Sharing a Love of Learning

Learning should be fun. And Angela Hall knows how to make it that way.“You have to do something interesting or clever to get people thinking,” she says of making in-person or even online courses for ASHI more interactive. The ASHI instructional designer says the first thing you have to do in her role is grab a student’s attention. 

Hall has worked for ASHI for five-plus years, guiding inspectors and others in the industry through immersive learning experiences. She collaborates with subject matter experts to develop and design unique course content for ASHI Edge. Her background in business marketing and instructional design, combined with her love of helping people, makes her an incredible asset. That’s why she was recognized with ASHI’s 2025 President’s Staff Award. 

“Angela is a kind, thoughtful, and dedicated colleague who genuinely cares about the work she does and the people she works with,” says Edwin Barrera, director of education and curriculum development for ASHI. “She approaches her work with a strong growth mindset and is always looking for ways to improve. I appreciate how committed she is to producing high-quality work and continuously raising the standard of what we deliver to our members.” 

In her career, Hall says she’s sold everything from horses to Yellow Page ads in the now virtually nonexistent phone book. Her last paid role before ASHI last was doing leasing for apartments because she was interested in the real estate industry. “I was taking jobs around the industry to try to figure out from the inside how it all works,” she says. 

Today, her work hits on a couple of interests, from her love of helping people educate and better market themselves to her love of housing.  “When I started working for myself, I was doing business consulting for micro businesses and artistic, creative businesses because creative people cannot market,” Hall laughs.

She started teaching classes and realized she liked that more than branding work. She showed people how to best use their own websites and social media. She went back to school and got her master’s, and that ultimately led her to working for ASHI. Now she gathers knowledge from SMEs to create or edit existing courses, always searching for ways to make them more engaging and effective. She focuses on what the learner needs to be able to do then works backward to what they need to know. “I look at how to make it an educational experience, versus a lecture, and then digitize that experience and make it interactive,” she says.

Part of making learning interactive is capturing interest, Hall says. 

“You have to do something clever to get people thinking. Then you have to tie what they’re about to learn to something they already know,” she says. “You’re trying to humanize those things and walk a fine line of simplifying without talking down.” 

New courses come from requests from the ASHI Board, comments from people working in the field about knowledge gaps they discover, or even, most recently, as a result of ASHI partnerships. For example, one current initiative centers around strengthening a relationship with the real estate professional industry, so Hall created an ASHI course for real estate agents. 

Hall herself has learned more than she ever imagined from working around home inspectors. “There’s so much about the residential building code I never knew,” she says. “Now I know so much about home inspection—and about the personalities of home inspectors,” she laughs. In collaborating with industry experts and asking for suggestions, for example, she recalls how almost every inspector had suggestions for improvement. “These are people who get paid to critique. I’ve chosen to embrace that and let it make me better at what I do.”

The ASHI School offers courses on nearly every technical aspect of a home but also has developed more business and marketing classes recently. These kinds of courses help inspectors with everything from knowing how to better market themselves to what to do on social media and how to use AI. “Some inspectors know AI is a thing but think it’s going to take their job versus being a tool that could help them be more productive.”

Hall says the way people think about online learning has changed significantly since the pandemic. Before, many people didn’t take online education seriously. Now, many people see not only what is possible, but how online education is an asset. She expects AI to further improve online learning. “We’re able to make a better product not necessarily more quickly, but with higher quality in the same amount of time.” 

Barrera says Hall brings a diverse and valuable skill set to ASHI. “She is an experienced marketer, curriculum developer, content writer, and project manager, and she integrates those strengths into the work we do with ASHI Edge,” he says. “Her contributions have helped modernize ASHI’s educational offerings through more engaging, interactive courses. Angela has played a significant role in developing much of the new course content in ASHI Edge and continues to help move our education programs forward in meaningful ways.”

Today, Hall lives just outside Oklahoma City, where she enjoys working from home as a self-described workaholic. She also helps take care of her aging parents who live nearby. When she’s not working, she knows how to have other fun, too. “I love Korean culture, Korean language, Korean food. 

I like coffee. I like annoying my mother,” she laughs. “I like café culture, just getting a book and hanging out.” She loves stationery and fountain pens, reading, and a good snack, like finding the perfect popcorn. 

Hall says she likes working for a smaller team and appreciates the sense of camaraderie and openness of ASHI. “It’s so nice that in this small company I can literally reach out and touch the president or whoever,” she says. “I like ASHI’s management and leadership style.” She says a sense of trust, with everyone working together to better the industry, is a bonus. “It’s a really comfortable way to work.”