Nancy Perez

I attribute my success to having a great support system. It's not just one thing, but fundamentally it comes from the values brought home. I know everyone's life and family looks different, but it could also be your community that you surround yourself with, your friends, your family. It's the overall surrounding yourself with people that believe in you, believe in your talents, believe in your values, and strengthen you along the way. I think that if you know yourself enough, you project that type of people coming into your life, and I think that the more you grow older, you kind of learn more about yourself, and those are the type of people that you penetrate in your lifestyle, and what you do professionally and personally.

The best career advice, especially for young women, is really not only developing confidence, but really focusing on what drives you and being truthful with yourself. From there, it's about what can I do on the day-to-day that I can capitalize on, not only what my talents are, but what I truly love to do. As girls get older and go through different career paths in different seasons in life, it's really important to focus on our health, our mental health and physical health, because all of that is tied together. You can't have success if you don't take care of your body mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. From there, you're gonna capitalize on your career path, on what really gets you up in the morning, what you're really going to enjoy. And once you connect all of this together, you're going to have a more fulfilled life, not only professionally, but personally as well.

My advice to women entering our industry is very much related to what I've mentioned before, but fundamentally it starts with your overall wellness, your mental and physical wellness. From there, it transfers to your professional life, and then really focusing on where can I move the needle to better my talents and to better the organization that I work with. I think it's all tied together. I don't think there's one thing more important than another. It's the whole package. The more you know what your talents are and what your strengths are, and you work on your weaknesses, I think it helps with your overall of who you are professionally and personally.

There's always going to be challenges. It could be political challenges, the economy, but if I zone it down to what it means in our day-to-day, I would probably say it's more along the lines with workforce development. I think everything else is cyclical in our industry. We're going to have highs and lows, so I think it's really capitalizing on what we can control internally and how we can help our community by educating our community and educating beyond on how can we help. Which is one of our values. How can we help the industry? How can we help the community? And really focusing on what manufacturing is all about in every sector that we are in, which is Aerospace, Defense, and Energy.

In our organization, and it's very much aligned with our personal side, one value is you have to love it. You have to love what you do, and that goes professionally and personally. Really taking care of yourself, but in the work side, really loving the manufacturing world. Otherwise, it's just gonna be another job. Another value is being helpful. Again, at home, one of our values is to help each other, but at work as well, helping our colleagues, helping our customers, and really trying to create synergy, positive synergy, and not overlooking those small details where this person or this customer really needs my assistance in jumping in. Another value that we have that is very related personally is raising the bar and always striving, pushing yourself a little more. How can I better this strategically in the manufacturing, my day-to-day stuff? What can I do to better a system? And then, again, at home, that's very relatable personally, always pushing yourself, whether it's through wellness or eating better, exercising more. And then, lastly, I would say growing that gray matter, educating yourself in the industry, what's going on in the trade, what's going on internally in the company, how can I better, whether it's through technology or just learning a different skill set, really focus on that just always learning mentality.