Embracing Innovation: Patterson’s Persistent Pursuit of Purpose

Isabella Tobin:

You are listening to Living the Pharm Life, the official podcast of Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy. I’m your host, Isabella Tobin, a PharmD candidate with a passion for telling the stories of our college’s phenomenal and loyal students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who persistently pursue excellence in all they do.

Dr. Brooke Patterson is a seasoned pharmaceutical professional with extensive experience in medical affairs, specializing in hematologic malignancies and HIV management. She is a proud doctor of pharmacy graduate from Purdue University and currently leads the lymphoma and myeloid therapeutic area at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine.

In this role, Brooke directs the strategic execution of scientific initiatives within oncology, particularly focusing on lymphoma and myeloid conditions. With a passion for advancing patient care through innovation and collaboration, she’s making a lasting impact in the field. Brooke, thank you so much for being here today.

Brooke Patterson:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. So just to get us started, I know everyone’s career starts with passion.

Brooke Patterson:

Yep.

Isabella Tobin:

Can you tell us about your passion for pharmacy?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah, I think it starts with a passion for helping people. So I sort of knew at a younger age that I really wanted to help people, and that came through a lot of different ways. I had… My mom is a really good role model of that. She did a lot of volunteer work, and so I just had this kind of internal voice that said, “You need to do something that allows you to make people’s lives a little bit better.”

And so when I was in high school, I had done a volunteer project really at this little tiny free health clinic that was in the basement of a church. And I learned there really the power of medication and this idea of underserved communities and care gaps, and that started to really inform things. And I thought maybe I wanted to go to medical school and did some shadowing of that.

That didn’t feel quite right, but my mom had a cousin who was a clinical pharmacist at one of the VA hospitals in Chicago, and she was generous enough to let me shadow her for a day or two. And this is the late ’90s. Clinical pharmacy was just in its infancy then, and I got to see what she did, and I was just like, “Oh, this is it. This is what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

So then it was very easy because then I started looking for colleges where it was important to me that the School of Pharmacy was on main campus because I kind of knew that I wanted to do pharmacy, but I came from a college town. I grew up in Iowa City, and so I wanted to have kind of a normal college experience, and that search led me to Purdue, and the moment I got here, I knew this is where I wanted to be. And that idea of helping people has been the constant thread through every decision I’ve made in my career thus far.

Isabella Tobin:

What about Purdue stood out to you?

Brooke Patterson:

I think it was I really felt like I was joining a family when I met with folks from the School of Pharmacy. It also was very clear, and I don’t know how I had the foresight now that I think about my 18-year-old, 19-year-old brain. But it was very clear to me that the School of Pharmacy was doing novel things, that they were really being innovative, and that was something that was exciting to me as someone who doesn’t like to take the normal path.

And so I think that those things combined made it feel like it was going to be a perfect fit for me, and it absolutely was. And it’s like my partner said to me, we were back a couple of months ago, and he said, “You have been smiling the moment we hit town,” and that’s really how I feel about both my experience. I mean, yes, there were ups and downs, but so much of it was foundational to my career, and I’m so thankful for that.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Could you talk on some of those foundational moments of your career?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. I mean, I think rotations were always a really powerful moment. And I worked at the university hospital down in Louisville as part of rotations, and that’s really where I got my first taste of health disparities and care gaps and working in an urban, lower-income setting. That is where I got the taste for or the interest in HIV, which then I went on to pursue and worked in the HIV field for almost a decade.

Also, just working in the student pharmacy and learning how to counsel folks and learning all the aspects to put a prescription together, even though I haven’t worked in a dispensing function in a really, really long time. I think understanding how a prescription comes from being written to the patient is something that’s really valuable. I’m always surprised when people are like, “How do I get a prescription?” I’m surprised to this day.

And then I was in a sorority here at Purdue. I was in the Delta Gamma sorority and made some great friends through that, made some great friends for pharmacy school that are still part of my life 20 years later. It’s really fun now to have people in career to cross people that either I was in school with or ahead of me, behind me, and to meet them out now in our careers and see where we all went because I don’t think any of us would’ve predicted or very few of us would’ve predicted where we ended up.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I just came from the Purdue University Pharmacy. I’m a teaching assistant-

Brooke Patterson:

Okay.

Isabella Tobin:

… for the class for the P1s.

Brooke Patterson:

Yes.

Isabella Tobin:

So that was my mad dash [inaudible 00:05:43]-

Brooke Patterson:

Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

But just it’s a complete different world.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

That between what you do now. Could you have predicted it?

Brooke Patterson:

No, no. I definitely could not have predicted it. I think I remember actually, in therapeutics, I didn’t like oncology. I thought it was boring, for lack of a better word. It was a time when all we had was chemo, and it was just all these different acronyms, like R-CHOP and GemOx and all these things, and having to memorize that, and it was kind of a slash and burn approach, and I remember thinking, “I don’t want to do that to people. That just seems kind of brutal.”

And I didn’t really see how I could be instrumental. HIV kind of knew early. I would’ve thought HIV would still be there, except that the science evolved, and with things like PrEP coming on board and simplification of medications, people started doing better.

It’s not to say we’ve eradicated it, but it certainly is a much more manageable chronic disease and preventable disease, and so transferring my knowledge of the immune system from HIV to hemalignancies and now in the setting of chemoimmunotherapy and a lot of the immunomodulation that we’re doing as opposed to chemo, I think has been… Now I understand why I’m here. It makes sense to me now, but no, I would not have predicted it at all.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. What is it about working in the oncology field that you like?

Brooke Patterson:

I think one of the things that I like in oncology is that it’s rapidly evolving, so trying to make sense of a lot of data coming from a lot of different sources is challenging but very, very rewarding. Obviously, almost everyone has been touched by cancer somehow. Both my parents are cancer survivors.

Everyone has someone in their life that has dealt with cancer, and so I think it’s a very personal mission to most of the people that work in it. And the idea that we’re doing much better with a lot of tumor types, but we haven’t cured or eradicated cancer means that there’s still a lot of work to do and there’s a lot of potential. So those are the things that really drive me day to day.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Before your current role at Johnson & Johnson, you worked in academia, right?

Brooke Patterson:

I did, yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

Could you tell us more about how your time in academia got you into the industry?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah, so not a usual path to industry. So when I finished my residency in Atlanta, I went… I took on a position at the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Pharmacy, and it was a clinical position where I was located at the Kansas City Free Health Clinic. KC Free is a free health clinic that was started in the late 60s, early 70s with the intent to help with care gaps.

It was entirely free, so we had a small dispensary that I sort of oversaw and then managed chronic disease management for uninsured patients. And then we were also a recipient of Ryan White CARE Act funding, so HIV patients that didn’t have insurance. So we were doing HIV therapy medication management there and I did that for a number of years. Really was deep into public health and the role of pharmacy and public health.

You have to remember, this is a time before pharmacists were giving immunizations, so the idea that a pharmacist would be doing screenings and immunizations was a little bit unheard of. But it was fun times, but I kept yearning for more. I wanted to have some people leadership. I wanted the opportunity to impact more than one patient at a time, even though my value or kind of my mission statement every day is to help one person be just a little bit… have something that’s a little bit better than the day before or be a little bit better.

I was struggling with that in the clinic. And so there was an opportunity to join J&J as part of their HIV medical affairs group. And I saw that as an opportunity to impact more patients through making sure their clinicians, their providers, really understood the science and understood the standard of care. And that’s how I ended up with J&J. And then, at J&J, they’ve given me a number of opportunities, both in HIV but as well as hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, and so I’ve been really grateful for that because it’s given me a broad sort of range of opportunities, but skill set to build on.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Could you talk more about your current role and that skill set? What things are important? What does your typical day look like?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. So I am currently the therapeutic area lead for lymphoma and myeloid in the United States. And so the US being the biggest market, that really means that I’m responsible for the medical affairs strategy, which includes things like investigator-initiated studies. It’s helping R&D with their pivotal studies, making sure we have the right US sites. It’s thinking about how we communicate our data, presenting data at medical meetings, providing strategy to the medical science liaisons who are out in the field talking to physicians.

It’s cultivating relationships with thought leaders and learning their take on things and how we want to incorporate that. It’s also engaging with patients to determine how we can do better and what barriers there are to treatment that we can help with. So every day is different, and no two days are the same. Most days, I start my day quite early because I’m an early bird, and it’s a mixture of meetings with different stakeholders, traveling to medical meetings and congresses. It’s a lot of inner collaboration.

I would say that’s one thing that is really important in my role. It’s collaborating with a lot of different stakeholders within the company, and so I spend a lot of time in meetings with them. And then there’s… I spend time making sure I’m scanning the literature, doing PubMed searches, understanding all these things that you learned in drug info or learned in school. Believe it or not, 20 years later, I’m still using them, still how I analyze data, doing journal clubs. We do all of that just to make sure that we’re up-to-date on the science.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah.

Brooke Patterson:

Right now, I’m responsible for ibrutinib, which is used in CLL and is currently marketed and available, but we still have investigator-initiated studies and data dissemination. And then, there’s two investigational programs, one in AML with a Menin inhibitor called bleximenib, and then a bispecific CAR-T in lymphoma.

And I think what’s really cool about CAR-T is it’s taking the patient’s own immune system and targeting it to fight their tumor type. It’s like science fiction, I always say, but it’s real, and these things keep me very active and busy.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I say the same thing with the stem cell therapies and how they want to start implementing them. I say the same thing with the science fiction.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

Is that…

Brooke Patterson:

Well, in nuclear pharmacy, you said you’re interested in, so tell me-

Isabella Tobin:

Yes.

Brooke Patterson:

… more about how you got interested in that.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, it was kind of… I kind of stumbled across nuclear pharmacy. I knew in high school that I was really interested in radioactivity, and I also knew that I wanted to be a pharmacist, but knew when I wanted to be a pharmacist there’s nothing I could do with radioactivity there. And then, I kind of stumbled upon a list of different types of pharmacy. I thought, well, nuclear sounds neat, at least. So I did some more digging into that. It ended up leading me to Purdue.

But I think it’s really cool how we can take these different isotopes and we use their half-life and their molecular structures, and we get them bound to all of these different molecules that end up going throughout the body. I think it’s really, really interesting how targeted and specific these things can be. And I’m really excited for this new wave of nuclear medicine that’s coming out and how that’s going to impact patients. So I read a lot of journal articles about those too.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. So see, 20 years later, you’ll be doing the same thing.

Isabella Tobin:

Yes. Something to look forward to.

Brooke Patterson:

Absolutely. Something to look forward to. Having that curiosity is important. That’s what keeps a lot of options open for you, but it also, I think, is what sets you apart from colleagues is that curiosity and commitment to learning more.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah.

Brooke Patterson:

Cool.

Isabella Tobin:

So you’ve talked about how you have this incredible position. There must be a lot of leadership aspects that come with that.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

Can you talk about what are some of the most important aspects of leadership, especially when leading a team in this high-stakes environment?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. I mentioned this before, but I think being really clear about what your values are and what’s important to you, and what type of leader you want to be. So I know that I am an empathetic leader. That is one of the things that’s important to me, and my team has to feel that way too. It’s one thing to say it, but my team has to feel that way. And I think a good leader that has people reporting to them takes time to develop their people and really gets to know their people and understand what their needs and wants and strengths are.

Another thing that I think of as a leader that is one of my skill sets is innovation, embracing innovation. So finding those opportunities to do things differently. One of the pet peeves I have is when I ask, “Well, why are we doing something this way?” And, “Oh, because it’s always been done that way.” That is not an acceptable answer. Not to stay competitive and not to be agile. It doesn’t mean that the old ways aren’t good ways. I mean, sometimes we still use the old ways, but I do think embracing innovation and working with a lot of my different partners is vital to success in this role.

And it’s we’re now into a place where we’re starting to look at how we use data and how we analyze data and data science. And there’s a lot I don’t know but a lot that I think is there. And finding the people that do know and connecting with them and then building on their expertise to try new things is a huge part of staying competitive in a very busy environment. And then I think listening. Yeah. It’s as corny as it sounds, but listening and making sure. So often I hear people in meetings. They’re not listening, and so they’re asked a question, and they answer maybe not the right way, or they get put on the spot, and they get defensive.

And I have found that the more that I listen, the easier it is to understand what the question is, what the real question is. That is incredibly helpful. But also listening to the people that are experts when they tell you something when they give you advice. Doesn’t mean you have to take it, but listening, I think, is also a really important skill. So those are really the three things that I think of when I think about my leadership journey and what’s been really valuable and effective for me.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Going back to the innovative products, I see a lot of that in nuclear.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

Not that we have a ton of old products to work with [inaudible 00:17:12]-

Brooke Patterson:

Well, no, but, right.

Isabella Tobin:

I see a lot of there’s second-line options that are… had been the first-line ones. How do you balance using these new innovative options with financial constraints?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah, financial constraints are definitely real, and I always think of, am I being a good steward of the money that I’m given, whether it’s a million dollars or a 100,000, whatever it is that the budget I have is, am I a good steward of it? Listen, I think one of the things I learned in clinic working at the free health clinic with a very limited formulary was how to get really, really good at using the tools that I had. And had I had more tools, had I had every drug under the sun, would patients have done better? Maybe, but maybe not, right.

It was really being really, really effective with what I had, and I had that same approach to even embracing innovation of what can we leverage that we have? What is good spend, and maybe what is spend that isn’t helping us? A very real example of that that just happened this week is we have studies that we… investigator-initiated studies that we align to and agree because it’s that physician or researcher is going to investigate something that we think is really important to the scientific body of evidence for our product, but maybe not something that we want to invest in from getting an indication with the FDA.

So we do a lot of investigator-initiated studies. Unfortunately, what happens sometimes is that, and then this is a great example, is we had this great concept, really brilliant concept. Three years later, we don’t have a patient enrolled. And the reason is that the contracting between the academic center and our company as well as staff changes, all of these things have led to this slowdown. Now I have to make the difficult decision of do we… do we green light the study knowing it’s maybe a million dollar spend, for example, knowing that we won’t get data for another three years out of it.

Will that data be relevant when we get it, or is it time to say, “This just took too long, and we have to walk away from it?” No one wants to deliver bad news. When I was in clinic, and I was doing HIV tests for people, or I was testing blood sugar, nobody wants to give bad news, but at the same time, you have to be very realistic. And a study like that where maybe we have to decide to close that study because it’s not going to be relevant to us and people’s feelings are hurt.

And yeah, you wonder, “Well, would that data generated helped someone?” Those are tough decisions, but at the end of the day, I don’t know the relevancy of that data when it comes out because what I do know is that the total healthcare environment’s changing, and how we treat specific diseases is changing. So can I use that money then for something else that might be more relevant?

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. What changes do you expect to see, especially in your areas, in the next five to 10 years?

Brooke Patterson:

I think, like some of the stuff you’re interested in, radionucleotides targeting tumors with little bouts of radiation. Kind of that science fiction stuff that we joked about early on, I think, is definitely an area we see interest. More device-drug combinations I definitely see. So we’re seeing things that you used to get infusion for at the infusion center. Now we have on-body devices where a patient can just stick it on, walk around, and essentially, they’re getting anti-cancer therapy.

Some of the work we’re doing with CAR-T, leveraging patient’s own immune system, these things to have the body basically rid itself of disease. I think this is definitely the future. Other things like wearable devices, how we can use wearable devices like Fitbits and Apple watches and Aura rings to monitor for side effects before the patient’s even aware of them so that we can manage side effects. These are other things that I see the industry’s moving towards.

And then in oncology, it’s really getting away from chemo. I think that’s the number one goal of any company that’s in oncology right now as we just want to get rid of chemo because chemo comes at a particular cost of long-term side effects and other sequelae that we can do better. And so small molecules, targeted therapy, really looking at your disease, looking at genetic markers. That… I think that’s true in oncology. I think this could be true in other diseases too, and it’s true in other diseases, but I think will only evolve.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. What do you think are some trends either now that you’re seeing or that you are predicting in the future? Trends that would surprise someone that doesn’t work in the pharmacy industry?

Brooke Patterson:

I think some of that stuff I talked about with drug-device combinations. We have this really cool thing at J&J. It’s the TAR-200, and we’ve presented some data on. Essentially, it’s a silicone tube. It’s for people with bladder cancer. So one of the downsides, I mean, there’s many downsides of bladder cancer, but one of the downsides is that people often have to lose their bladder, and so then they end up without a bladder and having to deal with a bag and things like that.

So we’ve developed this. It’s a small silicone tube, and it’s inserted like a catheter, and then once it gets to the bladder, it curls up into a pretzel, and then it’s about this big. That pretzel is filled with the drug, and that drug just slowly starts to seep out. What happens then is the urine basically turns into the chemo, and it [inaudible 00:23:10] the bladder with this chemo targeting right there.

So the patient’s not getting the systemic effects of the chemo, but it’s right there at the target of interest, and then it’s removed in the office. That kind of stuff, I think, is really novel. It’s really exciting, and again, I just see a future more of that. So we talked a little bit about some of the new technology. I’m curious what Purdue is doing to prepare you as a student for new innovative therapies and technology.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I think, kind of like we’ve talked about with the Journal Clubs, I think that’s something that I can’t say that was my favorite class, but I do see that those skills coming back through because everything is always changing. It’s really the ability to comprehend that information and then figure out how it applies that I think is going to be one of the most important skills with dealing with innovation.

Brooke Patterson:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

And so I think it’s really having those classes focused on those skills, even as much as they say, “Write the Journal Club paper.” And I’m like, “Ugh.” I’m like, “Not this again.”

Brooke Patterson:

Right.

Isabella Tobin:

But I really do think that that’s going to be one of those skills that I keep coming back to, and hopefully, it gets a little bit easier.

Brooke Patterson:

It does. Yeah, it will. You won’t have to write a paper. That’s the thing that’ll change. But I think the way you evaluate the data and how you look at new technologies will stay the same and will help you tremendously like you said.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Hey, as long as I don’t have to write the paper, I’m okay with that.

Brooke Patterson:

You have to write other things, emails and reports and things like that, but no papers.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. What are some things… What’s an advice you would give to a young pharmacist? Looking back on all the things that you’ve seen, all of the things you’ve accomplished, what advice would you have?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah, so I would… there’s two things I would say. One is, figure out what lights you up. What is the thing that makes you feel happy? What is the thing when you’re doing it, and you step away, and you go, “Wow, I really… That was a great day.” It sounds like for you, you’ve had that with nuclear, right?

Isabella Tobin:

Yes.

Brooke Patterson:

It’s a thing that lights you up. It gets you excited. Makes you want to read more. So be really clear about what that is, and then make your decisions based off of that. And that might change, right. As your interest evolve, the thing that lights you up might change but be really clear about what that is.

If you use that as your North Star, then your career will look like a lot of different things, but it’ll be authentic to you. And I think the other thing is is understand what your superpowers are because everyone has superpowers. What is something that makes you unique, and what do you bring to the table because it’s an easy skillset for you to exercise?

And again, I think when you’re really clear about that, and you don’t have to be leading people or have a ton of experience to know what that is, then you can find those opportunities for yourself that align with your superpowers, and the thing that lights you up, and the thing you feel passionate about.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. We’ve kind of touched on it indirectly, but I know you have a passion for health equity.

Brooke Patterson:

Yes. Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

Could you tell us more about that?

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. I mean, I think it doesn’t make sense to me that your zip code should inform the type of care that you get. It doesn’t make sense to me that things beyond your control, like your race, ethnicity, your gender, your socioeconomic status, whether you live in a suburban or rural, that that should be one of your determinants of health, never really felt fair to me.

And so I’ve been acutely interested throughout my own career and even now of how do we decrease the care gaps so that more people can get effective care. And that’s why I’ve been really impressed by what the CHEQI has been doing and have had a chance to sit and chat with Jasmine and having the opportunity to help support the charitable pharmacy because I really believe that we have this opportunity to lift everyone up.

If we lift up the most vulnerable of us and decrease some of those care gaps that only is going to bring better health for all of us and help the system in general. And I’ve seen a lot in 20 years. I’ve seen a lot of changes, but I haven’t necessarily seen a decrease in those gaps. And so a lot of the work that is being done here at Purdue is really important to me to highlight and to talk about with my colleagues because I think it’s such important work.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. I completely agree. I had a bit of a health scare. A little over two years ago, I had a doctor tell me that he thought I had lymphoma, but my insurance company only covers services rendered back home in New England.

Brooke Patterson:

Oh my gosh.

Isabella Tobin:

So I spent the entire semester here trying to get services covered. And so just that. The couple of months of every day calling them, trying to figure out what was going on, it showed me a completely different side of healthcare that I had never seen before. And 21’s a little young to be going through that.

Brooke Patterson:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

But it gave me such an appreciation for all of the different things that people go through in our healthcare system. And I agree that equity is so important, and it wasn’t the best time in my life.

Brooke Patterson:

I bet not, right.

Isabella Tobin:

Right. But if I can do something to help someone else prevent someone else from going through that, then I think that’s an incredible mission.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m sorry, first of all, that that happened to you because that would be incredibly scary. And I’m not sure at 21, I would’ve had the tools to help me deal with that. But how beautiful that it brought you to this place to understand that there are people living like that every single day. And even my own parents, who don’t have a health background, thank goodness I’m around to try to interpret things for them.

I’ve also dealt with insurance hurdles or misdiagnoses and all of that. If it’s hard for us to manage and we work in this system, I can only imagine how it feels for folks that don’t work in this system and have a lot of competing priorities. So anything I can do to make that a little bit easy… easier, even if it’s just for one person, will feel like a life well lived.

Isabella Tobin:

Yes. Last summer, my grandmother was prescribed a CGM for her Type 2 diabetes, but they didn’t… no one would put it on her. So just having the ability to help her with that, that was something that health equity, she had a high school degree. She was also 80 years old, so I don’t know how they expected her to [inaudible 00:30:07]-

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. How? I mean, and how do you even… where do you even explain why she should have it, nonetheless the importance of it, how to put it on? Things we take for granted.

Isabella Tobin:

Yes. She was very upset with it, by the way. It kept beeping at her. I said, “That’s because you need to take your insulin.”

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah, exactly. It’s supposed to be annoying you.

Isabella Tobin:

I was like, “It’s going to annoy you until you take your insulin.” Then she ended up telling me, she was like, “I don’t know what’s wrong with this machine.”

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

But just the health literacy thing.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. Change is hard, right?

Isabella Tobin:

Yes.

Brooke Patterson:

Yeah. And people, it’s hard to admit that you have an illness. It’s hard to be reminded that you have an illness. And regardless of what route you take in pharmacy, pharmacy is a healing profession. And so we have an obligation to help people understand these things and make it maybe just a little less scary for them.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing, and I’ve had a wonderful time having you here today.

Brooke Patterson:

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Isabella Tobin:

I have one last question for you. I like to ask a fun question-

Brooke Patterson:

Okay. Great.

Isabella Tobin:

… when we finish up.

Brooke Patterson:

Shoot.

Isabella Tobin:

So my question for you, if you could pick an animal that best represents your personality, what would that animal be?

Brooke Patterson:

Well, I’m inclined to say dog because I love dogs so much. But I’m probably a little more active, or at least in my dog. My dog is a great office dog but not good at much else. I think it would probably be a bird. And that’s because I really enjoy seeing the big picture and sort of looking above at things.

And I imagine a bird gets to do that all the time, right. They’re flying above. They’re seeing everything below and then touching down. That’s I think how I think and how I work and how I think, sometimes probably to my detriment, where people would like to pull me back down to the ground. But yeah, I think a bird. That’s a great question.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, fantastic answer.

Brooke Patterson:

Oh, thank you.

Isabella Tobin:

And again, thank you so much for being here today. This has been wonderful.

Brooke Patterson:

Oh, my pleasure. And good luck to you. I can’t wait to see what happens with your career. And-

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, thank you.

Brooke Patterson:

… all the exciting things in store.