Her Story
About Darline
I've been working in the health and safety field for about 10 years, with my current safety role spanning the last 5 years. My career began with the Southern California Mountains Foundation, where I helped teach youth how to take care of our forests and be aware of dangers in the California mountains. That organization really taught me how to get my hands dirty and have a voice - they gave me all the fundamental skills I needed to go out into the world and learn, teach, and experience new things. From there, I went straight into working for Amazon for the longest time, and then got recruited for Amazon Leo for their aerospace project. After that, I had the opportunity to help a small business develop their safety programs from scratch, and most recently I was recruited by Meta Facebook Reality Labs. My main area of expertise is communicating with different types of people - over the years I've spoken to so many different types of people, and I've learned that you have to be welcoming and build trust with the people working around you. Communication is my best attribute. In my day-to-day work, my key responsibility is making sure that everyone I work with in my buildings is safe and goes home the same way they came in - healthy, perfect, and not injured. I take care of their well-being and anything they need, whether they feel ill or there's a safety emergency in their area. My goal is that people know safety is around, but they don't have to worry about anything because we're there to take care of any type of safety emergency.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Darline
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would have to say that I had a really rough upbringing growing up, and I feel like it actually made me stronger and taught me so much. Even though it was tough at times, I didn't really have anybody to push me and to encourage me. I just realized that I had to do that myself. So I would have to say that right now, even though I do have that type of support and it's amazing, I had to depend on myself. I pushed myself. You have to be your own cheerleader sometimes.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received was to not let fear get in the way. When you really want something sometimes, it's kind of scary when you get it. But that's what you're supposed to do - that's how it's supposed to be. You're supposed to do stuff that scares you. You're not supposed to run away from it. So I would have to say that's the best advice I've ever gotten - not to run away from anything that scares me career-wise.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say learn as much as you can, and do not try to get intimidated because safety is such a male-dominated field. Just shake it off. I've been in teams where I was surrounded by men older than me, and you've got to just tell them you know what you're doing and show them what you got. Show them that you know this field, that you've got the education, and you've got the training. Over time, it's no sweat - just break the mold and encourage more women to want to join this field. Because it's a pretty great field.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say the biggest challenge right now is probably the job market in the tech industry. You never know if you're going to be safe or not, but you always have to keep your hopes up that you're not going to lose your job. One of the great things right now for safety specialists is that there are a lot of job opportunities for us. There are a lot of companies that need safety specialists. There are really big, giant openings for safety specialists right now. A lot more companies are realizing that we need safety on site. So I would say the downfall is that in the tech industry, you're going to be worried about not lasting long, but at the same time, there are opportunities out there for safety specialists.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Making sure that everyone I work with has trust in me is most important. They trust me to know what I'm doing and to know that I'm there to help them, and I'm there to be that person they can come to speak to about anything. And of course, the same thing for my personal life. I love being that person that people can depend on.
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