Class Introduction: Heidi Fleming

Howdy, everyone! I’m Heidi, currently in my senior year at Penn State majoring in Labor and Employment Relations and minoring in Organizational Leadership. I am currently employed as an office coordinator at a John Deere dealer. I live in outside of Nashville Tennessee with my husband and two Weimaraners, Ruby and Perl (for those of you tech-savvy folks, they’re named after Computer Programming languages). In our free time, we love to travel, and kayak and spend as much time outside as we can.

Professionally, I’ve been in the workforce for a number of years. I got a bachelors degree at the University of Vermont in 2007, majoring in Community Development and Applied Economics. Unfortunately, my degree was so vague and wasn’t understood by hiring managers, so I worked as receptionists and personal assistants for most of my career. I lost a job due to my boss moving and decided it was time to get serious about a career, and had always been fascinated by the field of Human Resources. My professional long-term goals are to work as a Human Resources Manager and to be in a position within the company where I can really make a change.

I have worked in a management role in a few jobs but never felt that I really had the power or the knowledge to be a true leader. This is something I really hope to do in the future and look forward to having an impact both professionally and in my everyday life.

Being a woman working in business, I find that quote by women really speak to me more than any others. Women have had to fight for so long to get where they are, and we are still fighting for that equality in the workforce. One of my favorite quotes by a woman was by former First Lady, Rosalynn Carter. She says “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” I think it speaks volumes to how well a leader needs to know his/her followers and to push them to be better than they thought they could be.