BACK TO 1989…
The beginning was pretty easy for me but rough on the parents. I was named Katie Moraga on Novembers 1st, 1989. According to my family I was always smiley, a great listener, happy and a hand full. There have been several events in my life that when I was young that had affected my life at the time, now and my future. We all go through moments in our lives that really affect what we will be able to do and achieve one day. I was always very organized and did things myself. I was always a hard worker and never game up in school. My mom gave us rules that we had to go by when we were young which made me very organized with school. I always stay focused and tried to do my best I could in school. My coloring was always within the lines and I never turned anything unprofessional in. My mom always said I was a perfectionist and an over achiever. I always tried to challenge myself in school by taking honor classes when I was little just so I could get ahead and do better.
When I got to middle school those were the difficult times I guess because it was the beginning of my first transition of a littler girl to a young teen. I had not realized what I wanted to do and I was learning so many new things at the time about myself that I didn’t know what to stick too. My parents had divorced when I was four, it was a major in packed for me and I know it affected me while I was growing up. Around this time, I struggled a bit with school but was able to fight through. I always tried being strong for myself because I wanted a better future, I never wanted to struggle like my family did. While I was in middle school I had several opportunities to practice speech, manners and learn about being included with clubs and events. This helped me improve a lot of skills that I would need later on in life. Since, I was in the honors program I had the chance in the 8th grade to go a trip to Chicago to learn about business and get familiar with future jobs. This experience opened my eyes to a lot of opportunities and jobs that I would be interested in one day. A lot of it I remember had to do with opening your own business, working for big firms, and medical field. I remember being extremely interested in owning my own business and doing something with numbers because I was really good at it.
Now I was off to high school, where I would embark in another new adventure and learn even more about myself. It’s interesting to think now how our past events really make us who we are today; from just learning what was my favorite color to what we my best qualities are. Once I entered high school I was determined to start and finish strong and find what I wanted to do with my life. I was enrolled for 4 years in business electives and fashion courses. Those were the two things that caught most of my attention while I was in high school. I was involved in a lot of after school programs that helped me build the personality that I have today. I was in business clubs, fashion clubs, and tv production they all helped my people skills, working in teams, and leading a group. I have always felt very blessed that I was able to do the things I did at the time; my favorite was running a fashion show and running for vice president of the school. These things at the time were probably important to me in other ways but now that I look back it helped me build a strong personality for the business world. I am able to be a leader, help and guide everyone on tasks they have to do in a proper and unformed matter. My organization skills and neatness from the fashion shows that I ran will help me one day keep my business organized. My first job when I was in high school was Kentucky Fried Chicken Fast Food Restaurant. This job showed me the importance of team work but having fun at the same time. I also learned the importance of going to work and being on time every day. This not only affected the restaurant but the people I work with. It was always important to keep an honest relationship with your managers and co-workers. I always put my maximum effort when I was there because I wanted our store to shine from everyone else’s. After working there for about two years I moved to retail, I started working at Victoria Secret. Victoria Secret was more a structured and corporate feel. We had meetings and goals that we had to make every day. This job consisted of direct interaction with customers and meeting their needs. I understood the importance of making the customer happy and doing whatever we had to do to meet their needs and expand are sale. I was involved with helping inventory and display in the store, which was what has helped me become the perfectionist I am today, if it doesn’t look good make it better, there is always room for improvement.
Once I was reaching my last couple of months of high school I was already been accepted in to a college and was ready to start my career path towards being a successful business person. I was moving for college and decided to study business with a minor in accounting. I figured I wanted to do business and maybe run a business myself but I also wanted to able to do my own accounting. I figured “I’d [hit] to birds with one stone,” the more you know yourself the less you have to worry about depending on others or being misguided by people that say they know everything but don’t. I knew at the time it was important for me to learn everything I needed to know about what I wanted to do later in life. I always took some of my personal time to work with business people, read proposals and business plans that would later help me organize my own. Throughout my college experience in Daytona Beach I was working full time and going to school fulltime. I became responsible of myself extremely fast went to college. I learned the importance of being independent, how to budget money and take care of myself. These are things that make a really strong role model for other people. In my spare time as a college student I sowed and created clothes when I could it was always my passion but I never wanted to go to school for it. Once I began taking courses in business I realized that I can incorporate my fashion skills in business and own my own company one day. I became very passionate about fitness and health so somehow I wanted to try and incorporate that in my future. I started speaking more in depth with my teachers to get a better understanding of how to start a business. I began to type out a proposal for my business and each year I was in college I added, edited and wrote more ideas to incorporate in to it.
When I began college I was also working with a marketing company called Smart Circle that expanded my contact list immensely. It was a great job and great experience. The main headquarters was out of Canada and had offices all over the United States. Our office sold vacation packages I was in charge of running the call center and approving all promotions that we would sell. I had to create a plan and a guide of how the product was going to be distributed over the phone, in person and online. This helped me improve my organization skills and how to create guideline, policy’s and rules. While I worked there, I was in charge of 15 people making sure that they were following rules, teaching and guiding of new products, and assisting when they had trouble. I also helped create part of the program that was used to place orders and track them. This job was a great experience and knew it would help me get a better job in the future. Unfortunately, after two years the economy went through a couple bumps which affected Smart Circle, luckily I had gotten second job at Best Buy to during the holidays for cushion money well, come the new year I was let go of. So I was extremely blessed to have had a second job at the time and I saw it as a new adventure for my career to expand my horizon.
Best Buy was one of my favorite retail jobs besides Victoria Secret. It was one of the best structured companies I had ever encountered and I was honored to be able to work for them. I knew when I started that I wanted to work extremely hard to move up. I had started as a seasonal in November and then when I lost my other job I started working and being involved more that led to my first promotion as fulltime. After two months I was moved to customer service that included a pay raise. I was there until I made my year and then I was promoted as Sales Operator Supervisor, I was in charge of the front lanes and sales operator. It was a great opportunity for free and learning experience. I improved my leader’s strategy, problem solving, and training. I interacted with all of my employees individually and as a group. This job was very challenging but I learned the importance of team work and being a leader. I had to check daily that my numbers were up and that every employee was doing all aspects of their job. I went to district meetings for training and ways to improve my job and better train my employees. I learned that variation is important in a job and that changing things up at work will keep my team motivated and our numbers up.
