About Me

Biography

Mary has always been interested in how the human element plays out at work.   Mary believes that organizations are composed of unique human beings requiring individual attention, not only to make the most of what they can contribute, but also to meet their own specific need for meaningful work.

Mary has been passionate about her vision for a respectful and collaborative workplace all of her life.   Even as a child on the family farm, Mary pointed out to her first boss (dad) how other employees (friends and family) were creating a negative work environment.   After entering college, even though Mary started with psychology, she switched her major in computer science because she knew this would land her a job.   Once out in the working world her fascination for how people "work at work" reignited when she noticed that she was more interested in understanding how people reacted to changing job expectations than teaching them new computer programs.   She observed that people resisted how new programs might change the flow of their work, who they worked with, and even their perspective on why they did their work.   Mary worked to overcome this resistance by engaging people in the how, who and why of the changes.

Once deciding to transition to a career in Human Resources, Mary began pursuing a Master's in HR and also a variety of roles that would give her a closer look at her constituents' work-life.   Mary led a manufacturing project team made up of several shop-floor employees.   Mary worked with every person on her team on their individual skill-development needs.   In just a few years, several of them were promoted and significantly expanded their career possibilities beyond what they ever imagined for themselves.   Mary was recognized for this and more with a division-level award for being a "champion of human potential."

As she continued to move toward an HR position, Mary's diverse work assignments always involved helping people move through change.   Mary was known for working well with people who others might find difficult to engage.   She successfully led the effort to take over 700 people through sexual harassment prevention training in a workplace that had put it off, for fear of unmanageable fallout.   She took an active role in leading hundreds of survivors of corporate downsizing to see how they could make positive choices moving forward, rather than be overwhelmed by constantly worrying about their jobs.   Mary made room for people to voice what was true for them, without being penalized, allowing them to move through the issues and refocus.

Mary's first official HR assignment was as an Organizational Development Specialist, and soon after that, an HR Generalist.   Soon Mary advanced to an HR Manager role, serving over 550 constituents, and receiving 2 promotions in her last 3 years in the corporate world.   In her HR roles, not only did Mary fulfill the nuts-and-bolts HR tasks, she also initiated positive change in how HR was perceived.   Mary's vision for HR was to truly connect with people as human beings with legitimate needs.   Mary was told that the way she listened and responded was different because she would take the time to see the root issue and follow through to resolution, rather than view the person's concern as just another task to move off of her desk.

At an organizational level Mary focused on issues like ethics, professional class-ism, compensation decisions, and respectful behavior.   In the area of performance management Mary developed an approach that helped give supervisors the confidence to deal with performance issues quickly, and actually make the discussions encouraging and positive.   Mary's message for supervisors was to remember that no matter how awkward a performance discussion with an employee might feel, both of them could come away with a feeling of hope for the future and clarity on what they can do to improve the situation.   One supervisor said that he finally saw how he could have an effective, collaborative, two-way discussion with an employee, instead of creating a tense, uncomfortable moment.

Mary always knew that the work she was doing was too valuable to be contained in one organization.   She created her company, Artemis Path, to help more organizations to make the most of their own "human" resources.   Mary designs and implements training and interventions to help managers and employees see how they can get more from themselves, and each other, by working WITH what makes us human beings -- an unlimited resourcefulness and energy that can only come from a respectful and collaborative work environment.

Mary is a requested speaker for local organizations.   Mary is published online at the HR Hub, OnRec.com, EzineArticles and IdeaMarketers.

Professional and Educational Affiliations:

Consultation, Coaching, Training, Speaking and Media Requests available about: