Trina Limpert: Challenging Expectations and Fostering Opportunities in Tech

As the Slopes Collective Executive Director and co-founder of TechMoms, Trina Limpert joins us to recount the strides she's taken to carve out a place for women in technology. Our discussion travels through her pioneering efforts at eBay, where she introduced coding camps for employees' daughters, to the birth of TechMoms during the challenging times of COVID-19, showcasing her remarkable ability to rally communities around a vision for inclusivity and empowerment.

This conversation is an invitation to listen, learn, and become an advocate for change, bridging the gap between supportive words and decisive action to forge a fairer future in tech.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to Elevate, a women's leadership institute podcast where we showcase stories, celebrate successes and shift culture. Hello, welcome to this episode of the Women's Leadership Institute podcast. We have our co-host, chris Jenkins, co-founder of Mobley. Also our special guest, trina Limpert, who is the Slopes Collective Executive Director and also the co-founder of TechMoms. Trina, welcome to the show. We're excited to have you. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you have a work ethic that is unparalleled. You are everywhere in so many things in the tech sector and helping women. We'd love to get just a little bit about your background. Sure, start out there.

Speaker 2 0:50

Yeah, my background has been in tech for 30 years now. Yeah, I always question myself on that number, but yes. So I did my computer science degree in 1996, but had been working in mainframes at Hill Air Force Base or Graveyard. I've worked at Novell, ebay, oracle, had a long, long career and enjoyed my career. I love learning new technology systems. Still in it, I'm actually going to MIT right now, so I just am an ever learner. I guess is the way. Evergreen learner. I picked that up for UVU. I work with UVU a bit, but I just, throughout my career, always looked around and went where are all the women? These are like the best jobs for moms. Why are they not here?

Speaker 2 1:45

You call tech jobs, mom jobs, tech jobs are mom jobs and why do we not promote those with our children and our daughters or with others? And it bothered me and really where tech moms kind of came from. Like a short story here, I was the global president of women in IT. I think that's when we first did our first podcast.

Speaker 1 2:09

Yeah, I think it was 2018.

Speaker 2 2:10

It's wild, yeah it's been a little while right. So and I remember talking about women in IT then this is pretty tech moms right and so it's just always been something I'm passionate about.

Speaker 2 2:23

But one of the programs that we did while I was at eBay was coding camps for employees' daughters and just started to see that the men in the organization started to really get a lot more involved. And I was like this is different with all the other programs I run. Why is it now? And it was because now it's somebody I care about, now it's my daughter is going to go through this. And now I'm like, oh, wow, I need to make sure that I'm getting more involved because this is going to be my daughter's dealing with these challenges growing up.

Speaker 2 2:53

And it became more personal. Rather than my colleague I don't care about, it's like, wow, these are the people I love, these are people I care about. And started to get questions like well, what about my wife? I know she wants to find a career, what programs are out there? How's she going to detect? And what about my sister or my neighbor or my friend right? And I started getting these questions and at the same time, I was running technology operations at eBay and was working with my leadership team and we were talking about hiring more diversity, more women in the workforce. And they're like, well, women just don't go into tech. And I said well, first of, all.

Speaker 4 3:31

I'm sitting right here.

Speaker 2 3:34

I'm right here, first of all because yes, we do, so that blanket statement's false. And then, second of all, well, why is that? Why is that happening? Like, yeah, maybe not as much, and so what is happening there, instead of just saying, oh yeah, they just don't? What are the things that we can do to actually create change, right, what are the things that like, well, let's fix that then, not just say that's how it is and so I'm like, fine, I'll go freaking, create them and started to put together programs for tech. It wasn't called tech moms then, but it started putting together. The idea is, we have an amazing community here. I just love working in this industry and in Utah, just started to call, make phone calls, and one of the individuals I contacted put me in contact with McKell Blake, my other co-founder. I actually met my third co-founder at Silicon Slope Summit in a hallway. Yeah, yeah, it's not fun.

Speaker 2 4:34

Yeah, so the three of us got together. Mckell was actually living in San Francisco at the time, but she'd gone through a similar program to what we're running now. It's not quite the same, but she's like I want to bring this program to Utah. She was from here, happens to be. I'm in the Bay Area for work, and so I go to her flat in San Francisco and we sit down and we have a shared vision for what we want to bring together. And next, you know they had to move back to Utah and so she moves back. We're launching programs. Our first program. She actually was not living here, so it's just, everything came together in a way that is indescribable.

Speaker 2 5:18

And this was in the middle of COVID. Yeah Right, we were doing temperature checks and face masks and social distancing and our childcare was getting sick and our trainers were high risk. It was a little crazy, to be honest. Those first couple we were getting shut down, quarantined in the middle of class. We got to go online super fast and just, we've been very fluid. We've learned to become very fluid with whatever comes our way. So I have an amazing team now that's doing this program. So, yeah, fit a lot there in just a few minutes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:55

I have to touch on that.

Speaker 2 5:56

Yeah, I know it's been an amazing run.

Speaker 1 6:00

I really am curious about the idea of when you started bringing in the daughters, it became personal.

Speaker 2 6:07

Yes.

Speaker 1 6:08

And then the men started getting curious. Yeah. And of course that's a generalization right. Men started getting curious. How do you take them from curiosity and awareness to implementation of diversity, of why it matters to have diversity right?

Speaker 2 6:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:25

Your idea of it's not just that women don't go into tech, but what are the barriers and barriers past that? Why do we need women in tech?

Speaker 2 6:32

Yeah, I've learned over the years because I had been doing a lot of culture consulting and talking to companies about these topics right, and what I've learned is you can't go in with a. There's something wrong with you approach right. Yeah, everybody has bias, it just exists, yeah, okay. So instead, looking at ourselves as emotionally intelligent leaders and emotionally intelligent leaders are able to understand everyone's life experience and really approaching it from a perspective of what type of leader do you want to be? Do you want to be somebody that can only work with a certain group, or somebody that looks like you and that's it, that's all you can work with? Or do you want to be able to say, hey, I can lead and enable anyone from any background experience and I want to do that?

Speaker 1 7:21

So it's empowering.

Speaker 2 7:22

It's empowering them right and saying that there's a type of leader that you should be aspiring to become and by avoiding some of these difficult topics of bias and sexism and stereotypes and intolerance or some of these things, rather than avoiding it, knowing that that's the journey. We always say that you've got to get uncomfortable right to be able to become a great leader, so get comfortable and that applies. It's funny because a lot of times it'll be like, oh, that's great, except for these topics. This is just way too uncomfortable for me.

Speaker 1 8:02

I can't move into those walls.

Speaker 2 8:06

So you've got to really just stop and recognize that that's part of the process, right, like lean into that going. Oh why am I so uncomfortable being aware of our feelings, being aware of that? Oh why am I avoiding working with certain individuals? Or why do I look around the room and everybody looks like me, right, and so it's just that? Start with the awareness is what I would say of it. I've stopped preaching on the why it's important and instead saying let's focus on why it's important for you, not everybody else, right? What type of person do you want to become? And then start from there and say these are growth opportunities for you.

Speaker 1 8:52

I think that's interesting with leaders, because growth does require being uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 8:58

And so often when we get into leadership, we do the things we're so good at, and so growing and being uncomfortable sometimes is something that I've seen leaders not really want to embrace because they see it as a weakness, but I love how you couch that. Of what kind of leader do you want to be? I think that's brilliant. I'd love to talk a little bit about you and Chris and your conversation around Silicon Slopes and around Tech Week and a few of those things, because I believe that's what brought Chris to us originally. Oh, really Okay.

Speaker 4 9:32

Yeah, so there was that article that was written about women in Silicon Slopes, right?

Speaker 1 9:37

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 9:39

So a little different.

Empowering Women in the Workplace

Speaker 4 9:40

But the interesting thing and I love everything that you've said so far, and just from the male perspective I got thrown into not thrown into, but strived for a leadership position.

Speaker 4 9:51

Got into that position, did look around and realized there weren't any women on the team, or like there was only one, and so a few things transpired that really started helping me understand that this is not the world that I want my daughters to be growing up in, where they're the only one, or where they don't have the opportunities or where the rest of the team doesn't really recognize that they're a woman and that they have different needs and things like that. And so a couple of those one of them was team outings we would select hey, we're all going to go to the batting cages and that may be great for a lot of women, like there's some that just love to go, they play softball or whatever, but they didn't even register that that wasn't going to be the best thing, right. And so, anyway, so long over time, right, I've just continued to just be more sensitive to those things and recognize that, yes, although it does look harder to hire women, they're out there. You just have to sometimes look a little harder and yeah, build your network.

Speaker 2 10:50

That's right.

Speaker 4 10:51

And so when I read that article, which was just recent, in the last six months or so that had been written, you know about how essentially women in silicon slopes are in this area in Utah. It's not working the way that it should. It's actually really bad, and there's there's still being mistreated, and I just was appalled. I just thought this is insane, that this is happening. And that's what I called you, because I saw your name in the thing and I was like how did that happen?

Speaker 4 11:16

And you know we had that conversation about. You know a little bit of a surprise to both of us, but just would like to get your perspective, you know, here, if you can, on what brought that up and sort of where you think Utah is.

Speaker 2 11:28

Yeah. So it's funny because that article I do a lot of interviews and podcasts and things like that. I've never forgotten that I'd even done that interview and I one day I just started getting just a lot of messages in my LinkedIn inbox and it was really interesting. This is just kind of I'm going to just give you my perspective, because it was really interesting, because it tied very much to what the article was talking about, which was the challenges for women in silicon slopes. Right, it was kind of they had this kind of dark title.

Speaker 2 12:02

I don't know if I really agree with the title, but the content was, was valid, right, and what I saw was I had individuals like you, chris, a lot of men reaching out to me saying this is a polling, we should be changing something, what can I do, which is wonderful, and and it was. I so appreciated that, and I had a few different men reach out that way and I've built really great relationships and we've had great conversations on what are the things that we can do, and just asking the question, right, like I don't agree with this what can I do, what? What are the things I should be doing? And I think any woman would be glad to have those conversations on. At the same time, I had a lot of women reaching out to me in fear and and they said Trina, aren't you scared that everybody's going to stop talking to you? Aren't you afraid that everybody's just going to reject you because you spoke your truth?

Speaker 2 13:01

Like just so telling that power dynamic that's happening and it and it just was kind of like this social awareness experiment almost of like wow, the women were responding in fear that they were speaking up, where the men were saying, wow, this is really happening. And I think that's what's causing the issues, is that there's a lot of fear of speaking up, and it's not that it's invalid fear is that that's what's happening in the workplace. When I used to speak up, I used to get rejected, pushed down, had negative responses, and so that's what we've been learning is to live in fear of speaking up, and a few years ago and I actually wrote about this in my book is that we have to stop building a thicker skin and instead get a stronger voice, and I have to live that in that article right, like that, it was like okay, there was a little bit of that like, oh well, maybe our people gonna reject me now because I spoke my truth. I don't know, but I think it's important that we start doing that, because otherwise nobody knows it's even happening, right, if we don't start saying, hey, you made.

Speaker 2 14:13

There's this discrepancy. That's very real. It's not made up, it's not people being too sensitive, or there's definitely some issues that need to be addressed and brought to awareness and the more that we can create environments that allow people to speak up. That's what's most important. Instead of auto rejecting or pushing people away or saying that's not okay, start listening and trying to understand, just like the conversation we had of. Let me try and understand this. Right, and it's hard to put your like. I still have a hard time putting my head around just how broad and the number of issues that we're dealing with are. It's not just one thing right.

Speaker 2 14:59

There's hundreds of little things that are adding up, that then create this type of dynamic.

Speaker 4 15:05

Well, and one of the things that I appreciate about what you've done and raising your voice too is in speaking up is I've been thinking recently a lot about I was more taught growing up that actions speak louder than words, and I get that and I tried to do that as much as I can, but now I am learning that right, the words actually have quite a lot and can travel really far. They're gonna have broad reaching effects and I think more people need to feel more comfortable that, yes, you can stay in the background and be that person and it's a good leader of doing the right thing and actions can speak very loud. But I think there is, too a real benefit to actually speaking up.

Speaker 2 15:44

Speaking up and speaking up on somebody's behalf.

Speaker 4 15:46

That's right.

Speaker 2 15:47

Like I just this last week I had. I won't give the scenario because it's just awful, but I deal with sexism still so blatantly that I'll be like wow, did that just happen again? You know like, oh, you're too bossy, you're just thank you. That's what I've learned to say, thank you.

Speaker 1 16:09

I love that you're repraising that. Yeah, I'm like that's wonderful.

Speaker 2 16:13

Thank you for that comment. But then when I have other individuals in the room that see it and not say anything, we need to not just put it on the women to not speak up. We need to invite everyone to go hey, maybe that wasn't okay, and so I think just it's not just women need to get better at speaking up. I think everyone needs to get better at speaking up and recognizing it and seeing it in the moment, like if you hear that there's three, three or four. Like if you ever hear somebody's too bossy, too aggressive I've heard I was told I was too crisp, right, those are a stereotype in your head, that you're comparing what you think that person should be like. So it's a trigger, it's a red flag.

Speaker 2 17:05

Like two yeah very much so, and or you should, you should do this, or you should be like this those two are, if you ever hear two or should step back and go. Oh, that might be bias coming out. I need to kind of question that for a minute before responding or say, hey, maybe we need to rethink that right, and so I think that that would be wonderful. I look back in my career and how much I dealt with that like nonstop I just look back and go. It would have been great if other people in the room that they saw it would say hey, hey, hey. I think that might be a microaggression.

Speaker 1 17:47

So I have kids in elementary school and I've recently been really leaning into microaggression, especially around like being bossy and all these qualities that are so great. But in the bully campaign like anti-bullying campaign if you see it, say something, say something. Yeah, say something. And I don't know if I'd go as far to call this type of stuff bullying, but it does matter to have someone speak in your behalf. You know both male allies and female allies.

Speaker 2 18:17

Both, absolutely gender doesn't matter, you just need to speak up. So in my book, the way I put it, so I talk about this life first model for courageous living right. My book's called Orchestrating Life Work Harmony. How do you find harmony in your life? And the way I would I structure it is you have your life is like a garden and you need to put yourself at the center of your garden and then grow from there right, and you have to set boundaries, I call it. You invite in the gardeners that bloom, but you set fence lines and you keep out the goats that consume. And I tell goat stories.

Speaker 2 18:52

That's my, I grew up with goats, so but one of the things to realize is that my garden and your garden are very different. I deal with pests. You may not deal with those same pests, and so pest control is really important and we have to deal with a lot more pests in our lives. And I think just the awareness that oh yeah, I've got to deal with all of these different dynamics and things while I'm trying to grow my garden, that you may not need to right, and appreciating that and understanding that is happening at different levels, and then, if you are a person of color. You've got additional pests that you're not you're now having to deal with, and I think just the analogy works great for little kids all the way to adults, right.

Speaker 1 19:39

That's a great visual yes.

Speaker 2 19:41

I actually told this to one of my tech moms when I was coming up with the model and writing the book, and she told it to her son and she got a call from his teacher and she's like what is this about goats? She's like he's in here saying I've got a goat bully that's coming after me and I've got to keep him out of my garden and I'm like, okay, maybe I need to do a children's book.

Speaker 1 20:02

Yes, that's what I was thinking, cause we need to teach it all the way right From the very beginning. Yes, from the very beginning, yes. I want to talk to a little bit. I love that idea because some women just are like too much, too many pests, just let them run over the garden.

Speaker 4 20:17

That's it.

Speaker 1 20:19

You talk a little bit with tech moms about its unpacking boxes. Yes, there are multiple layers, right? Yeah, I have heard for people who train women to go into tech fields that women get in there and they have the skills, but they're often the onlys and that can take a toll. So let's talk a little bit about this unpacking cause. I think especially for women, and sometimes for men as well, that matters.

Empowering Women in Tech Networking

Speaker 2 20:45

Oh, it matters. There's like a you're having to unwrap the boxes that you've been put in and trying to understand what are the layers there, when one of the reasons why tech moms succeeds isn't that we're doing tech skills for women. It's because we're giving them the internal confidence and the things that they need to be able to withstand some of the challenges that, when they go into those roles, they're going to need to deal with. The second part of why we're successful is because we set up a community of support and knowing that, hey, I'm dealing with this, how do I respond? We have those conversations all the time, and now, with this community of 500 women, you've got, I joke, we're not building a bro club, we're building a bra club. So that might be the next book, the bra club.

Speaker 1 21:33

So many memes. I know right, I'm like I've got so many ideas.

Speaker 2 21:39

But it's that same idea of, like our women are hiring women, we're referring women, it's all the same networking benefits that you have when you don't have that and you're coming in as a return to work mom, out of the workforce for five to 15 years, you don't have a network to pull from, you don't have. I can't call my friend that's been in tech for 30 years and say, hey, I'm looking for this job and I've got the skills, but help me get in. They don't have that and so, trying to come in, you feel so isolated and what I've loved, like these last couple of years is we've gone to like the Silicon slope summit and we've worked to be able to get them out and networking and I'll show up and we've been this year I did a good job, we branded, we had them all in their t-shirts and you'd be walking around, you'd just see like which is so great for the girls, but people there's my people right, it's belonging.

Speaker 2 22:30

That's the belonging that we need to create and go. I have a community of connection that I belong here and I'm wanted here and this community wants me to work for their companies. That is very, very different and that's the transformation that we've been trying to make here is going. Yeah, I hired a tech mom right and excited about it and proud of it, rather than what it has been in the past, Like them, trying to insert themselves without the awareness or the acceptance has been missing.

Speaker 4 23:01

It's interesting to hear a little bit about the confidence right. That part of what tech moms is doing is really driving that confidence, because when we had our first conversation you know 2018 or whatever yeah, my whole thing was I was trying to get, trying to help people feel confident in starting their own company, like get out there and join tech and also get into tech, I think it's really great to do that right and a lot of people didn't have that confidence to just like jump in and do that, et cetera.

Speaker 4 23:28

So I know we've kind of talked a little bit about this before. Patty and I know we've had conversations a little bit about confidence. In particular, I had talked about, you know, where job descriptions have all these requirements and women in many cases, I've been told, feel that if they don't measure up to what's on there then they actually don't apply to the job. And I know from my own experience that I apply for the job even if it doesn't, even if I feel like I don't have all the qualifications, and often we'll still get the job. Like I can say, hey, let me talk to the person, I can show them I'll get the job right. And so I'm curious that within your work with tech moms, you sort of how you're educating and helping and training on that topic, if any.

Speaker 2 24:10

There's a few things happening there. One in coaching the women to apply anyway, like understanding you don't need to have everything in the kitchen sink to be able to get the job. Like that is part of it. But there's another side of this, which is the employers which are just throwing these job descriptions out there that are asking for way more than the job is. And I remember getting we were working with a company on a return ship program, right, and it was for a return ship, where they wanted to get women returning to work into software development five to seven years of senior software development experience. And I had to step back and go. This is a return ship. This seems like a senior software developer, right, but everybody wants the senior software developers and the conversations that we're having.

Speaker 2 24:59

We're not just working with the women. We're having dozens, if not hundreds, of conversations with companies on how to create solid pipelines for our women to come in Because the entry level software development roles. We need to increase our internships, we need to create those pipelines so that they can get in and become a senior software developer in five to seven years. We don't create those positions now, we're never gonna get the pipeline we're looking for for this diverse talent. We keep saying we have shortages in being able to find people, but yet we close the door to so many that are looking to get in right, and a lot of the women we are working with are not just coming from, you know, out of the workforce. These are, you know, high school to doctorates, return to work, to work transitioners. We're all over it's the experience that they're coming from higher ed or teaching or finance. We've had executives from banks move over and be senior product managers.

Speaker 2 26:06

Right it, I think, not negating. I think there's a misconception of what a tech mom is and they are very highly skilled and we underestimate and undervalue these women too frequently. And so just creating those internships they're coming in. We also need to look. There's so much here. But one other thing I would touch on is, if you have the opportunity to look at your internship program, don't just say, okay, internships are for college students coming out to give them experience. You have adult workers that are wanting to transition their careers, that can't go take an internship at $10 an hour or 15, I guess, with minimum wage, but they you need to look at your internship programs a little bit differently and knowing these are skilled workforce coming in, going to hit the ground running and then, you know, move very quickly. When we see those internships, we actually see them move into positions within three months and working full time. Wow.

Speaker 2 27:07

And and move it. They move really, really fast, right, they just needed the chance. They just needed the chance, and I think that's the gap of, yes, first having them apply, which we're working on. But I think the bigger issue is making sure that we have enough of these open entry roles into the position, so because we can fill those pipelines right, right and, and those put people in those, and so I think it's coming from it from both angles.

Speaker 4 27:36

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think, just having been somebody that writes the job descriptions and has done the interviews and thinking through some of the changes that can be made, it had never occurred to me that the job description that I created had some sort of bias in it.

Speaker 1 27:52

Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 4 27:53

And as I'm now working through this kind of thinking, through kind of how I want this to look for mobily and just in general for my daughters as they grow up, that we're less thinking about or putting it where there's some bias, but also making it easier for or better for other people to apply that maybe wouldn't normally do that.

Speaker 2 28:12

One of the things that we've done is I've kind of want to flip. I wish I could just like reflipped the whole industry, candidate recruiting and instead, like these communities where we're doing the work and we actually do this we have a full-time placement coordinator that works with companies and then connects with the women, and when you have those introductions that way, it makes a difference. And so the companies are coming to us and saying, hey, I have this job. Can we review your women and the candidates within your pipeline and then pull them in, and it's like they almost become like talent coaches. It's a volunteer position, right Almost, where your company can come work with us and say we want to be able to help coach them into our company, and it's just a instead of putting the onus on the women to be able to apply to everything because we already know that doesn't work for anyone, like the black hole application process, right Like it never gets through.

Speaker 2 29:06

It is about that networking and connection that really creates the success in those pipelines.

Speaker 1 29:11

Well, in the onboarding of that, if you already know and they've come and they've sought you out and you know you have the skills, I mean, I think that it creates more loyalty. Oh, absolutely To begin with. I love that you talked about pipeline, one of our last interviews she talked about, because we asked her what's one of the barriers that we could do to overcome what's happening with women and give them more opportunities, and she said we just need to let women practice more. Yeah, just need to let them practice more. Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:38

And that's that goes right in line with the internship and having different things. I've read through job descriptions that are so long and I'm like I don't even know what they're asking for.

Speaker 2 29:47

Exactly, probably not qualified. You know, there's so many of those where they'll come to me and go Trina. What does this mean?

Speaker 1 29:52

And I'm like I don't know.

Speaker 4 29:54

I don't know the answer to that one. I'm like, I think they make that word up.

Speaker 2 29:57

I think that's all imaginative.

Speaker 1 29:59

I don't think that they knew. That's why it looks like this.

Speaker 4 30:02

Well, the training, that it's interesting. You bring that up because and practice, because I talked to and I just generally like to help people or coach as much as I can if somebody needs help on it getting a job, and I'll often say, just always, be interviewing, yeah. And I think part of that is once you read, once you have the interview, and then you think back that's not exactly the job description, like this was a little bit different or they thought a lot more highly of me than I thought they would. Yeah, and the more you do that right, go to interviews, get used to interviewing, talking to people, which can happen through the networking you have to know the people, know where the opportunities are, get the opportunity to interview Then the better you will be at that. I think that for me, I've always done that. I just I don't know why, but I just felt like that was the right thing to do and the practice always has helped.

Speaker 2 30:49

It helps. Yeah, I actually had that conversation with one of our alumni last week and she's like well, in a few months I'm going to go start applying and interviewing. I'm like no start now.

Speaker 1 30:59

Getting ready to get ready, yeah, like no no, get in, get going.

Speaker 2 31:03

There's a lot of like just kick them out the door. Here we let's go right Of thinking it. Here's the mindset that we're trying to fix the feeling like we have to be overly prepared, that resume issue, like I've got to have every, like I've got to practice my interviewing. I have to do all of this before just going and doing it. That's the challenge we have. I'm like, just let's go, Don't over educate, Don't over skill yourself.

Speaker 2 31:31

Get in and learn on the job and then figure out what you need to. You know, continue on your education. You know we've had a lot of our students that'll get like so qualified, like overly qualified, right, Like I went and did this program and this program and this program. Like which one are you going to do? And they're like, well, I'm still deciding. I'm like, pick one. I call it the commit and shift. And I'm like, when I, when we kick off courses, I'll go in and talk to them. I'm like, okay, you're going to pick one thing and you're going to hyper focus on it so that I can then come and help you and this whole team can help you.

Speaker 2 32:05

But if you're saying, oh, I'm thinking maybe this, this and this, and then I'm going to over, educate and all of those things. Then you're never going to get anywhere. And I'm like there's no wrong path, so you can commit to that path and you can always shift later and it's not lost time or effort. You're gaining knowledge as you go. And I mean, if you look at my career, it's all over the place, right, Like there's not like one path. That was like this is how I did my career and it all fell into place. It was like oh, here's an opportunity, let's go try that. And I learned that and it adds to this and I think just getting them on the path, getting them in the door, getting those into those opportunities at internships or other opportunities at the companies, then you start to build your career. And I think that fear of moving forward without being fully prepared, that's what we're trying to remove, that internal barrier that they often have.

Speaker 1 32:56

I've heard people describe you as really resilient and that comes to play here, right, because I think people over prepare because they don't want to get in a room and not know what they're doing, or they know they only have one shot, or they feel like they only have one shot but also teaching that resilience of just get in there, just get in there and fail, and fail fast.

Speaker 2 33:15

Yeah, because you're going to learn more.

Elevating Women in Tech Careers

Speaker 1 33:17

So come full circle back to. We all have to be uncomfortable, yes, right from the CEO and learning leadership to the woman who's starting in our internship Yep, we all got to be uncomfortable to make this move forward. So really have appreciated our discussion and our time with you, thank you. I want to ask you a question of how do we move this work of elevating women in our state in particular forward? What's one berry? You see, that is the hardest, just overall, I know, because we could pick one for like allies. We could pick one for women, just overall Because, as Chris has pointed out, we have a great economy here.

Speaker 1 33:56

Mm-hmm but it is so divergent from the experience that many women are having.

Speaker 2 34:01

I think awareness like we do not, like from a very young age, do we socialize our children to go into these types of roles? If we start there and then get more, I know that there's like a big K through 12 stem push right. So I'm not talking just that, because they they drop off. We know those, those rates, and then they come back to tech moms later on going oh wait, this didn't work out.

Speaker 2 34:30

Now I got to go back and fix it. So how do we keep them in and going? One of the things that I always talk about is like getting more moms into tech means their children are gonna stay in tech, right, right. So if you want to fix the K through 12 issue, get the moms in tech.

Speaker 1 34:44

That's gonna be my platform see it, you can be it.

Speaker 2 34:46

That's right, and and they're the ones they're gonna push their kids, because now I'm not afraid of it. Yeah. I'm going to be able to help them with their their studies and help them get in and say, oh, this is the path line and I can Explain it to them. Yeah, and so I think it's it's.

Speaker 2 35:03

This is a really big question to be able to solve, but I don't think a lot of individuals, both Men and women, don't even realize all of the jobs and roles that are available or what those pathways are. One of the and that's a lot of what we do is the awareness that those jobs are there, what they are. Yeah what is a technical project manager?

Speaker 1 35:26

back to the law. What is that stuff that we're like? What is this job about?

Speaker 2 35:29

Standardize the job descriptions, maybe just to start with, but then explain what they are. And then how do I get in? What's the education path? What I've seen, even with my own kids, is the fear of making a wrong decision on the wrong career path. And and what if I get in? And so they Halt and don't do anything right and so like really clear. Here's the awareness of the jobs, here's how you get into it, here's how you move forward and just help them through that whole transition. I think that's most of what we do is just awareness and because we hear all the time like I didn't even know that was an opportunity.

Speaker 2 36:04

Right this is great. How do I now now I'm motivated, I can just go, because they have they have clarity on the site of what's possible that they had never even known about before.

Speaker 4 36:15

Tech in particular is very much that way right, because I know you answered the question or about done here, but I want to hammer that no thing home, because because you know we talked. You know I used to support the tech pathways program for the governor's office of economic development and there was a pipeline you know pipeline problem. There wasn't enough people to hire things like that. But what we found was that there were just so many people that actually thought that computers and tech meant engineering, Programming it realize all the.

Speaker 4 36:46

That is like a very small piece of what a tech company is and what they offer and opportunities. You mentioned the technical program manager like a product manager and designer. A there's like thousands of different types of jobs.

Speaker 2 36:57

I think just for about forever. I think what I've heard, and it's probably changed now to even more. But, like for every software developer role, you've got seven different supporting roles that help support that role, and so it's not, it's not just straight coding, and I think that is the perception issue that needs to be shifted of what is tech. Every job is a tech job. Now, that's right.

Musicals and Family Favorites

Speaker 2 37:20

Every job there is no, not tech job and so every company is a tech company, and so we have to get that instilled in Everyone's mind now. Parents to the children across the board.

Speaker 1 37:34

That's a great way to really thank you for driving that home. Yeah, we want to end on a personal note. So favorite song, favorite book, favorite play Something like that to help us get to know you a little more. Oh.

Speaker 2 37:48

I have so many likes, but I love musicals. Hamilton we just rebooked tickets for that. This will be our ninth time going this year.

Speaker 1 38:02

Do you know all of it by?

Speaker 2 38:03

I don't, but my husband does.

Speaker 1 38:05

That's awesome.

Speaker 2 38:06

So yeah, my kids do. I think it's been really fun to to kind of get into various musicals and the plays. I don't know, I like all of it.

Speaker 1 38:18

That's awesome. Thank you so much for being here with us and the work You're doing in our state.

Speaker 2 38:23

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.