Robin Wheeler admits, “Girl Scouts has basically been my life,” as her passion as child has carried over into adulthood where she works as a marketing specialist for the Girl Scouts of Central Texas, which covers 46 counties.
“I was a Girl Scout all through high school and I worked at camp as a counselor,” Wheeler, 38, said. “I believe that Girl Scouts made me the person that I am. It gave me lifelong friends and people that I still talk to today. It gave me people skills and coping skills and a lot of life skills, things you wouldn’t get on your own like how to work well with others or how to work as a team. There were a lot of experiences we did as a troop like camping, where you learn to fend for yourself. It gave me a lot of life skills that I feel like I use today which is why I want to give that back to these girls. Even if they’re only in for a couple of years I want them to know I care about them and I want them to leave having learned something with memorable experiences they can hold on to.
“In my adulthood, I was hired as a membership development executive so I helped start troops and get troop leaders going. Now I work in the marketing department as a marketing specialist and I write a lot of the content for the website, emails, social media and any guides we have.”
Robin and her husband Jacob have a daughter, Annabelle, who is going into the third grade and is also heavily involved in Girls Scouts as her mother serves as her troop leader.
“I always knew once I had a daughter I was going to want to be a troop leader, which is the reason why I transitioned into this job,” Wheeler said. “I started my troop when she was in kindergarten and had six girls. Now starting this school year I’m going in with 16.”
Wheeler explained her approach as a troop leader, stating, “A lot of things I do are based on voting, so I give them options because I’m trying to build leadership skills. I want to give them opportunities that they aren’t likely to get at this age and expose them to things that they might not know about if not for Girl Scouts.
“I like to balance my troop activities where we all have meetings in the room I lead. I’ll invite our STEM van to come and do robotics-type programs for our girls. We also had meetings at FEAT Studios where they earned their dance badges and learned about different forms and techniques. We went to PetSense and earned our pets badges. Sometimes people come to us, sometimes we go to people so it’s a nice mixture of getting to be out in the community. We also like to give back so we always commit to Good Samaritan because we really like to pack the boxes they do in November, and we support them for Empty Bowls. We also choose another organization for philanthropy so last year they chose they Corinne T. Smith Animal Center and we helped with an adoption day event and donated a lot of supplies.”
Regarding her duties as marketing specialist for the Central Texas chapter, which covers the area from Austin to College Station to San Angelo to Stephenville to Waco, Wheeler said, “I promote the opportunities Girl Scouts provides to our membership. I curate program emails for kids and caregivers to know about what opportunities are out there. Whatever information is pertinent for our membership to know, the biggest thing I do is get that information together and get it to them, and help them with materials for that.”
Outside of Girl Scouts, Wheeler is a member of the Brownwood Women’s Club, she volunteers with the Christian Women’s Job Corps, and she is involved with the PTO at school.