Whitney Shepperson

I definitely attribute my success to my mom. She has been a business owner and a single mom for a good portion of my younger years. She did remarry when I was in high school. I would also say just some of the things I've been through. My son went through a bone marrow transplant, and that definitely changed the way I approach getting things done. When you have a choice of hoping someone is going to make a good choice for you, or making sure someone is going to make a good choice for you, and it deals with the health and livelihood of your children, you fight differently. That made me look at life differently. I also don't take things as seriously now - quality is an extremely stressful job, but when I think about how my son could have died, it's not that big of a deal. It'll be okay. My process for how much stress I'm going to put into things has definitely been qualified by that. I don't take things as seriously, which I think helps. And I also use my voice more. I was a very meek person 15 years ago. I don't have time for that anymore. If I see something that I definitely know needs to be done differently, I'm going to tell you.

Don't be afraid to experience. Don't be afraid to try something new. Don't be afraid to fail. And find something that you have passion for, because there's going to be a point when you don't want to do it anymore, and the passion is what will keep you there.

I'm always going to say that in operations, you don't see a lot of women. I'm the only woman on my team. I think diversity is getting better - I do see more people of color and more people who are not American coming into the quality operations space, but not a lot of women at all. I also think we have a good opportunity to figure out a different way to teach. Since COVID, we've seen a different caliber of people come into the workforce. You don't see that 'find a good job where I can retire' mentality anymore. People want to come into a role, maybe get two or three years experience, then hop. And if they don't get certain compensation, they're hopping early. I don't want to call it disloyal, because there's something to be said for people who know their worth walking in the door. But if this is the status and type of employee workforce we're going to see going forward, our traditional approach to training and building up a quality system has to change. You can't rely on 5-page, 10-page, or even 20-page standard operating procedures to tell someone how to do something. We have to do something to get people verified quicker, because they're probably going to be here a year. We also have to look at better ways of coaching, mentoring, and developing people who aren't always invested in it for the long run, and find a way to respect that.

Integrity is most important to me. I don't want to call it grit, I don't know if that's a value, but you need to work hard. Regardless of what you get for it, why would you not choose to do it the right way and work hard for it? Integrity and hard work.