April Taitano Taylor

I attribute my success to seeing the growth in all of my people. Not just my team here in El Paso, but the guys and girls I started with up in Washington state who are still progressing in their careers. When I say this was a successful day, it's when I see everybody learning more, working together as a team, and running the show successfully. Building people individually and then as a team has been the most rewarding part of every job I've had. I hired one of the admins in Tacoma who I actually worked with at Starbucks, and she's still with the company. I brought in a lot of employees from Starbucks because I saw their potential and knew they had something to contribute, and they've stayed and progressed - a lot of them are three years plus with the company now. When it gets to the customer and they're pleased, that's the end goal, but all of that work to get there, to build everybody individually and then as a team, that's where I take the most pride. It's the growth of my people - that has always been the most rewarding from this job and jobs before.

The best career advice I ever received was from a former supervisor when I was applying for a lead role and didn't get the job. He told me, 'Your only issue, what's holding you back from moving up, is you don't delegate. You tend to do everything yourself.' At first, that was my OCD - it has to be right, so I do it myself. But I took that advice literally and figuratively, not just professionally but personally, and it made a profound change in my life, especially as a single mother at that time. It changed the way I raised my kids from then on and how I applied myself at my job. I stopped enabling my children and allowed them to learn how to cook for themselves, wash their own dishes, wash their own clothes, take care of themselves. I trained them to be able to handle things on their own. It was life-changing on both aspects - at work and at home.

My advice to young women is simple: empowered women empower women. That's my goal. When women come in and say this company treats women differently, there's not equal pay or equal opportunity, I coach them that it's not going to be easy, but you have this opportunity. Don't let what other people think or say prevent you from doing what you need to do. First off, you're here because it's needed for you and your family - you need the money, you need a job. That should encourage you to continue to progress and stay, regardless if it's this company or another. If this is the field you enjoy - production, warehousing, logistics, construction - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Be confident in what you do and how you do things. Don't be intimidated and don't let anybody tell you any different. Maintain your core values of respect and integrity. And most importantly, don't ever use your femininity to get your job done. Figure out how to do it on your own. If you're not confident, or at least fake it till you make it and put off confidence, you will be brushed off and ignored. That's just the fact in industries like this with a lot of men. If you don't put yourself out there, don't have a voice and an opinion, and aren't assertive, you can be ignored.

The biggest challenge for me is not enough time in the day. When I first started here, I was working 16 to 18 hours a day easily. To go home at 8 hours was unheard of - I think one day I did only because I had a doctor's appointment. That's been a huge personal and professional struggle, especially in the progression of my roles with the company and moving down here to El Paso. The culture down here has helped me take a step back and realize it'll be here tomorrow. As for opportunities, we just opened a facility in Phoenix, and it sounds like our company is growing to open up more facilities. I'm looking at the opportunity to potentially oversee all of the warehouse shipping departments for our executives across all locations.

The values most important to me are integrity and work ethics. I tell that to my kids every day. I have five kids in different generations and different decades of my life, and I always remind them that no matter what their friends say or do, they need to maintain respect for everybody, especially their elders. When you have respect, you have integrity - those come hand in hand. The third value that follows, and it will come easy when you have the first two, is work ethic. Even when my kids struggle in classes, their teachers always tell me they're very respectful. If anything else, I don't care if you are a doctor or not a doctor, a teacher or a lawyer, but to know that you are a respectful person, you're a kind person, you're a hard-working person out there in the world when mom is not around - I have done my job. I've raised all my kids with these values, and two of my kids have worked here at this company in El Paso. Both of their first jobs, and the compliments I get are that they're very respectful, they're hardworking, they're always here, they're never late. It's the work ethic and the integrity.