Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Myka Vernon. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Myka thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

I’ve been working in the robotic automation field since graduating college and the biggest thing the industry is lacking is diversity in every way. With every company I have worked for I have been the only female engineer and one of 2 at most POC. I find myself living the “as black people we have to work twice as hard to get a quarter of what others get” and working my ass off to make a fraction of what my white counterparts make. Unfortunately I feel the issue is bigger than corporate America because even in college I was one of 5 women in the program and one of 2 black women. Women in STEM programs is so important and I think many shy away from it because it can be lonely being the only one in the program. Even with the feelings of loneliness while working in STEM, due to the lack of diversity, I stick with it because I want to be to show young girls that they can do it to.

Myka, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a 27 year old Black woman born and raised in Michigan with a passion for design that is a little bit different than what people are used to hearing when they hear design. Most think fashion or interior design but my passion is graphic design and computer aided design. Growing up I always enjoyed doing art so when the opportunity to take graphic design classes in high school came up I took it. I saw graphic design as a way to elevate my love for art. When the time came to decide on what to major in for college many thought the clear choice was graphic design but I wanted to do more. I discovered the Product Design and Development program at Eastern Michigan University and fell in love with it. The program took us through the lifecycle of designing and producing a product from start to finish. I learned how to sketch things by hand and take turn them into 3D models using CAD and then taking the data from the models to the shop floor and actually making the items. Although after school I found myself working in the robotic automation world, I would love to get into toy design. During college I joined Swing Phi Swing Social Fellowship Incorporated. I quickly learned that because of how small the organization is, there aren’t a lot of places that we can get paraphernalia from. This realization birthed my business 2ympathetic (sympathetic but the s is a 2 because my line number is 2) Designs named after my line name which is 2ympathetic. My original goal was to create items for the organization that everyone would want and would feel proud to wear and to become an official vendor for Swing Phi Swing SFI. After a year of producing products I achieved that goal and many of my sisters locally have at least one item I’ve made for them. Since the pandemic I have expanded to doing custom items for anyone and working with all types of mediums such as clothing and epoxy resin. I’ve had the opportunity to make custom items for whole teams of small businesses and organizations and I couldn’t be prouder of the work I’ve done. While I have taken the last year off from working on my business, my goal is to get things back up and running and to grow in 2023.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’ve had to pivot in many ways but the biggest pivot I’ve made so far has been when I first set out to start my business. I originally planned on only selling merchandise for Swing Phi Swing SFI as a side hustle while working my 9-5 job but due to Covid I lost my job and the side hustle became my main source of income for a few months. During this time I realized that I needed to expand to doing more than just merchandise for Swing Phi Swing SFI. I started watching videos and taking classes to learn how to do more things. I learned how to make things with epoxy and how to better apply vinyl. If it wasn’t for losing my 9-5 I never would’ve taken the time to learn the new skills and better perfect what I had been doing.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

I had my first big order in 2021 and when I say big I mean big. The order was for 35 shirts and 35 mugs with a 3 color detailed logo on everything. I thought I could finish everything in a month while also working my 9-5 job. During this time I stopped taking any other orders because I knew this would be time consuming. I SEVERELY underestimated how much work it would take to get things done. It took me that whole month just to weed out all of the vinyl for the detailed logo. I felt terrible having to tell the customer that I underestimated the amount of time I needed and would need another month to finish things. When I finally got things done and to the customer they were so happy with it and appreciated that I took my time to get things right

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/2ympathetic_designs
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myka-vernon-6412b894