Ep 45: Amy O'Connor and Danielle Dean: Inadvertently Marching in Her Mother’s Footsteps

Diva Tech Talk interviewed the data-driven duo of Amy O’Connor, Big Data Evangelist at Cloudera (www.cloudera.com), and Danielle Dean, Data Scientist Lead at Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) --- a dynamic mother/daughter team, embracing technology, organically. Amy hails from the era where punch cards reigned supreme. The younger Danielle experienced the dichotomy of both more complex and paradoxically easier data, in some ways, to explore.  Both share a common fascination with how data helps humans make better decisions, in business and beyond

“When I first entered technology, I was much more focused on writing software that was used to run mainframe computers. Since then, my career has taken many, many different turns,” Amy explained. When she started, it was well before computers became ubiquitous. “In my high school, there was one computer --- in the janitorial closet,” and Amy thought: “I might as well just go in that direction. It’s something that’s new.” She went on to obtain dual undergraduate degrees in computer science and electrical engineering, and returned to graduate school, later, to get her MBA, “so that I could really figure out how to apply technology to business opportunities.” Amy characterizes her career as “a twisty path” migrating from software development to IT program management to engineering leadership to business strategy roles and marketing. She finally “landed” in the field of big data. “I fell in love with it, when I saw the types of opportunities that people had.”  In her current daily work, at Cloudera, Amy works with customers all over the world, in diverse industries, advising them on big data strategies to achieve successful goals. “I spend the majority of my time directly with customers, discussing how they change their people, processes and mindset to do things in a different way.”

While inspired by her mother, as she warmly notes later in this podcast, Danielle did not initially envision emulating Amy, at all. “I didn’t purposely follow in my mother’s footsteps,” she said. “I was super interested in psychology and human behavior: how people think and learn. And I really loved math, and statistics, so I studied both psychology and math and figured out how you could discern patterns.” That drew Danielle to data science, “the next big thing as I was finishing my undergraduate career. Which is kind of funny!”  Danielle had the opportunity to create her own major field of study, while getting her degree at the University of Massachusetts. “I began to think how you can use data to understand individual behavior on a larger scale, which is exactly the kind of work used by data scientists,” she said. “That led me to pursue a PhD at the University of North Carolina in quantitative psychology where I really learned how to apply data models; how to use survival analyses to understand how social event processes unfold; looking at social networks to determine how people forge relationships.  I looked at how all these things can be combined.”  

Danielle began her tech mission with an internship at Nokia (www.nokia.com) where her mother was also working at the time (after Amy having spent years at pioneer tech company, Sun Microsystems, acquired by Oracle – www.oracle.com - in 2008).  “I was a data scientist at Nokia, for a few years, and then moved over to Microsoft,” Danielle explained, “where I am now looking at different industries and applying data science in lots of different ways. I work with Microsoft customers using analytics products, building real things to solve real problems --- from things like predictive maintenance models to models in healthcare, and finance, to term prediction, to recommendation systems, and lots of other different use cases.” Danielle and her team operate directly inside Microsoft’s product development teams to provide customer feedback, and improve the company’s offerings. “We can leverage so much data that was collected from the past to improve the future,” she exclaimed, describing multiple projects that positively benefit people. Both women, in their respective companies, are working on projects that predict best processes in the future for everything from diagnosing the maintenance cycle of automobiles to better navigating maps to assisting financiers to better predict lucrative investments to helping physicians more accurately predict the cycle of optimal healthcare.

Mother and daughter discussed exciting future tech developments, including the democratization of data. “We’re moving into a world where most data is going to be created by sensors and machines,” Amy explained. “That will enable all of us to interface with the physical world, around us, in a much safer, healthier and more convenient way. We’re going to see the emergence of ‘smart cities’ and people able to go down healthier lifestyle paths, because they’re going to have the types of information they need to have at their fingertips to make the right choices.” Danielle is particularly mesmerized, currently, by developments in “deep learning”, a subcategory machine learning technology, based on algorithms inspired by the structure and function of the brain, called artificial neural networks.  She explained how much easier it is now going to be to “get started, and do really cool things with artificial intelligence.”  Amy also highlighted the predilection of “people from all walks of life to create data, capture data, analyze data, and use that data to automate decisions and create better products and services, that impact all aspects of our lives.” She pointed out that a much greater multitude of people will be able to use data “for much more productive, positive outcomes.”

Amy and Danielle shared career development and leadership lessons for our audience. “Don’t get stagnant or complacent in any role,” Amy advised. “It’s important to do something, every single day, that is new. These don’t have to be big things, but it’s really important to keep your mind growing, to keep on top of what’s happening in the world.”  She also mentioned that sometimes you must take a risk and move on, when your role or project feels stagnant. Danielle exhorted professionals to “keep the end goal of the project in mind,” ensuring that the impact of your work meets its objectives, by fully understanding those goals at the onset. Danielle also discussed the importance of technical leaders “being able to simplify very complex topics,” for teams, constituencies and audiences, and “really looking at the big picture to make sure you are making transformational progress, rather than really getting stuck on little details.”  Amy is grateful that “leadership, these days, is much less about hierarchy and much more about influence.”  As a result, she noted that “communication skills are essential -- the first skill being able to listen to people, and the second being the ability to consistently communicate even when it’s a tough message for people to hear.” Amy also noted how important it is to have very good collegial relationships.

Both women have learned fundamental lessons from each other.  For Danielle, her mother has taught her the importance of collaborating with “people from different backgrounds, and different roles. Being able to listen to people, to understand their perspective, work in a cross-disciplinary manner, is super-important.”  For Amy, Danielle is her role model for organization, and the resultant calmness and peace that this creates. “I admire her ability to prioritize and find balance,” Amy exclaimed.

Some very practical tips Amy and Danielle shared for other women striving in the tech field include:

1. Lean on other people for assistance (“it’s ok to say ‘yes’ when other people offer help “)
2. Simplify your wardrobe (“it’s really helpful when you travel for work”)
3. Have set routines for the everyday challenges (like finding your keys, as an example or having a separate set of chargers for work and home)
4. Read obscure information, take advantage of all tech information that comes your way

For younger women creating newer career paths, Danielle exhorted them to “always continue learning, really broadening yourself, looking across disciplines,” and “take opportunities that will purposely force you to grow”, potentially those that seem “just out of reach.”  Both agree that taking risks and “keeping your eyes open” for other opportunities, and new approaches are paramount to success.

Both Amy and Danielle are very active in community organizations.  Amy suggests that any professional be methodical and serious about creating a robust professional network.  Danielle mentors girls through the nationwide Girls Who Code organization. “I am always amazed by what these students are doing.  They are really an inspiration.”  They also recommend several external resources and two books:

• www.deeplearning.com
• The Economist (www.economist.com)
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
• Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg

Amy has truly inspired Danielle to achieve, and Amy said that “I am lucky to have Danielle in my life, every day.”  Please feel free to connect with either at their respective Twitter handles: @ImAmyO, and @danielleodean.

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Ep 44: Susan Emerick: All You Need is Within You

Diva Tech Talk was pleased to interview Susan Emerick, Global Marketing Executive at IBM (www.ibm.com), educator and published author.  Susan’s multifaceted career and expertise highlights how far the technology industry has come in empowering clients to transform their businesses and develop competitive advantage using advanced analytics, machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing.  She co-authored a book:  THE MOST POWERFUL BRAND ON EARTH, (published in 2014 and available at www.amazon.com). It gives guidance to other marketing professionals, navigating digital and social media, to enable them to “embrace the change, advanced technologies, and apply it to what they’re doing.”  Susan’s inspiring and personal story offers a glimpse of what it takes to be a versatile woman in a complex and emerging field.

Susan credits her bucolic Midwestern upbringing, as one of five children, in a “country” environment (replete with trees, fields and “playing in the dirt”) for starting her interest in how things work and tech. “Technology has really been a critical part of my career, all the way along.  Science was actually something that always fascinated and inspired me, concepts of nature, patterns and how to apply those patterns to life.”

Susan’s first technology immersion was during two Michigan State University internships at General Motors (www.gm.com), in Flint, Michigan.  “I was asked to work on a program for indexing and cataloguing parts.   I realized that I really need to know this ‘technology thing.’ I remember my Dad saying that it’s really important to learn computers,” she said.  After graduation, with a marketing/advertising degree, she migrated to Syracuse, New York and was part of a small marketing agency, Eric Mower & Associates (www.mower.com) where she worked on large brands including megabrand Snapple (www.snapple.com).  She then moved back to Campbell-Ewald (www.c-e.com), a well-known Michigan-based advertising agency, where she worked for several years in their diversified accounts team, on direct response projects, developing customized consumer applications, for Planters Peanuts (www.planters.com), Johnson and Johnson (www.jnj.com), and GMAC (now Ally Financial: www.ally.com).  In all these experiences, “there was a thread of technology through how you are reaching customers directly, in personalized ways.”

Wanting to get experience on the brand side as a client, Susan then moved to Comerica Bank for two years in the direct marketing department, where she and her team were responsible for the merger of the brands of Comerica and Manufacturers Bank.  “I learned the ability to look at a large dataset, to combine and process all these customer accounts and welcome them into a newly-merged bank, and then complete the ‘re-branding’ of the new bank.”  After Comerica, Susan moved to Gale Research, (www.gale.com) the largest publisher for school and university libraries.  “It was a whole different data management process.  When you think about it, when you are managing writing, and publishing assets, you are dealing with how are we going to change our business strategy and our distribution strategy,” since Gale was moving textbooks to CD-ROM.  From there Susan jumped to being the Brand Manager for Thomas, The Tank Engine and Friends (™) for Handleman Company.   “That allowed me to learn retail, and brand management of a licensed brand --- working through how a brand manifests itself into all different entities; how do you contain and really represent the brand as you distribute into many different outlets.”

Susan was then recruited by IBM when they were looking for individuals who could apply direct response expertise and data management practices to build their integrated marketing communications practice. “At that time, within 18 months, they said ‘would you apply your skills to the Internet --- it’s going to be a really big thing.’  So I was afforded the opportunity to build IBM.com and launch many of the e-commerce capabilities to purchase something from the Web! I like to think of myself as a digital native, being involved in building a web presence for the world’s largest tech company.”   At IBM, Susan loved “the ability to always experiment and evolve with emerging technology,” that the company gave her.   “There were things that I trialed all the way from emerging technologies to today’s advanced applications that use machine learning.”  One of her favorite projects was building IBM’s global Web presence, “and seeing how to take that global Web presence and localize it across the globe, localizing into different languages, to be able to connect with customers and really help them to understand very complex technologies and break it down into meaningful experiences.”   Another key project that Susan worked on was building IBM’s social media listening practice and influencer marketing practice: “architecting how social listening and deep analytics could be applied to social media, and how to engage effectively to reach your customer, influence your customer, and build your own brand to be influential.”

Throughout her robust career, Susan relied on many of her personal strengths:
·      Strong curiosity
·      Embracing and not being afraid of change
·      Open-mindedness
·      The ability to collaborate, well, with multi-disciplinary and diverse teams

“Women are always in a position of having to prove their strengths, and pushing boundaries. I tried hard to mentor upcoming professionals, and always really felt it was important to be the one who was truly setting the example. Modeling the way with professionalism, with poise and gratitude, always helps you get that step ahead,” she said.  Susan acknowledges that leading change and “always be in that pioneering spirit” is challenging.  But she has enjoyed the satisfaction that “when people are really getting it, that’s the fuel that keeps you going.”

As a self-described technology pioneer, Susan believes in The Rule of The Internet: “One – Nine – Ninety.” The rule states that one percent of people will be true innovative leaders spearheading engagement, nine percent are following those leaders, and 90% are slow adopters and skeptical.   “I will always either be in the 1%, as I experiment, or in the 9%, emulating leaders I respect,” Susan said. 

Her top three leadership lessons for women and girls, including her two daughters – one at college and one in high school -  includes:

1.     No one knows your passion better than you.  “Don’t let anybody talk you out of what you want to go for. They don’t know who you are or what you have in you.”

2.     Lead by example and model the way.

3.     Leadership is not a title; it is earned through trust, respect and inspiring a team.

“You can be a leader in any position,” Susan simply said. “Don’t get discouraged by corporate cultures, or hierarchy.  We are flattening organizations. We are inspiring collaboration among teams.  That is an incredible opportunity for anyone seeking to be a professional.”

Balancing her career, her extended family, and her professional development, Susan feels blessed by her husband, Mark (“a true partner”).  Principles of always aligning her professional passions and her ethics have helped her achieve balance, supplemented by a very strong work ethic.  “I always tried to make it a point that when I was present with my daughters, they knew that I was always there for them.”

Talking about her next mission(s), “giving back in some way” is part of Susan’s immediate future.

In addition to her IBM career, and her book, Susan is an adjunct professor at West Virginia University for the Reed School of Media, where she developed a graduate course in data-oriented social media optimization and is also a guest lecturer for the Carnegie Mellon University.  She also serves on boards for many professional marketing, social media and marketing measurement associations, “trying to give back through my professional expertise.”

Susan’s core belief, succinctly, is: “Everything you need is inside of you.  You have to tap into those strengths. Find your purpose; find your passion.   Let it lead you.”

Please feel free to contact Susan through her blog at http://susanemerick.com, or at her personal email address: emericksf@gmail.com.   Her Twitter handle is @sfemerick.

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Ep 43: Loretta Yakima: Queen of Multitasking

Diva Tech Talk was happy to interview Loretta Yakima, a multi-talented tech industry veteran, currently a senior project manager under contract at ZF TRW (www.zf.com ), simultaneously working as a consultant with Chrysalis Global Consulting (http://www.chrysalisglobal.com). Loretta credits her parents, who recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, for all facets of her success. “They grounded me so much,” she said.

Loretta’s love for technology dated from her Michigan public high school’s career preparation center where she enrolled in a data processing class. “It was like learning a new language,” she said, “It was new and exciting.”  There she discovered that “technology was my thing. I am so grateful! My life was, forever, changed” because of the center.  She learned how to code software in both RPG and Cobol, “two of the toughest languages” to master. With her programming proficiency, Loretta could apply advanced credits to her college degree, and was also offered a scholarship to a nearby business school, after graduation.  Loretta then matriculated to Oakland University, in Rochester, Michigan where she majored in Economics, with a minor in Management Information Systems, while she also worked fulltime.  When she was a sophomore, she worked for a small consulting company, implementing “Y2K” code changes; and as a junior was hired to work, for the next two years, in information technology for Tier One automotive supplier, Lear Corporation (www.lear.com).  Later, Loretta would go on to get her MBA from Walsh College in 2009. 

After graduating Oakland University, Loretta became a programmer/business analyst at dramatically growing Pulte Corporation (www.pulte.com), a U.S.-based home-building company. At Pulte, Loretta grew as the company did.  She developed a proficiency in ERP (enterprise resource planning) software, and then developed a wide variety of Web-based applications. In her role, she supported every operation inside the company.  “I got to understand sales, and finance, and the customer service side,” Loretta said.   It was a “wonderful way to understand the true, full operations of a company and build ‘cool’ software!”  She had the chance to develop a device-independent mobile application for construction field managers, for example, long before applications like that were being commercially sold. Loretta then evolved into a project management role, where “we didn’t just focus on IT, but we really were engrained in the process side of things.” At Pulte, as the recession hit, she worked on “how to change our business processes to become more efficient.” One noteworthy project completely changed construction processes. Internal information technology was “embraced by our business team,” said Loretta, “and we were truly partners in helping them achieve both process innovation, and IT innovation.”   She moved from information technology, a few years later, and “hopped the fence” to Pulte’s finance department where she then managed the national purchasing shared services group, a total of 65 people, who managed the administration of all labor and materials contracts for the company.

A key lesson that Loretta learned from her 15 years at Pulte was the importance of strong partnership between the information technology group and the rest of the business. “Truly understanding what was going to make the company most successful,” was a hallmark of her career there.   She benefited from strong leadership training, and particularly from training based on Franklin Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (http://www.franklincovey.com/leadership/7-habits.php), which was taught throughout the company.  

When Pulte moved to Atlanta, Georgia, Loretta chose to remain in Michigan; and spent the summer of 2015 re-evaluating her options.   In the fall, she moved to a part-time role as a solutions architect, building customer applications for Detroit-based Digerati (http://digerati.co/), a company working in process improvement, software development and technology integration for a variety of regional businesses.    From Digerati, Loretta moved over to Chrysalis Global Consulting, a company that specializes in change management and project management. Under the Chrysalis aegis, she landed her contract role at ZF TRW, a global automotive supplier. “My role is with the financial systems group.   We are figuring out how to merge all the finance systems between ZF and TRW. It’s huge, and it’s exciting and it’s fun.” Loretta is working with systems at 150 plants around the world.

Loretta would catalogue her personal strengths as:

·      Being a good listener and diagnostician

·      Being a hard worker (a quality which she attributes to her parents’ training)

·      Being empathetic (“You really have to put yourself in other people’s shoes sometimes.  Particularly in IT,” she said.)

·      Being a skilled multitasker (“I love being busy.  I love having a lot of things going on.”)

Speaking of multitasking, Loretta relies on her technology tools heavily.   “I do all my shopping online,” as one example. And she relies heavily on her spouse who shares many of her “life tasks.”   To accomplish everything well and achieve balance, Loretta said: “You must stay positive, and learn to smile,” in any situation.

Loretta’s three main leadership lessons for other women and girls are:

·      Don’t be afraid.  Try technology out. “It’s not rocket science; don’t be afraid of it.”

·      Know yourself and what is uniquely important to you, personally.  “Think about, truly, what drives you, and is rewarding to you.”

·      Learn how to network.  “It is so important to find role models, and other people to bounce ideas off.”

Loretta also has a vision for her next, big personal mission.   She would like to be involved with a company or an educational institution that “has enough financial backing to get started with students early on. I think back to the high school technology program in which I was involved.  I would love to build more programs like that, because I think it’s so important --- especially for girls.” Loretta said. “We know we have a problem, especially here in Michigan with finding students, going into technology.”  She is currently uncertain of the granular details of this upcoming mission but feels that “there is something like that in my future.”

Please feel free to contact Loretta Yakima at her personal email address: rettayakima@gmail.com.   Her Twitter handle is @lyakima. 

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Ep 42: Kim Kaminski: More Powerful Than What Scares You

Diva Tech Talk was honored to speak with Kimberly Kaminski, Vice President of Global Marketing for rapidly-growing TMaxSoft, a 20-year old worldwide software innovator focused on infrastructure and data modernization to support digital business.  Kim’s rich technology marketing career spans both Fortune 500 companies and emergent technology innovators. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, TMaxSoft (www.tmaxsoft.com) offers enterprise CIOs solutions to empower and modernize their IT infrastructures, and dynamically drive competitive advantage.  With over 800 employees in 20 strategic centers around the globe (and plans to move into more throughout 2017) the company is a leader in relational database management systems for virtual data centers, legacy re-hosting solutions for mainframes, service-oriented architecture to enhance IT environments, and web application server software, among other offerings.

Like some of our other Divas, at one point Kim considered becoming a doctor, but graduated Northern Illinois University, instead, as a journalism major with an emphasis on advertising. She began her fascinating journey, right out of college, as a writer/producer for a post-operative medical products manufacturer. “The job was perfect for me because it allowed me to pursue my love of science, while also perfecting the craft of writing and learning marketing,” she said. “I have a very strong foundation as a writer, which has served me well throughout my career.  My early start as a journalist and the ability to ask questions, and have that curiosity, has helped me connect with developers, and ask those really tough questions that marketing uses to create value propositions that get customers to buy.”   

Having “cut her teeth” in marketing, Kim moved into the advertising business for several years including a stint in the tech practice for J. Walter Thompson (https://www.jwt.com/)), the 4th largest ad agency in the world.  From JWT, she migrated to semiconductor powerhouse Texas Instruments (www.ti.com), working at their headquarters in Dallas, Texas as marketing communications manager. “It was at TI where my marketing career took off,” Kim said.  “I was working for some really great leaders who were doing Six Sigma and other progressive things across all their businesses.”  Kim was then recruited to work at software company, Novadigm (later acquired by Hewlett Packard: www.hp.com ) and “I have been in the software industry ever since!”   

From Novadigm, Kim moved to CA Technologies (www.ca.com), then the 5th largest enterprise software company in the world. “It was an exciting time to join CA, because we were going through the rebranding of the company from Computer Associates to CA. That was a great project to be a part of.  The company was trying to move from being a very technical company to being a customer-facing, market-driven company.”   Kim spent 11 years at CA, evolving into progressively greater leadership roles.  “I was fortunate to be in all facets of marketing,” she said, “from MARCOM to product marketing/product management and then field marketing.” Eventually Kim was promoted to Vice President of Field Marketing within CA’s Northern Division sales organization.  Then Kim leaped to a smaller company, Avocent (acquired by Emerson Electric - http://www.emerson.com/en-us ) in Huntsville, Alabama, as Director of Global Field Marketing, where she worked for 2.5 years. “My legacy of understanding data infrastructure and moving progressively through companies that focus on that has taken me on a path that has served me well,” she said.  Recruited as Vice President, Marketing for privately-held Vision Solutions for 2 years (https://www.visionsolutions.com/)  she then led their global marketing team.   Her first worldwide leadership job, this was also a “great opportunity to work in private equity where marketing is held much more accountable to articulate how to drive value for the company.   As a marketing leader, learning to do that is valuable.”   After Vision Solutions, Kim worked for Infogix (http://www.infogix.com/) in global marketing leadership for another 2 years, before moving to her current role at TMaxSoft.

Kim is having fun in her current job.  “My personal mission is to grow the marketing discipline, grow the team” at TMaxSoft, she said. “We’re working to create, within the company, a culture of customer-focused marketing.”  One of TMaxSoft’s value propositions is to provide very high return on investment by “unshackling legacy solutions from the mainframe,” and helping customers effectively deploy and use cloud-based and mobile digital methods of application delivery. “We’re talking to people at all levels in IT. We’re talking to CIOs because they’re looking for cost savings, and efficiency --- doing more with less. We’re talking to the users of our potential solutions because they’re the ‘influencers’; they need to know the technology works, that it’s easy to use, and not going to be a training burden.”   Kim sees this as both “the challenge and the opportunity for our sales teams. And for marketing, it provides us with an opportunity to really help the sales team sell at all those levels.”

Kim shared that one thing she has had to realize, along the way, is that “the only real inhibitor to my success was me. We all have to get to a point where we discover, and come to believe in, our own authenticity.”   She had the chance to work with a coach at the Master of Business Leadership Program (http://masterbusinessleadership.com/) which focuses on helping leaders find their unique value and capitalize on that. “That was pivotal for me to realize that no one was standing in my way, except for me.”  One of Kim’s favorite current quotes is “You are a lot more powerful than that which scares you.”  

To achieve her success, Kim believes three key personal characteristics have been essential for her: patience, tenacity, and a sense of humor.  Particularly as she has undertaken a global role, “there are language issues, geographical boundaries, and lot of work taking place over phone conference calls and Webex.”   She stressed “it takes a lot of patience, diplomacy, tact, and tenacity to go around and through roadblocks that inevitably pop up in business.   When you’re leading a team, it’s the leader’s responsibility to help the team navigate those roadblocks, to make their jobs fun and easy.” Kim also relies on her sense of humor to “break the ice, lighten the moments, when things get tense. The ability to laugh and try to find the positive aspects of a situation are really important.”

For Kim, being a woman in the tech field has affected her “in both positive and not-so-positive ways.”   She shared a story from her early career where a male manager told her that he felt that women should be exclusively at home, raising kids. “Instead of reacting negatively, I decided to just do a great job, and prove him wrong. And I ended up becoming one of his most trusted employees!” Kim is relieved that the business world is a lot different today but she said “I do think there is still some degree of negative things like ‘ageism.’ However, I think it is all about how you react to that. For me, personally, I refuse to feed into those notions.   I don’t hide my age, as an example.”   Kim also is thrilled that she has had the chance to mentor younger women. “This has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career,” she said. To her, “it’s important for every woman not to measure themselves against another woman. You must find what works for you.  That can take many different forms throughout your career.”

Kim has cogent advice for other women aspiring to lead, particularly technology marketing leaders:

• Stay humble and be willing to learn from everyone. “It is really important to keep that sense of humility and open mindedness,” especially as it applies to learning from younger colleagues.

• Continue to study hard. “Learn how to talk the language of development,” and additionally “speak the language of business.”  Kim emphasizes that bridging technology and the needs of the business is an essential job for marketing.

• And remember that “marketing has the responsibility to be the headlights of the business; really going out there, shining the light on the markets and the customers” to show where the business needs to go.

One precept Kim tries to live by is “everything in moderation.”  She advises to keep things simple. “Find the little things that all add up.  Make a little bit of time, every day, for yourself to sit and reflect.” Kim is a registered yoga instructor, and finds that it “brings a lot of calm and peace” to her life, in general.

Finally, for Kim, “my faith is my anchor in my work, and in my life. We are called to love one another, and this applies to all facets of my life, including working relationships. Although there are all different cultures in the world, we are all more alike than we are different, and that is awesome.”  To sum it up, Kim says: “I approach everything with a spirit of kindness, loving what I do, and loving the people I am with.”

Please feel free to contact Kimberly Kaminski at her personal email kakaminski2952@gmail.com.  Her Twitter handle is @kkaminski2952.

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Ep 41: Dr. Denise Mahoney: Building the Future Diverse Workforce

Diva Tech Talk was thrilled to chat with Dr. Denise Mahoney, the Pre-Apprentice Liaison for the Kent County Technical Career Center, situated in the Kent County, Mi., Intermediate School District. Her current work is funded by a U.S. Department of Labor grant obtained by Grand Rapids Community College in partnership with Macomb Community College to increase the number of technology-oriented apprentices in West Michigan. Denise is focused on identifying and fostering technical opportunities and educational paths for 11 th and 12 th graders, poising them for successful life missions.

“Companies should keep their eyes open to the apprenticeship model,” Denise said. “It is just another way to get qualified employees into the workforce.” Our discussion with her ranged from college affordability to the paucity of jobs available to traditional college graduates to mentorship to the usefulness of practical, employer-driven apprenticeships, and everything in between!

Denise found programming early in her academic life, since Fortran and Cobol were part of her initial undergraduate curriculum at the University of South Dakota. Originally aimed at a business career, Denise worked for a financial company serving the Kodak Corporation, but was quickly drawn into another love: teaching. So, moving to

Michigan, she went back to Western Michigan University to get her teacher’s certificate in business subjects, with an additional certification in occupational education for grades 7 through 12. She then moved over to Michigan State University for her Master’s in Education Leadership. She primarily taught business courses including Microsoft applications, and then migrated into teaching IT courses. Denise ultimately obtained her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at New Mexico State University, and her dissertation concentrated on issues of gender diversity in technology. She described her personal evolution as “not super-exciting but fairly typical of people who moved into IT from other areas.”

Denise truly enjoys working at a high school career tech center that has served over 2300 students, to date. “Our students come to us, and they learn core content (like math and English) through their technical classes. And then we are passionate about teaching them ‘employability skills’ like teamwork, problem-solving, resume-writing -- anything to do with getting a job. So, we are heavily into whatever the next step is for students, whether they are going to college, going to a tech school, or going out into the workforce.”

70% of Denise’s students are placed as apprentices in information technology roles, while the other 30% are situated in manufacturing environments and/or mechatronics. The benefits for her students include the ability to “earn while they learn;” the opportunity to test their fitness for a specific technical career; the chance to test a company’s culture; the option to attain a recognized credential; and the ability to gain a career mentor, with “real life” experience. The companies who participate in the program increase access to a talented, expanded workforce and the chance to “try before they buy” in terms of potential job candidates. Denise is overjoyed that the companies involved in the program are routinely surprised at how prepared her student apprentices are. “Our students are well-positioned to do great things,” she enthusiastically stated. As Denise sees it, it is a “Win/Win” solution for both sides.

Leading the program has also increased Denise’s knowledge of the “real world” economic needs of major employers particularly in terms of technology skills necessary today, and in the future. Denise offered key advice for students.

“Learn everything you can,” she exclaimed. “We are training you for jobs that don’t even exist,” today. For her doctorate, Denise gathered data, in a phenomenological approach, about women in technology fields, and the factors that influence them to choose technology careers. She found five key themes. Per her dissertation on women in technology:

• Were influenced by others including parents, teachers, friends, boyfriends etc.;
• Had a supportive network, comprised of people who encouraged them;
• Mentored others, and were automatically turning around to give back to their profession(s);
• Had technological aptitudes, despite “myths” and preconceptions that women are not as technically proficient as men; and
• Had well-developed communication skills, that helped them succeed.

She sees the female technologist’s success paragon as collaborative and creative. Roles rewarding those traits are what women in her study needed, and she believes that is what the field should offer them. Many of the employers with whom Denise works tell her that what they want in employees are not just the technical skills but the “soft skills”: teamwork, collaboration, problem-solving, and the predilection to help and collaborate with others.

Denise stressed that “IT is a great career for women.” It offers flexibility, the ability to be “hands-on” if that is what you desire, and strong opportunities for leadership. “You just have to figure out where your niche is,” Denise said.

Please feel free to contact Dr. Denise Mahoney at: denisemahoney@kentisd.org.

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