Brenda Meredith

One of the things I'm most proud of in my career happened when we were preparing for war games. I was running the clinic on base, but the units out in the field practicing war games had no medical footprint at all - none of them brought anybody medical. Someone reached out to me and asked if I could help, and because I knew I was ready, I was able to delegate my roles to members on my team. This allowed me to show the world we were ready, not just for what was expected of us, but for the unexpected. I delegated someone to run the clinic, someone else to run the processing center, and then I took on the role of creating a centralized battalion aid station for 2,000 soldiers who were without any medical support out in the field. I stood up a treatment center - it was a trailer with two treatment rooms. I brought on a nurse and two young medics, and they ran a centralized clinic out in the field for 2,000 soldiers, and that just happened on the fly. I'm very proud of the fact that because of my training, my expertise, and my skill and know-how, I was able to, without a moment's notice, just establish this and delegate roles. Another thing I'm really proud of is my service trajectory in the military. I started out as an enlisted soldier, then moved into a warrant officer position, and then became a Medical Service Corps officer. That is something that is not normal - I only know myself to have done that. I was hungry for everything. I learned early on that you don't have to get ready when you stay ready. I've always kept my resume and all of my stuff together and ready to send out on the drop of a dime. When I was about to get out, someone heard me on the phone and said I sounded very energetic and happy, asked what I did, and said they could use that. That's how opportunities came to me - because I stayed ready and was proactive throughout my career.

Brenda will be jumping in to add detail regarding her inspirations and what has motivated her throughout her journey, she will share detail regarding how she would like to connect with other incredible women within our network and also inspire our readers. She is eager to be able to step in and provide guidance to others and inspire them with her story. She will share other details regarding what brings her joy including her interest and hobbies aside of from Work. She will also highlight the people who have made a big impact in her journey whether that's family or professionally she will highlight them and tell us a bit about them to recognize their great attributes and how they've helped impact her life. She will also add any additional details she feels are important and that she would like to share with our readers.

I would basically just share with them to be courageous, to commit to excellence. Whatever that is, you may not know right up front what your lane is, or where you're headed, but whatever it is, embrace it from the standpoint of leading with excellence. I just would tell them, whatever it is, lead with excellence, be mindful of making certain humanity is part of anything that you do. Because what you want to do in order to be an effective thought leader or leader in general is to be able to treat folks well in order to have a following. So I would just say lead with excellence and treat people well.

I believe in being true to oneself, and again, treating people well. I believe in hard work. I believe in loyalty, I believe in being honest, I believe in having a strong foundation, having integrity to the point where people can trust in you. I believe that everybody should be given an opportunity to be a part of something. So I believe in inclusion. There's a reason why inclusion is important, because without inclusion, you can potentially not get a great product, because you're only looking at it through a small lens. I believe in folks supporting each other from the standpoint of, you know, not everybody's gonna have an A game that's as impactful as the next person. We need to respect that. There's a room for every most people on a particular team. You can't have all A types because you won't have any followers. Outside of work, I enjoy coming up with a plan and designing things. I like working with tools. I like to buy wood, and I like to build things. I built a cat house, and I've never had a cat in my life, but these cats had kittens in my yard, and I built them a house. I could have easily bought them one, but I wanted to build it. I like that kind of stuff because it keeps me busy, it reminds me of how creative I am, and it reminds me of how important it is to accomplish things. I also like just being out and about, engaging with the community, being involved with just feeling happy and free and learning. I like going to different functions in the community, or wherever, just enjoying life, basically. Another thing I'm very interested in is wanting to be a voice for someone up and coming. I have 39 years of my adult life serving in the military, and I have some things that I can talk to someone about to encourage those that are coming. I'd like to share with them that I didn't wake up one day and became this person. It took years, and I stayed true to myself.