“You are the standards you set for yourself."
A high value on lifelong learning
Originally from Michigan, Anne places a high value on lifelong learning. In fact, she holds five different post-secondary degrees! She pursued her education at Michigan State University, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and the University of Oxford, where she performed doctoral level research on how cross-national educational investments attempt to satisfy domestic workforce and labor needs.
This work led Anne to collaborate with university engineering students. “I find their general creativity, innovative spirit, and problem-solving skills inspiring,” she says.
With a foundation ideal for a professional career supporting the human capital needs of America’s Innovation Agency, Anne now serves as a Human Resources Specialist in OHR’s Workforce Employment Division (WED). “Even if you don’t have a background in Human Resources, if you like working with a variety of people and are highly organized, then this career path is for you!” she says.
Did you know? Anne is a travel buff and has been to 35 countries spanning six continents. Antarctica is next on the list!
A privilege to assist
Anne primarily supports Patent Examiner hiring efforts. Most of the employees she serves continue to have engineering (or similar scientific) backgrounds. She considers it a privilege to assist personnel in the various lifecycle stages of career development, from recruitment all the way up to agency separation.
“The energy and excitement of new hires is motivating, and seeing more seasoned team members achieve their professional goals is, in an odd way, like a proud parent moment for me,” Anne describes.
She considers the best part of her job to be sharing in the experience of excitement of new team members when they’re given the good news that they were selected for hire. “That positive energy can be contagious!” Anne says.
The USPTO’s culture, according to Anne, is pioneering. She believes that the USPTO continuously leads in terms of innovative ways to imagine and support the modern workforce.
Rising while balancing it all
When asked about the Workforce Employee Division (WED) in particular, she says, “We are a team in the truest sense of the word. When the volume of staffing demands is great, or task turnaround times are short, we always pull together to assist one another.”
Soft skills such as emotional intelligence, self-reflection, critical thinking, and effective communication are also used each and every day in Anne’s role.
She balances it all by drawing upon a personal mantra that is just as inspiring as her career journey: “You are the standards you set for yourself.”
“We tend to rise to our own determined metrics, so we should set them well,” Anne shares. And it seems she’s done just that.