Michelle Taylor

I would say persistence is probably one of the biggest attributes that has led to my success. You know, I am persistent on something when we've got a goal, and I'll do whatever I have to do to accomplish that goal. But the first thing I think that has helped me is being respectful of others. I love the people that I work with, and I know that's a strong word and it's not considered the thing to say that we're like a family, but we really are. We all look out for each other, and the street goes two ways. I worked for a dean one time at FSU and I told him, I'll be flexible with you, I just expect the same thing in return. I'll make sure you always get the long end of the stick. I try to be that way with the people that work for me as well. We spend more waking hours with the people we work with than we do with our family sometimes, so I try to offer that same flexibility to the people that work for me too.

I've been very fortunate that the people I have found myself working for have all been superstar mentors to me. I've learned things from every single one of them, and some of those aren't even IT folks. Like right now, my boss is not an IT person. So I guess my career advice is surround yourself with people who are great at what they do, whatever that is, and learn as much as you can from them and emulate the things that they do best. And learn from other people's mistakes too. I'm gonna make mistakes, but I want them to be unique. I don't want to make the same mistake somebody else already made. That would just be a waste.

I would first of all commend her for that choice, because when I was in school, I literally was the only female in class sometimes. It kind of worked up to about 3 of us, and the sad thing is, here we are 30, 40 years later, and it's not that much better. There's some improvement, but it's still heavily men. So I would strongly encourage that, and tell women, don't try to see people as male or female. They're just coworkers. Don't get hung up on he's harder to talk to because he's a guy or any of that kind of stuff. Treat people like people, and demand that they treat you that way.

Even after 30 years in this field, it remains largely male-dominated, which requires confidence, resilience, and a commitment to continuous learning. However, I’m encouraged by the steady progress toward greater inclusivity and expanding opportunities for women.

For some people, there's a clear line between work and personal, but to me those lines are very blurred. That goes back to that flexibility and work-life balance. For example, both of my boys played baseball growing up in high school, and I was the music lady that did the walk-up songs and all that kind of stuff. My boys are 8 years apart, so I did it 4 years for the first one, then I had 4 years off, and I did it 4 years for the second one. Some of their games were at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so I would have to leave work and go over and do my other job as BJMT, that's what they nicknamed me. You can't put a price tag on being able to do that, and that's what's kept me at the county, because I was able and it was welcomed to carve out that time for my family. Now, I might be working till 2 o'clock in the morning when I get home because I had something I had to get done, and that was okay. Making sure they got the long end of the stick. I think that's just one of the biggest things to me, and it's worked well for me, it's paid off for me. My staff seems to enjoy it, and I just think everybody deserves that work-life balance.