Jacquelyn Petty

I have a drive to want to help, whether it be people or the environment, just to give something positive to the general collective. That means teaching someone about something you know, passing along those words of wisdom and nuggets that you learn through experience, not just through what degree you received. It's about the people you encounter along the way. One of the most enjoyable things I did was working in mold remediation, being able to help people who fear what they don't know, and sometimes taking it from a mountain and bringing it back down to a molehill is just as important as raising a red flag. Every stakeholder has a different perspective on what they want to get out of something, and being able to read the room, facilitate that, and be a bridge between people because of personality differences or different goals - you're still all trying to achieve the same thing, you just want it for different reasons. Being able to collaborate with people and get goals accomplished, that's always meaningful.

I think that women should have an open mind to new opportunities and never turn down the chance if a company's going to pay to train you in something. It never hurts to learn something. You may be passed over or have some kind of resistance or stalling because you don't know something, but it never hurts to learn something, even if it isn't in your direct wheelhouse. Sometimes you can also find out that maybe you have a passion for something different in life than you got that degree in. We all set out, most of us, wanting to be something, but what we necessarily turn out to be five or ten years down the road, or doing for a living, isn't always what we imagined. But that doesn't mean that you can't excel at it. It's just a matter of having the right attitude, being open to it, and jumping into it, taking it on and not being intimidated by it, regardless of who's in the room, regardless of their education, their gender, whatever it might be.