Have you ever met someone who loves their job? Well, that person is me. This role is challenging every day. The challenges come from supporting our new, cloud native sales platform in production. So many new problems have me pivoting what I'm working on, to ensure consistent up time of the functionality. Resolving the problems has pushed me to learn tons of SQL, Mongo, and AWS architecture. These new skills have to be used in tandem with communicating priority with our business partners, and prioritizing the fixes with a team of developers that I leadIt really is the perfect mix of challenges for my unique skill set, and I love it

This position is perfectly compliments my analysis skills, allowing me to be on the front lines of maximizing the up-time of more than a dozen applications. Being tasked with production run functions required me to be a SME of an app from cradle to grave. Some applications were in production long before I was on the team, while my newest application has only been in production for a few months. To resolve the problems, I gather business requirements, gather steps to reproduce, review databases, manipulate data to load batches, analyze application code, communicate the scope of the problem, and develop automated solutions.Since the applications i support display health information, sometimes the problems can be sensitive to legal and compliance issues. Understanding the responsibility of this, and the negative impact to our members is a driving force for my prioritization. The new application I support has many new government regulations, since we are starting to sell health insurance on the Individual Market exchange. Supporting my newest application is one of the most unique opportunities I’ve had, as it is a cloud native application. Learning the architecture of an AWS application, API’s set up as a service, Mongo database, and reviewing the angular code is incredibly rewarding.

Working as a Test Specialist at Wellmark provided me with experience well beyond the boundaries of the job description.The first task in the position allowed for great exposure to the systems that I would be providing technical support to for the Sales and Marketing, and Membership and Enrollment departments. My assignment following was to be a Gatekeeper for system issue/enhancement tickets. This role was incredibly challenging, rewarding, and fun. For 4 months I served as a secondary Gatekeeper. The plan was for me to get exposure to the testing process in the fall, which was the expected part of the Test Specialist position. Focusing on the Gatekeeper role for those few months set me up to be able to successfully handle the position solo in the last 4 months of the year. With this role, my main function was to receive requests for Issue/enhancement tickets, understand the business rules, communicate this to the technical team, negotiate the resolution and deployment, test the deployment, sign off on the deployment, and communicate the success/failure of the deployment.Each step of the role was able to help me develop my understanding of our business, and to help me become a valuable Wellmark employee.

My job with Bonnie has been very exciting and rewarding. It is a very fast paced seasonal sales job. Our primary products are vegetables and herbs, which only grow during the spring and summer. Because of the limited growing season, my sales are limited to the months of March through August. My role is to manage the logistics of my delivery route, control the inventory on my truck, and establish and maintain the store displays to maximize sales. My supervisor enables me to be successful by managing my route. Managing my route includes hiring, training, coaching, and encouraging my helper. This can be incredibly challenging due to the incredibly long hours devoted to physical labor and riding in a delivery truck. It also includes creating and maintaining a good relationship with the stores that we deliver to. Since these stores are responsible for caring for the live products, it is important that they feel respected and appreciated. My professional attitude makes this relationship easy to maintain. This job is very rewarding because the hard work that I put in directly effects my paycheck. It allows me to work hard during the plant selling season and enjoy the rest of the year off when plants cannot sell.

HISNA provides software as a service on-site at KIA Motors Manufacturing Georgia. The department of the company that I work for is the Manufacturing Execution Systems department. My position in the MES department has me monitoring the Just in Sequence systems. These systems are not all written by our company. We ensure that the communication between these systems stays active.This position requires that I actively communicate with Vendors to our customer, our customer, and superiors. Daily I remotely access servers, production information boards, quality systems running on PC's, and cameras. Keeping these programs running is vital to the production that our customer does. We present the data that our customer needs. A primary goal of mine is to make sure that the systems collecting the data stays running. It also requires me to make sure that the systems presenting the data stay running.Vendors that supply parts to our customer use the data that we collect and present to get parts to the factory Just in Sequence or Just in Time. Monitoring the communication between our vendors systems and ours is vital.

Managing Cliff's Shoes was a unique managing opportunity for me. Cliff was opening his second store in Boyne City, Michigan that spring. After moving from Ames, IA to Boyne City, we had a week to get acquainted with the small northern Michigan lake town. That week was used as an opportunity to spread the word through the local businesses that a new shoe store was opening. The town was highly anticipating the opening of the store. When we were finally able to get into the building, the store was completely empty! The project of moving inventory from the original store to the new one, setting up the eye catching displays, and getting the doors open in less than a week was very successful.We quietly opened on a Monday, with a grand opening on the following Saturday. The small town of Boyne City was very accepting of the new store!The inventory of the store shifted seasonally, much like every retail business. This gave me extra opportunities to dress the front windows of the store. The store had two huge front windows that let passers buy have a great look in. The windows also faced the only stoplight in downtown, presenting the opportunity to increase foot-traffic with a great display.Cliff's Shoes taught me some great skills as a manager. It gave me the opportunity to increase foot traffic with advertising locally, recruiting customers, and greeting the sidewalk traffic with products on and around the exterior of the building.

I was a supervisor of a group of 15 associates and our task was to unload the 3 trucks of merchandise for the store daily. My primary responsibilities were to maintain integrity with the inventory in the backroom, train associates with the handheld terminals, and unload freight in a timely manner. We were responsible for stocking some of the new freight and working the freight that the computer system automatically generated to fill the shelves. I was responsible for interviews, scheduling, holding my associates responsible, communicating with and working smoothly with all other shifts and departments.

At Tradehome I managed a small group of associates on a daily basis, but my primary goals were to be the active manager and make the daily, weekly, and personal sales goals. I worked with customers on a very personal level and tried to build every ticket, along with making sure the customer left satisfied and would return.