Michelle K. Kidder

I attribute my success to my upbringing and what I learned from my dad's business. He had a real estate business with rentals, a car wash, laundromat, and things like that, and I was very much engaged with that business. That totally influenced how I engage with people and how I think about things, how I think about what needs to be done, and always being proactive and thinking steps ahead instead of waiting for it. Working at the lab with all kinds of people, understanding how they communicate and figuring out how to get them to work better, listen better, or be better for themselves - that definitely came from my upbringing. I've also learned that if you get with the right people where you feel like your career wants to go, you ask them to open a door for you. Having somebody give you the opportunity is the biggest thing you can ever have. If you have somebody that's backing you up and advocating for you, or opening a door for you, it makes a huge difference. Now you've got to take that and do it well, because it's yours to lose. But I think I've proven myself enough, which is why I'm in my second part of strategy for the lab - they at least trusted me with the vision and how to move things along.

Critical materials and minerals are going to be a long, long, long-standing issue for the United States. We're shutting off a lot of communication with China and certain other countries, and they supply all our critical materials and minerals. I just got back from a company in Dallas where we went to engage with them to see what we can do - they do mining for critical materials and make magnets out of critical materials. I'm setting up strategy here right now for the lab on what we need to get ready for and new funding sources, because this is going to be long-term. Our goals are to work on problems that are relevant to the taxpayer and what we can do to de-risk science for industry.

What's most important to me is helping people and seeing them be successful. It really makes me satisfied to see when people are successful, not just myself but other people. I mean, I want to see myself successful too, of course, but guiding people has been my biggest thing - whether it's guiding them in their science or guiding them in their path of how to get funding, which is not an easy thing to do and requires a very different mindset. I've realized more lately that young women are reaching out to me because they see that I busted through and got through this, and they're looking to me to show them how I did it. It's not that I'm a role model, but it's more that they see themselves in me, whether it's age, sex, nationality, or culture. Making sure that somebody they can relate to has made it through is really important. I don't do HR well and I don't like to micromanage - I'm more at the level of what can I do to help the bigger picture and help where things need to go. I like to think that my view on things and how to interact with people are really applicable - I have to be able to think of things, listen really well, and hear what sponsors are saying and what they want, and execute on that by bringing the right people to the table.