Julia McElroy

I've been working in my field for roughly 2-3 years, and what led me here was becoming a mom and being a creative. I found myself thinking about how people often say that once you become a mom, you kind of lose yourself. The biggest thing before becoming a mom was not wanting to turn gray, for lack of a better word. I wanted to make sure that I was always colorful, always bright, constantly in a position of creating, always doing things that not only catered to the woman that I am, but my motherhood, my new mommy role. I wanted to cater to other women who are also in that field, or just women in general who feel like they have times in their life where we age, we get older, and we have this quote-unquote time clock, but never really wanting to be gray. So I'm constantly being creative and creating those places and rooms and spaces for other people to be as creative as me. Along the way, I've done food service, I've done a lot of community work, including work with Edison Job Corps creating women empowerment groups. I've organized lemonade stands for the kids during the summer times annually, doing a lot of things that are non-profit. A lot of the work I do today looks like customer-facing, handling a problem spot on, facing the children when they need help or have issues, or creating spaces that cater to larger networks. I structure out the operations, making sure my team is ready, making sure they're mentally prepared, making sure I'm able to pour into their cups, to fill their cups, for their cups to overflow, and vice versa, because I'm nothing without my team. If my team is not together, I am not together.