Celebrating Five Years of Maria Seager at Cardinal Group
At Cardinal, our culture embodies many different elements: it’s about improving as a team while having fun growing together both personally and professionally. Our team members are the heart and soul of our culture! We are so grateful for the efforts our team members put in daily to go the extra mile to help change the industry and challenge the status quo.
Today we’re celebrating Maria Seager and her dedicated years of service to the growth of our team over the last five years.
Learn more about Maria’s journey below!
What is your role?
Community Manager
Describe your Cardinal Journey.
I started out as a leasing intern while I was going to school and I just kept moving up through Resident Director, Leasing Manager, Assistant Manager, and eventually Community Manager.
Who has been influential in your life, and how have they helped guide you?
Professionally, I have been so fortunate to work with some really great team members. Logan Kelly and Jessica Bauer made me fall in love with Cardinal right away. Lauren Crumpler and Kyle Medley really encouraged me to speak up and get involved. Now, working with Courtney Richardson has been wonderful and she is really pushing me to mentor other Community Managers.
On a personal level, my husband Zach is the biggest influence. I know it is cheesy, but he really supports me in everything I do and the friendly competitiveness we share pushes us to be the best versions of ourselves.
What is your proudest moment working at Cardinal Group?
I don’t have a record-breaking community or even one that hits 100% preleased. Instead, my office has a bulletin board where all team members will hang up a small polaroid picture of themselves, and I am the proudest when people ask me about the pictures. I get to name off the team members and where they are now. Whether they were full time or part time, years of tenure or only a few months, I know that my community is part of their story, and hopefully I played a small part in getting them to where they wanted to be.
What has been the most interesting change that you’ve seen in the industry and why?
The biggest thing is just technology and how it has changed day-to-day tasks and decision-making throughout Cardinal. I feel like the go-to example is no more paper leases — which is great, don’t get me wrong — but I do love being able to use tech and data in all aspects of my job. If the question is “what time of day am I seeing the most people reading my email?” or “How are we recording event attendance to track what is driving residents into the clubhouse?” I know that I can pull the information up and make decisions that are right for my team and for the residents.
What is your favorite college town in America and why?
I may be biased, but I do love my own, Grand Forks, ND. I love/hate every weekend when the town traffic increases and I know there is a home hockey game. I love that UND makes a point to include the entire town in their events. I love seeing the number of volunteers that come out to help the community during The Big Event. I love everything about this town.
How do you like to unwind after a long day?
I typically do one of two things. 1. I call my Malia Deliyanne and we chat about our day for the entire commute. 2. My children and I sing along to the radio as loud as we can on the way home from work/school/daycare/sports. The genre of music changes every day. My sons can be very opinionated, so it will bounce from 2000s hip hop, techno remixes or top 40 hits, to alternative rock and everything in between.
If you were to live at any Cardinal property outside of your own city for a year, where would you go and why?
BB Living at Val Vista – The community looks beautiful, and I have so much family in that area it would be hard to pick anywhere else!
Are you ready to start your Cardinal Journey?
See our open opportunities.