Melissa Childers

I attribute my success to mentors, hands down. I've had some tremendous mentors over my 13 years in the industry. They've really helped guide me along the way and shaped me into the leader that I am today. It's been about having those seasoned professionals guiding me, team members who have been around for decades with these products. I've learned to respect and honor those team members who have years of service, to hear what their story is, hear what lessons they've learned, and what has worked in industry. At the same time, I bring my skill sets and strengths, maybe on the technology side, to help them become more confident in those parts of the industry. It's symbiotic in that way.

The best career advice I've ever received is to make sure you try to do it right the first time. Put your best foot forward, have all the facts that you have, and really ensure that you're putting your best foot forward, your best quality of work forward. Working to do it right the first time is something that really sticks with me and guides how I approach my work.

I would say surround yourself with a squad of supporters. Wherever you can find those supporters for you, whether that's someone from school, or someone in the industry, or someone at a networking event that you can find, build that support system up to strengthen you and empower you. That way you can be that confident leader and that confident woman at work. Having that support network is essential to building the confidence you need to succeed as a woman in manufacturing.

For me, the biggest challenge is working to balance everything. There are expectations at work and expectations at home. It's continuously evaluating what all needs to be done, and you work on it as much as you can, and the things you don't get to, you don't get to, and sometimes that's okay. Understanding that balance and working on that piece of it is always an opportunity for me. It's about finding that work-life balance and being okay with the fact that you can't always do everything.

The values that are most important to me in my work and personal life are building trust and compassion. Starting with trust, whether that's trust with my coworkers at work or with my family at home, it really just makes everything a lot more enjoyable when you trust the teams that you're working with and your family has your back when you're at work. The compassion piece is the other big one for me. Having that empathy for the team members, especially as a leader myself leading a team of about 20 team members, it's important to lead with that compassion at work. Then having that same compassion at home, as a wife and as a mother, is something that I work to value as well.