Her Story
About Michelle
Michelle Freeman is a risk management and enterprise business continuity professional based in Texas, United States. She currently serves as a Shared Service & Risk Manager at Tokyo Electron US, where she oversees enterprise risk across multiple sites and supports business continuity planning, threat assessments, and incident management. In this role, she works closely with site leadership teams and executive stakeholders to identify operational risks, develop mitigation strategies, and coordinate response efforts during significant incidents, including escalation to global headquarters when required.
Her career spans more than two decades across safety engineering, emergency management, and enterprise risk roles in high-risk, highly regulated industries such as semiconductor manufacturing and power generation. She previously worked at Samsung Austin Semiconductor in multiple roles, including Safety Manager and Emergency Response Team (ERT) Coordinator, where she led large-scale safety programs, managed incident investigations, and contributed to measurable reductions in workplace incidents through cultural and procedural improvements. Earlier in her career, she also worked in power generation at Luminant, where she led fire brigade operations and site safety programs, and began her professional journey as a Safety Engineer supporting large-scale semiconductor construction and installation projects.
She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Safety Engineering from Warren National University and an Associate of Science in Construction Engineering Technologies from Trinidad State College. She also maintains professional certifications including the Associate Business Continuity Professional (ABCP) credential from DRI International and has completed additional training in risk management, stakeholder management, and leadership development. Throughout her career, she has focused on strengthening organizational resilience through practical risk governance, emergency preparedness, and continuous improvement in safety culture, with a strong emphasis on accountability, learning from incidents, and aligning risk strategy with operational realities.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Michelle
01What do you attribute your success to?
I had a very good support group growing up. My father was one, and this is going to sound backwards, but he was very old school, so women did not go into construction in his view. He supported me financially, like helping me get my degree, but when it came to job opportunities, it was always 'well, you're going to go up against other people, so don't get your hopes up' or 'you're not going to make the top dollar in that industry.' That was what he had been accustomed to. I will say the first internship I received, not even a job, was actually as much as what he was making prior to him becoming a manager, so that was kind of my proof to him. A lot of my success was contributed to him because I wanted to prove that I could, and that just because I was a woman didn't matter at all. Along the way, I've had mentors such as David Medic, who was in the coal mining industry. I met him going through high-angle rope rescue, and he has not only corrected me on many things but also shown me how to excel in this industry and how to maneuver some of the trickier points when it comes to getting buy-in from management. Beyond that, it's really my family and my kids, because they were always there regardless of what I was doing. It was always intriguing to my kids especially because I always had interesting stories coming home. They were always there to support me through long nights, like when we went through COVID and I was on call 24/7. They were champs.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I ever received, and my kids look at me funny because I give it to them, is the question: how did you fail today? The meaning behind it is, if you think you're never going to fail, you're going to be wrong, and it's a harder lesson to learn that way. Every time that you fail, it's an opportunity to learn and grow. So if you're not trying things and failing, then you're not growing, which means you're sitting stagnant or you're dying, and you don't want to go that direction.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Just look forward. Don't listen to the minutiae and everything, you know, put your blinders on, don't listen to all your side profiles. You see the goal in front of you, and you just work towards that. And when you stumble and fall, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and continue on. There's always going to be women out here that are here to mentor you through it, help you through it, let you just cuss and discuss with them if that's what you need to do. So find a good mentor. I'm mentoring two other women right now. Just drive. Just move forward.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right now, the biggest challenge is the economics and getting funding where I need it so that I can actually excel this company to where it needs to be from a risk standpoint. That translates into, I'm a single individual running this, and I need a team. If we want to be effective and want to have a world-class risk management and business continuity plan, a resilience plan if you will, for our company, I need a team. With the economy, especially in our semiconductor world right now, it is very tight. That's one of the biggest challenges because everything I'm asking for costs money. And in the same field of safety, they don't see a return on investment because you can't see what you prevented. So to make those cases in front of management, you have to be very strategic and know how to present to management to help them understand what the worth is, even if it's not in a dollar amount.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
One of the biggest things is honesty and admitting when you're wrong. The two words that I really dislike are 'I'm sorry.' I don't want to see words, I want to see actions. So I need people to own up to what they're doing, and I want them to work hard, and I'm okay with them failing because, like I said, it means that there's an opportunity for growth. I also believe strongly in proving yourself regardless of the obstacles. I grew up in a world where my father didn't really support women going into construction, but I wanted to prove that I could and that just because I was a woman didn't matter at all. I grew up from a career standpoint in the field with the guys doing the work, so they raised me. I'm tough-skinned and I can banter with the best of them when it comes to construction talk. That experience of proving myself in traditionally male-dominated fields has shaped who I am.
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