Meet Donna DiTrani, Senior Account Executive with APRO associate member High Touch Technologies and a member of the APRO Vendor Advisory Committee. This atypical Jersey girl began her entrepreneurial journey early on in life, and discovered a competitive streak that has served her well professionally.
From ten-pin and coaching, to aircraft and information technology, to rent-to-own sales and support, DiTrani has also come to realize that people are a priority for her when it comes to career success and happiness. Today, as she provides RTO clients with the IT, software, website, and communications assistance they require to thrive, DiTrani is the embodiment of High Touch’s motto: Bringing the human touch to technology.
RTOHQ: The Magazine caught up with DiTrani, who bowled us over with the story of her life and her almost two decades working in the rent-to-own industry.
APRO: Where did you grow up, and what was your family like?
DD: I was born and raised in northern New Jersey, a small town called Harrington Park. My family was blue-collar – my dad was a mailman and my mom worked at a grocery store. I had a twin sister, Debbie, and we had a sister 14 months older than us. Hard work was definitely part of my upbringing, and I was extremely business-minded, entrepreneurial. I had a lawn-mowing business, I had a paper route, I babysat. Once I began making money, I liked it, I liked having nice things.
APRO: What other kinds of activities did you enjoy as a kid?
DD: I loved being outside – bicycling, skateboarding. I played the clarinet in the marching band. And I was big into bowling; Debbie was, too – our dad introduced us to it. It really showed me my competitive streak. I like to win.
APRO: How about after high school – did you go to college, or jump into the workforce?
DD: Both Debbie and I ended up getting bowling scholarships to Wichita State University, which was the number-one bowling school in the country. We started there in 1982 and won the national championship in 1986, then I won an individual championship in 1987. I graduated that same year with a degree in criminal justice; I wanted to be a crime scene investigator.
APRO: Wow! So how did you get from CSI to RTO?
DD: Well, first I kept on bowling. I represented the U.S. in the AMF Bowling World Cup (the largest bowling competition in number of participating nations), and won the individual championship. The next year, three female teammates and I were selected from a Team USA finals event to go to Hawaii and train, then on to the Philippines to bowl in the Youth World Tournament. I won the individual, my teammate and I won in doubles, and our team won overall champion in all the team, doubles, and singles events.
APRO: Where did you go from there?
DD: I traveled with the Ladies Professional Bowler’s Tour (now known as the Professional Women’s Bowling Association) for about a year and a half, then went back to Wichita. I worked as an Associate Coach at Wichita State for about a decade while I bowled tournaments all around the country. I took some more classes, and ended up going to work for Raytheon – the multinational aircraft and defense manufacturer – doing IT. After 9-11, the aircraft industry wasn’t a great place to be, so I was looking for a career move, and I happened upon High Touch Technologies.
APRO: What year did you begin at High Touch, and what position did you start in?
DD: I joined High Touch in 2004 in sales. Around 2008, I moved into account management, and I’ve sort of done both – whatever the company needs to succeed, because we’re an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), which is awesome. We’ve been through a lot of changes over the years, diversifying to face growing competition. I’ve learned a lot, taken lots of great training classes, and done a lot of self-growth.
APRO: What’s your favorite part of your work?
DD: The relationships. I love who I work with – I’ve made many very close friends over the years. And I really enjoy helping our RTO clients with our products and services, having these discussions with businessowners, spending time with them, and just making their lives easier. It’s all about the relationships.
APRO: Tell me a little about your personal relationships – your family.
DD: My wife, Dr. Kerry Wilks, and I moved to Sycamore, Illinois, about a year ago when she became Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Vice President of International Affairs at Northern Illinois University. Kerry and I met at Wichita State, where she was a Spanish professor; we married in 2012, and again, legally, in 2017. And I’ve got a 20-year-old daughter who’s studying at NIU to become a teacher.
APRO: How do spend your free time?
DD: Now that I work remotely from home, I spend a lot of time with our two dogs and two cats. I love to garden – both flowers and vegetables. We live close to Chicago, so we go to fun stuff there. And we enjoy traveling together.
APRO: No bowling redux?
DD: My sister Debbie and I do contribute bowling scholarship funding each year at our alma mater, Wichita State. But no, I haven’t bowled for years. I have arthritis and feet issues, and if I can’t bowl the way I want to and score, then I just don’t want to do it. I’m too competitive.
Kristen Card has been a contributing writer for RTOHQ: The Magazine for more than 15 years.
