Raised by an entrepreneur and a managerial leader, I developed my work ethic early on. I worked with my father fixing up his rental properties, assisted him with his appliance service calls, and when I became of age I learned the manager role at his non-profit thrift store. With my mother I’d accompany her to work and observed how she interacted with her employees and help around the store. My mother, my aunt, and grandmother, and I, would all volunteer for the kitchen staff at one of The Lions Club’s camps for the blind called Camp Leo, in Hilton Head South Carolina. While these experiences have great value in my life, other happenings in life have not been easy. Things got tough, I traveled quite a bit eventually making it back to Ohio. With great ambitions I started community college and I had an excellent start, then I had my first child. It took some adjusting and a little more time than originally planned but I persevered and graduated with a 3.6 GPA. I started attending Ohio State University that fall. I was unable to balance work and family with the pre-med coursework so I left after a couple semesters. I was always fond of cooking so I started to get back into the kitchens at some great restaurants but found a more lucrative career path at L Brands Inc., now Victoria’s Secret & Co. I was uncertain of my aptitude for an e-commerce operation, but quickly learned I was good at it. My supervisor and group lead thought so as well and gave me a special assignment working with the slotting team (an arm of Inventory Control that was tasked with planning) for my first peak. Once peak was over I was asked to apply to the training team, they skipped having me as a floor trainer and I was offered a facilitator position, we ran new hire orientations and hazmat classes and would report the trainees progress to leadership verbally and electronically. I applied for various leadership roles but I was always better at learning the work and doing it that conveying my abilities and aptitude in an interview setting, so when my supervisor was the one doing the hiring I finally got promoted.After learning the ins and of the receiving department, I continued to train people but this time in leadership roles, I even trained a new group lead on the receiving SOPs, and earned a difficult reward to get in the company. Then comes the pandemic, it hit a lot of us harder than others, I was able to manage my time as an Uber driver and an educator for my kids with a good balance. Now, I hope to grow with Amazon, with similar success.