Her Story
About Katie
I founded Learning to Lean almost 8 years ago after working in corporate America for many years. I decided I wanted to help a wide variety of people and industries be successful, not just focus on one. As a lean consulting firm, we help people realize revolutionary results through lean and continuous improvement concepts - teaching them how to solve their problems, improve their processes to reduce waste, and add value for their customers. I'm a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and my journey into continuous improvement started when I was working for Jabil in Michigan. My boss approached me about getting my Lean Six Sigma green belt, and I told him no thank you. Then our plant manager and my boss came back and said they really thought I needed to do this. I said okay, and it completely changed the trajectory of my career because those two men saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. I've been a keynote speaker for around 20 years and have 22 years of project management experience. My next career goal is to do a TED Talk and continue helping people across all industries, from agriculture to healthcare to IT to manufacturing to candy producers and everything in between.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Katie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to perseverance and my faith. Everybody has their ups and downs in life, personally and professionally, and perseverance, along with my faith, has gotten me through all of the ups and downs and challenges and successes. I know that God has big plans for me, and sometimes I'm not as patient as I should be waiting to see what those plans are. I tell everyone, and I texted a friend this morning, you may have a lot of things going on, but at the end of the day, we're so blessed. I tell my husband that all the time. We were walking in last night from taking care of the horses, and I said, we've really had a blessed day today. We're very blessed, and you have to make sure that you pay attention to even the small blessings. It's not just the big ones, it's the small ones, too. Like, this worked out for us, or that worked perfectly, or everybody's healthy today. You have to be able to make sure that you recognize those things, the large and the small blessings in your life.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice is to make sure that you find others that can help you - they don't even have to be in your industry. When I started my own business, we were new to Wisconsin, so I didn't know a lot of people or other entrepreneurs. I'm originally from Michigan, moved to Florida, and came to Wisconsin. One of my good friends that helped me happened to be the lady that did my hair. She and her husband had just opened a computer business, and my background's actually in IT, so when I would get my hair done, I would be coming armed with a whole bunch of questions, like how do I do this, and where do I go for that, and what would be the best way to do this. I am an introvert that plays extrovert on TV today, so asking for help is challenging, but it was in an environment where I felt most comfortable. My advice is to find like-minded people and realize that it's okay to ask for help and guidance. It looks different for everyone. Some people like to join groups and organizations, which I've done, and then other people, once they are able to find somebody, maybe it just works best one-on-one for them.
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