I serve on the Community Impact Council for United Way of North Idaho and was just recently a recipient of the Top 30 Under 40 Award hosted by Kootenai County Young Professionals. I also help my better half, Aaron Borg, with his media company Seven|Nine Media.

Parental status:

My furbaby is an evil gremlin cat named Stinky. She deserves every ounce of her name, trust me on this.

1. What do you enjoy most about your career with Advanced Benefits?

We specialize in employee benefits, HR support and corporate wellness, so I enjoy the challenge of taking exceptionally complex concepts and discovering how to effectively communicate them to business owners, HR professionals and employees of companies. However, my absolute favorite part of my job is when we help an employee of a company who is struggling with navigating their medical bills and we help them get their bills fixed. We’ve been able to call employees of some of our clients and tell them, “You know that bill for thousands of dollars you got in the mail? You can disregard it, we got it fixed.” Best job ever!

2. How has the coronavirus pandemic affected the way your work and your world operate?

For work, everything has been turned upside down. We are helping HR professionals in our community figure out how long they can put people on leave and keep their medical insurance from getting compromised and how to draft new policies to adapt to all the changes. However, my day-to-day world hasn’t changed much. As someone who works full time, is an online student at North Idaho College and a gamer, I haven’t gotten out much in the last few months, so no real change there to report.

3. Why do you invest so much of your time and heart into your community?

I feel like so many people look around at the situation they are in and go, “Oh well, it is what it is,” but if everyone just stepped up and took action, the community and our country would be such a better place. I’m not comfortable saying “oh well” unless I tried my hardest to make a difference first.

4. What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?

I ride a Kawasaki Ninja Streetbike, am a huge Dungeons and Dragons nerd and play an Australian didgeridoo. If I’m attending an ice-breaker where they play “two truths and a lie” I almost always win.

5. If you could send a message out to the world right now, what would it be?

Exercise kindness. Lots of people are scared right now and you’ll never kick yourself for giving a little extra grace and kindness to someone. You never know what they’re going through and how much of a difference it might make. Also, please stop buying all the toilet paper.