As the lead trainer for warehouse selectors at SpartanNash, I am responsible for new hire training, because our warehouse team is responsible for selecting, shipment and delivery of over 40 million dollars of outbound freight to customers across three states on a daily basis.In addition to those responsibilities, I created and am leading the implementation of the first formal training program for new warehouse selectors at SpartanNash Grand Rapids distribution center. Since starting this program, selector efficiency has risen over 20-percent, and new hire retention has gone from 23% to 60%.The program was rolled out to 15-plus SpartanNash distribution centers early 2022.SpartanNash is the fifth-largest food distributor in the United States and a leading distributor of grocery products for U.S. military commissaries.

My role with Amway began as a quality audit role, but turned into creating a process to reduce/eliminate rework due to coding issues on protein canisters set for international delivery.Amway has a unique way of coding food products to each country it ships to. Multiple shipping containers were being refused due to coding issues on the individual canisters.I altered the QA process to resolve this issue. Instead of checking all canisters on a carton, machine operators checked the first and last canister. This required minimal training and reduced rework by 85% over the first two months following implementation.

My primary assignment as Learning and Organizational Development Specialist was to work on HIV prevention programs, but after an extensive needs assessment, I found that the local Health Officials were extremely effective in these areas. Knowing this, I directed my efforts to staff learning and organization effectiveness.The Vice Director of Axum's Health Office and I worked with public health officials, providing a method for reviewing project proposals that were submitted by various organizations to our office. We focused on teaching budget analysis techniques, evaluating each proposal using various assessment tools, and vetting citations to determine relevance and cause-and-effect relationships.I also worked with local pharmacy managers to create and implement changes to pharmaceutical inventory management. We created new product inventory forms, and adjusted the frequency of inventory up from the standard practice of every two months to every four weeks. These changes to the data stream allowed for more effective resupply, recovering the cost of prior years missing, expired and unaccounted for medicine and supplies.After a year of operating under these changes and generating positive results, we submitted suggested revisions to the training guide for pharmacy managers to USAID, incorporating our new processes and data collection schedules. We also provided additional learning methods to ensure the new processes were understood.Working with my local counterpart, we assisted in the construction of a small-scale garden for a local orphanage in Axum. Additionally, I worked with another Peace Corps Volunteer to create several gardens in Adwa, Ethiopia. In total, these gardens are currently providing food for over 200 people.This same Volunteer and I conducted two sessions of a Project Design and Management training program in Adwa, where we taught over 40 local leaders how to enhance their proposal writing.