Staff Spotlight: Catrina Berka

by Elise Aiello on Jul 26, 2024

Each month, we highlight one of our talented team members. This month, our Staff Spotlight will focus on Catrina Berka, Koha Educator at ByWater Solutions.

Who is Catrina?

Catrina recently celebrated 2 years at ByWater Solutions, and has been integral to the successful training of partner libraries adopting Koha. Her keen insights and attention to detail have been of benefit to partners and staff. Catrina travels across the country educating partner libraries in person in addition to training virtually.

Nate Curulla, CRO at ByWater Solutions, commented:

Since coming on board two years ago Catrina has grown by leaps and bounds. Catrina is great at understanding the goals of the library she is training and working those goals into her approach to education, which results in happy partners who have a firm understanding of our systems!"

Catrina is usually reading at least three books simultaneously and will gladly swap recommendations. She earned her MLS from the University of North Texas and BBA in Marketing from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Whether it has been training colleagues corporately, leading bible studies, teaching English, or facilitating small groups, she has been teaching adults for 20 years. Catrina has work and volunteer experience in school and public libraries and is passionate about issues of intellectual freedom, censorship, and DEI. Originally from Wisconsin, Catrina now lives in North Texas with her husband, son, and two stepsons. She is an avid reader, runner, hiker, and community volunteer.

Catrina's Favorite Part of Working at ByWater

In my role, I spend a lot of time with our migrating Partners, both in person and via Zoom. I love getting to understand their teams, customers, processes, policies, and data - each one is unique and our ByWater team works hard to make sure that they’re as prepared as possible on their go-live day. ByWater is great at working collaboratively with our Partner libraries to solve problems and come up with creative solutions. Brendan and Nate have created a great culture where we’re encouraged to have fun and bring our full, quirky selves to work. I love working with all of these library weirdos…just like me!"

Thanks, Catrina, for all you do at ByWater Solutions!