Her Story
About AJ
I started my career with a degree in supply chain management, working my way up to a managerial level at Panapina, one of the top freight forwarders in the world. When the company went through a merger, I was given a severance package and let go. COVID happened right after, and with my logistics background, I saw all the freight getting backed up at the docks and realized there was an opportunity. I decided drug testing was the easiest entry into the medical field without going back to school, so I started a testing lab in 2022 called the Ultimate Lab Authority. We do physicals, employment testing, DNA testing, phlebotomy, and we work with DFACS. When clients came in for testing, they would ask how I was able to own my own lab, and so many people started asking that I realized mentoring might be my niche. I turned it into a business where I mentor students, hold classes twice a month, and offer self-paced courses on my website. I'm also in the process of opening a phlebotomy school with the state of Georgia, which could take me into a lot of different avenues. I'm really excited about what this year holds for me and my business.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with AJ
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my mother, who passed away in 2017. She didn't get to see me at the height of my career - she saw me graduate and enter corporate America, but she didn't get to see me perform. I always wish she was here to see me, so I operate with the sense that mom is watching and I'm going to make mom proud. Everything I do, I want to make her proud. My mom was born in the 50s with old school mentality, and she never got to open a business even though she wanted to be an entrepreneur so bad. She had so many qualities and could have been, but she was a homemaker and stayed at home to take care of us. I always wanted to make her proud, and the fact that I'm able to walk into my own business and have all this success, I know she would be so proud of me. That's always my motivation for everything I do - making my mother proud and keeping her memory going.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Keep going. You go through so many hurdles, so many setbacks, and it seems like it's never going to happen. If I were to look at myself when I got the news that my job was no longer and I was wondering what's next, what do I do - don't look at right now, just keep going, because where I am right now today is so far greater. I couldn't imagine turning the key to my own office when I was clocking in to someone else's office, and now I'm putting a key into my own office that has my name on the outside of it. I built something. Keep going. Always say, keep going. Keep dreaming, keep believing, keep believing in yourself that you can do it, because you can. What you create is amazing. It's amazing to look at and be like, I did that.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I want to be an example, a good example for my daughter. I'm setting the bar, and now she has to raise it. I want her to go further than I did because I laid the groundwork. There's so much going on out here in the world, and if I could be a positive light, a happy light, just a motivating light for you, then that's what I want to be. I feel like I was called to motivate women and to talk to women, and not only women, but young women as well. If I can encourage you to do something positive with your life, then I can die a happy girl. When my students reach back out and say my advice worked and they're getting leads, that's amazing. If they're successful, then I'm successful.
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