Diane Hooper, MS

I would say that advocating for yourself is one of the biggest things. When I was younger, I didn't push back, and I didn't want to ruffle feathers. I didn't advocate for myself like I should have, like I wish I would have. So I would encourage any woman coming up in any field right now that they need to be their biggest champion, because nobody else is going to do it for them. They need to have confidence in their skills, and they always need to be learning. I went back to get my master's degree when I was 48, and my daughter was in college getting ready to graduate and go on to grad school, and my whole thing was she was not gonna be more educated than I was. So there was this competition thing that we kind of have, and so at 48, it pushed me to go back to school. I encourage women to constantly be learning, and it doesn't mean they have to constantly be getting degrees and certificates. They can read books and be a part of support groups. Get a mentor. Get a mentor is huge. And not be afraid to get a senior mentor. If there's somebody in their organization that they really admire, there's nothing wrong with sending an invite saying, you know, have 10 minutes of your time for coffee, and kind of pick their brain. A lot of them really love that role.

I have had a couple of mentors that have given me great advice over the years, but I don't think I picked the right mentors, if that makes sense. I don't think I picked the right mentor for the right reason. And I think that that's a very important relationship to find and to cultivate. So I would want people to be very mindful in what are their career aspirations and all of these things when trying to figure out who they want to guide them on their path.

I would say that they need to advocate for themselves. I was always the one, when I was younger, where I didn't push back, and I didn't want to ruffle feathers. I just didn't advocate for myself like I should have, like I wish I would have. So I would encourage any woman that is coming up in any field right now, that that's gonna be the biggest thing, is that they need to be their biggest champion, because nobody else is going to do it for them. And they need to have confidence in their skills, and they always need to be learning. I went back to get my master's degree when I was 48, and my daughter was in college, and she was getting ready to graduate, and she was gonna go on to grad school, and my whole thing was she was not gonna be more educated than I was. So there was this competition thing that we kind of have, and so at 48, it pushed me to go back to school. I encourage women to constantly be learning, and it doesn't mean they have to constantly be getting degrees and certificates. They can read books and be a part of support groups. Get a mentor. Get a mentor is huge. And not be afraid to get a senior mentor. If there's somebody who's in their organization that they really admire, there's nothing wrong with sending an invite saying, you know, have 10 minutes of your time for coffee, and kind of pick their brain. A lot of them really love that role, and so if they can find someone that is open to that kind of mentorship, I would encourage them to do that.

I think the biggest challenge is that things are changing so fast. Now you've got AI coming in, and so we're able to, we're trying to incorporate AI to kind of help us move faster, because we have, AT&T has just the number of pages just on our one website, and you have all the little spin-off pages, it's in the tens of thousands, and so it's really difficult to do it on the kind of scale that is necessary to really make sure that we are covering all of our pages. And so we're really trying to see if we can't utilize the AI technology to let us review more and to be faster. So I think that we're really trying to use technology in our favor.

Making things better for people with disabilities is really important to me. I've worked in the accessibility arena on and off since 2012, and in a company as large as we have at AT&T, this is the one kind of career path that I've sat in that feels like I'm truly making things better for people with disabilities, and not just people with disabilities, because if it is more functional for them to be able to use, that means it's more user-friendly for anybody to use it. Having that hand in the usability of our website and our apps just kind of really makes me proud that we have that much impact on so many people. The accessibility work really gives people independence that they may not have had before. I'm also a Gulf War veteran, and I come from a long line of military service. My dad was 30 years in the Army, my brother was a helicopter pilot, I had another uncle that was an engineer, and my nephew just graduated from West Point. I was the president of the Central Region for AT&T Veterans from 2022 to the beginning of 2024. I also helped start the Wish Connection in 2006 with my daughter, which is very similar to Make-A-Wish, but our organization does not require you to be terminal. It could be a life-threatening or debilitating condition, so it allowed us to grant wishes for more children. Personally, I have one daughter who's 30, and she lives in Denton. I love to garden, I have a raised bed garden in my backyard, and I love growing vegetables and flowers. I have two dogs and two cats that I absolutely love. Work is kind of hectic, and so it's nice sometimes on the weekends just to kind of do very little, just kind of have one day that's nothing but decompression, and then the other day I can do fun things.