Reflecting over my career and how mentoring has played a role in my personal and professional development once again gives me an opportunity to appreciate my good fortune in working with and for fabulous people. When I started at Ameren 34 years ago, I had no idea how my career would progress. I have made many job moves throughout my career. With each new job came technical and inter-personal challenges and opportunities. No doubt it’s the people I have worked with who have influenced many of my decisions and helped shape me.
My move from the secretarial job track to computer programmer began with a simple conversation with a co-worker. How different things would have been for me had that person neglected to mention the opportunity to me! I am forever grateful for his mentoring.
When I moved into first-line supervision, I was given the chance to manage people and to work with internal business customers on information technology solutions. I remember talking through work issues and challenges with other supervisors as I worked to become effective as a supervisor.
Mentors have a way of pushing us into new areas of responsibility that are way outside our comfort level. This is exactly what happened when I moved from IT to investor services. A senior executive trusted me to take on an entirely new assignment as assistant treasurer and manager of the investor services department, which was my first middle-management position. When I returned to IT, I was wiser for that experience. I was able to expand my knowledge and experience in operations and eBusiness before returning to application development. In 2009, I became vice president of Information Technology and my company’s chief information officer.
With each of these moves, I have had fabulous support and mentoring from supervisors, peers, and fellow employees. But none of this would have been possible without an extremely supportive husband and two great kids! Being a working mother and raising two sons called for a constant balance between work and home. When they were young, I was involved with my sons’ school and extra-curricular activities. Now that both boys are out of high school, I have returned to college in pursuit of an MBA, a long-term personal goal.
