Mary McCracken

I would attribute my success to dependability, work ethic, service, and knowledge. People trust me because I know what I'm doing and I'm reliable. I think when you put your nose to the ground and work hard, surround yourself with good people, treat them nicely, and make people want to be around you at work, things land where they need to be. I've been blessed that in 18 years in this industry, I've never been without a job and I've never had to look for one - opportunities have always come to me. I still maintain relationships with all the people I've worked for in the past, so when I run into a situation where I don't know the answer, I know where to go. My focus on client retention and making sure everyone gets what they need has been key to my success.

The best career advice I've received is to treat everybody around you like you want to be treated and learn to coexist with whatever is around you, whether it's at the office or at home. This makes your work and family life and relationships so much better. Especially at work, even if you don't agree with somebody on something, just learn to coexist and work through it. You're going to work with these people for years, so it's not like it's temporary. If you can learn to coexist and work through things, it will make your working relationship and your work life so much better. You might disagree on one thing, but just figure it out, move on, and don't fight through emails. I've watched so many people fight through emails and I'm just eating my popcorn thinking, oh my gosh, I can't believe they're saying this. Just learn to coexist, and even if you don't agree on something, work through it.

Learn to find mentors. Having mentors to help guide you, especially in the beginning of your career, is really important.

The biggest challenges I face are when people don't think like me, which can be difficult. All the advances in technology have come at us so fast, and trying to keep up with all the different systems is tough. Everybody has a new answer for this or that, and it's like, oh gosh, what do we have to learn today? I don't even have time to learn that. Time management is really tough in this environment.

Honesty is big for me, along with work ethic. I value positivity - I want to see people laugh and see humor in the workplace. I want to work with people that have personality throughout the day and have a little bit of fun while we're working. I don't like offices where you can hear a pin drop - that's awful. We work in a very high-paced environment, but I think it's important to be able to walk out of your office and chit-chat and make fun of people and keep it light. Have fun a little bit, because there are people who are just miserable. I think it's very important to have that camaraderie. You spend so much time of your day in the office, you might as well enjoy it.