I am so thrilled to share one of my college classmates with you today! Brittany and her twin sister Brooke were in the broadcast journalism program with me in college and they are as beautiful inside as they are out! I’ve loved watching her success and was so inspired by her feature.
Tell us a little about yourself and your career
Hi! I’m Brittany Graham Haslam. I have worked in the TV industry for the past 8 years. I’m married to my high school crush Sam and we have the sweetest 6-month-old daughter, Hazel Goldy. We live in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah. I majored in Broadcast Journalism at BYU (with Brittany Larsen!). The day after graduation, I started a job at KUTV Channel 2 in Salt Lake City. I worked there for five years. I started at the bottom making calls on the assignment desk and producing all different hours of news. I was willing to do anything in the newsroom and it helped me become more valuable because I learned a lot of different skills.
Eventually, one of the other producers was short on guests one day, so Brooke and I proposed a segment called Twin Tested. It became a regular thing and we both moved into many different positions at KUTV. After five years, the opportunity to start our own lifestyle show together at another station presented itself. We built The PLACE on Fox 13 from the ground up as Executive Producers and hosts.
How does your community of women you surround yourself with support you?
One unique part of my career is that I’ve shared a lot of it with my identical twin sister, Brooke. We both fell in love with the TV industry when we were in high school. We had a female guidance counselor who took extra time and effort to help us find our passion. We were the first high school age TV interns in the state of Utah. I have thanked that guidance counselor countless times for setting me on a career path that I have loved. Having my twin sister and best friend by my side has been the best thing ever. We have been able to push each other and support each other throughout our careers. It’s been so nice to have a confidante who truly understands what I’m going through at work.
As far as other women go, it’s amazing the good that can come when women support and lift one another. I’ve seen that time and time again. I had a few female professors in college that were so supportive (and still are!), it made me feel so much more confident in myself. Lifting other women is something I have really taken to heart. Although I still consider myself somewhat a newbie, I always try to help and mentor interns and other women I work with. I love the quotation, “Supporting someone else’s success won’t ever diminish yours”.
You recently decided to leave your lifestyle TV show. How did you decide to take that leap?
It was an unexpected decision, to be honest. I was doing my dream job and just absolutely loving it. I faced some unexpected circumstances and changes and knew it was time to walk away. Hosting my own lifestyle show made me realize that it is 100% possible to set a goal and achieve it. I’m just getting started and can’t wait to see what happens next in my career!
What do you wish you could go back and tell your younger self re: your career aspirations?
I still remember having a meeting with one of my male professors in college and telling him my hopes and aspirations in the lifestyle genre. He cut me off and told me he thought I should start considering something outside of the television world. I was crushed. He wasn’t the only one who thought I was crazy. There were a lot of people who thought I was nuts for thinking I would ever be able to host my own lifestyle show. I think it was a mix of my stubborn spirit and having a great support system that helped me ignore them. So, I would say dream big. You can make anything you want a reality if you work hard and believe in yourself.
What is your career-related mantra?
Kindness always wins. There will be snakes along the way, but you will never regret being kind.
