Teresa Colpaert

Who were some of the people that influenced you professionally?

Parents. I was raised by two loving and hard-working parents that were business owners. At an early age, I was taught the importance of creating an excellent customer experience through having employees that enjoyed their work and who they worked for. As business owners they understood that if you treated your employees with kindness, respect, and involved them in as many decisions as you could that mutual trust was built and that employees had a greater sense of pride in their work which would transfer into a great customer experience.

Mentors. As a young leader one of my early mentors was Sanjay Rajguru. He understood that success came from building relationships with people. I recall a few things that he said to me such as “Hire for attitude you can train for everything else.” Or “When dealing with difficult managers it may be best to create a mirror image to allow them to see themselves”. He demonstrated true leadership as he took the time to hold meetings with the associates on the floor weekly. It was the first time I had heard of “round tables” and encouraged associates to discuss anything they wanted to talk about, keeping everything that was discussed confidential. He would follow up on every concern, make changes as needed to improve and earn the trust of nearly all employees on site.

Mark Flynn is also a great mentor as he challenges the management team to “Get It Done” and “Do It Right”. I respect and appreciate his leadership style as he promotes a safe work environment for everyone and values the ideas and suggestions of employees at all levels. Mark also encourages us as managers to learn and grow within our current roles and is supportive in developing career growth plans that ultimately promotes longevity within the organization.

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Motivational Speakers. Les Brown, Jim Rohn, and Oprah Winfrey are just a few of the motivational speakers that I listen to on a routine basis. These speakers encouraged me to learn from experts, remove negative thinking, be willing to change, learn from my personal experiences, make a difference, take calculated risks, face my fears, don’t let others determine my destiny, etc. By listening to these speakers and many other speakers I’m reminded that I have control over my career and my career growth. 

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Women I’ve met along the way: Patricia Chambers, who was nominated by Texas Board of Governor, Amy Sabin, in 2013 as a distinguished women nominee. I had the pleasure of attending the Northwood University Distinguished Women’s Award Ceremony and introducing Patricia Chambers as the nominee. Together with her husband, Tom, they built a rather large lime business and became leaders in the mineral business, including drilling and other manufacturing methods. Growing up in Tyler, Texas, Ms. Chambers lived in a faith-filled family. Oil was discovered on their family farm in Van, Texas. She currently manages her family oil business. She is a very philanthropic person with her financial support, as well as being an incredible spiritual mentor to women in Dallas and Fort Worth. Through my interviews with Patricia I learned that she was humble, kind, and cherished core values.

How has the workplace changed for women since you first started?

Increased number of women in previously male dominated roles. I remember times during my early manufacturing years that it wasn’t uncommon to be the only female who attended meetings in a room filled with men. It’s changed significantly since then and now there’s probably at least 20-30% of the participants in an average meeting consisting of women. It's of my opinion that there are more women in roles that used to be male dominated like engineering, plant managers, lawyers, veterinarians, and doctors. Over the last 5 years I’ve had the pleasure of working for plant managers that were female, and 30 years ago that appeared to be a rare phenomenon as I don’t recall ever working at a company that had a female Plant Manager.

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Inclusion. It wasn’t uncommon 30 years ago for a female to be selected as the note taker in a meeting since the mindset then was that women were good at taking notes and men were better at providing solutions to difficult problems. Today, inclusion is promoted and most companies mandate inclusion training to promote equality in the workforce. As a result, I haven’t been asked to take notes in a meeting instead most everyone takes their own notes, and if someone needs to take notes to share then a volunteer is requested. The same could be said for many tasks in manufacturing such as operating heavy machinery, equipment, or performing maintenance tasks, etc. Today I see more and more women in these types of roles which is very inspiring.

What kind of impression would you like to leave on other women in manufacturing?

My legacy for women in manufacturing is short and sweet. Be resilient when confronted with difficult situations, be confident in your abilities, demonstrate perseverance when facing obstacles, be passionate toward achieving results, be willing to learn and put the work in, and finally take what you have learned along the way and share it.

What career advice do you have for other women?

Don’t stop learning and growing. Reading is still a thing and it’s important to develop your skills daily. My recommended simple book reads include Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf, Who Moved my Cheese by Spencer Johnson, and Start with Why by Simon Sinek. If you are interested in books that have more depth than I would suggest reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leaders by Stephen Covey, The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, and Good to Great by Jim Collins.  Aside from reading books to gain knowledge I also take the initiative to spend time learning the tools that are required for the job such as Microsoft applications, Jira for projects, or just taking the time to work on the line with associates learning more about the processes that are in place.

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Find and be a mentor. Take the time to find a mentor that you look up to and value their opinion. Make sure they agree to be your mentor and that they have the time available to support, guide, and advise you. Meet with them weekly or monthly and bounce your thoughts, ideas, questions, or concerns off them and ask them to share their knowledge, experience, or recommendations with you.  Then, as you develop in your role, be sure to mentor others. I think Denzel Washington said it best when he stated during a graduate speech “Each one, teach one. Don't just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.”

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Failure leads to success. You must change your mindset about failure and see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. I can honestly share with you that I’ve learned more about myself through my failures than I did my successes. The reality is stuff is going to happen, it's not personal, it's business and we can’t control all the outcomes, so if you don’t let your failures go, they will derail you from developing to your full potential. Les Brown, who’s a great motivational speaker said, “You’re going to fall, just try to fall on your backside because if you can look up then you can get up”. It’s important to move forward with the lessons learned and take actions to prevent making the same mistakes.

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Get a pulse on the culture and make sure you nurture it. Demonstrate respect for all employees, be clear in your process definition and document the steps required, provide the knowledge and skills needed through training to assist employees in being successful, don’t be afraid of getting your hands dirty. It’s important to work side-by side with associates to make sure you understand the barriers they are facing that still need to be addressed, be open and transparent about what’s going on at the site.

What are some ways you have given back to the community of women, or some ways you have made a positive influence and impact on women in manufacturing?

Co- Patent holder. As a project manager several years ago, I led a team of engineers, maintenance, IT, Software Developers on a new project to improve productivity and efficiency and during that project we developed two new patents the MEHS system (Manufacturing Exception Handling System) and the IPAT system (Individual Productivity Assessment Tool).

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Part of #SheConnects at Wallbox. A community of women and men, interested in connecting and bettering themselves, their careers, and their workplace.  

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Mentor. I have mentored several young leaders over the past 30 years and I’m currently mentoring women in leadership roles today.

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Drove reduced costs. I have driven costs down in manufacturing for every employer I’ve worked for by implementing creative solutions that are cost effective dating back to 1993. New tools like the station controller application, IPAT, MES to layout re-designs, workflow re-designs, workstation re-designs, etc.