ASHLAND – Life had a way of working out for 30-year-old Ashland native Kathryn Lamp, vice president for the Foundation for the Tri-State.

The musical theater graduate decided about halfway through her college career at Palm Beach Atlantic University she didn’t want to teach theater like she initially thought so she started taking different internships to figure out what she did want to do.

Drawn to nonprofit work, she said she realized the people she was working with had law degrees. So she shifted gears and left the stage for University of Kentucky College of Law.

“I thought this was a really great way to transition from my arts background into something that is marketable and useful in a field I was interested in,” Lamp said.

Lamp then worked as an estate planner with the end goal of doing some type of nonprofit work sometime in the future.

“I was in a continuing education seminar with some of my colleagues at the law firm and learned about community foundations,” Lamp said. Within six or eight months from the time I learned about them I was working here.”

Lamp started working for the foundation in April of 2013 and became vice president in September.

The Foundation of the Tri-State enables Tri-State donors to achieve their charitable goals, and support and strengthen nonprofit organizations through grants and technical assistance.