Q&A with 2022-2023 UK Alumni Association President Antoine Huffman
Antoine Huffman (TEL/MAS, 2005) served as the 2022-2023 president of the UK Alumni Association and chose to share some of his love for UK and CI.
While at Kentucky, he was a three-year starter for the Wildcats football team, becoming a UK NCAA record holder. He was actively involved on campus with the UK Athletic Association Board of Directors, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, UK Athletics Outreach Committee and ODK National Leadership Honor Society. In 2005, Huffman also became the first Black student to be crowned UK Homecoming king.
Since graduating, he has worked his way up in the medical device sales field, going from regional representative to what his company calls the “national directors” and is now the senior director of regional sales for Mizuho OSI. His successful career and involvement resulted in him being named a past recipient of the Joseph T. Burch Young Alumni Award.
Read about some Huffman’s best college memories below.
Q: What attracted you to UK?
A: Football. I was recruited by the UK football team out of high school. When I visited campus, that’s what really accelerated my decision to attend. It felt like a home away from home. It was six hours away from Georgia, and it was in the SEC. The people were really great, and it felt like the people I knew back home in Atlanta.
Q: What did your time in CI mean to you?
A: Being in CI means having an opportunity to elevate yourself professionally and personally. This College is the centerpiece of cultivating great leadership skills and professional development with its keen focus on creating a community of empowerment and innovative thinkers that seeks to make a positive impact on the world.
Q: How does your CI degree help in your career?
A: To this day, I use my telecommunication degree to understand the landscape and importance of corporate communication. Right now, corporate communication channels in most organizations are seeking improvement and need new processes in place to better communicate with different departments within their organization. With my degree, I have had the opportunity to help my company develop and implement a new corporate communication strategy that helps improve our overall company success and people strategy.
Huffman ended with a piece of advice for current CI students.
“Continue to learn with passion and seek ‘excellence’ in whatever you do by serving your passion with significant influence,” Huffman said.
This story previously ran in the 2022-2023 edition of the CI Connect magazine. Find other alumni spotlights, College news and more in the full magazine here.