Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Stephanie Hajducek. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Stephanie, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
In January 2022 I started a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called This One’s for the Gals. The mission of TOFTG is to help girls in grades k-12 with career exploration and workforce development in the construction, energy and manufacturing industries. We like to say that we talk to girls about careers that not a lot of people talk to girls about. Our overall goal is to bring awareness to careers that girls didn’t consider previous, didn’t know existed or didn’t think were for them. We specifically target girls from low income households and disadvantaged backgrounds to help them into high paying careers in an effort to conquer generational poverty.
My passion for TOFTG comes from me being “that girl” that I am so desperately trying to help find her place in the workforce. Coming out of high school, I had no clue what I wanted to do for a career. Although my parents talked about college, I didn’t do much listening. All I knew was that I was an adult and ready to get out into the world, everything else I would just figure out. Needless to say, that was not a very good plan. I ended up getting married young, having kids and then getting divorced. I was a single mom with twin boys less than a year old, no post secondary education or training and a very feeble resume. A friend of mine suggested that I take a six-week AutoCAD course to learn drafting and design. I took the course and not only found that I enjoyed it I was also pretty good at it too. That same friend suggested that I go to a job fair that was being held at Bechtel in Houston, Tx. While I was hesitant at first, I ended up going. I walked into Bechtel’s 17-story building on Post Oak Blvd. with that six-week AutoCAD certificate and feeble resume in one hand and a willingness to learn in the other and told them I was there for an entry-level job. A couple of weeks later Bechtel called and offered me that entry-level job and it changed my life. It changed everything that I thought it was to be an adult, to have a career, to be a woman in the workforce. Within a year I was able to by my boys their very own home. I had an amazing 12 year career with Bechtel and learned so much about myself and just how much I am capable of.
Since my time at Bechtel, I’ve held other roles with some amazing companies such as ChevronPhillips, Puffer, Citgo, Steel Dynamics, Chemours and now I am in an amazing role as a Territory Sales Manager for SAMSON Group – a market leader in control valves for industrial processes. I did go back to college and at the age of 38 walked across the stage at the University of Southern Mississippi to accept my bachelors degree in Industrial Engineering Technology. While that was a great accomplishment I feel that if I would have had a little bit of a direction coming out of high school I wouldn’t have spent so much time spinning my wheels trying to find my place in the workforce.
So that is why I started This One’s for the Gals – to help the next generation of women in industry find their place a little sooner rather than later. More importantly, I want girls to know that they can do hard things and TOFTG is here to show them how!
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I’d like to share how This One’s for the Gals funded our first event – The 2023 Coastal Bend Women in Industry Conference held in Corpus Christi, Tx. This event brought girls from surrounding high schools in the Coastal Bend together with our local industry partners for a day full of career exploration. This is one of our most important events and one that we hope to grow over the years. There had never been a conference like this before but I had a vision and I knew exactly what I needed to help make it happen. Our industry partners responded to the call for help in ways that I never expected. Once I sent out our sponsorship opportunities my phone immediately started ringing. They were calling, texting and emailing me to get involved. The response was amazing and I feel that is a testament to the amount of support that is out there to help our future female leaders with career exploration in places that they normally wouldn’t get exposure too. Our top sponsors were Gulf Coast Growth Ventures/ExxonMobil, Cheniere Energy and ArcelorMittal and some of our other awesome sponsors were SAMSON Controls, Bechtel, Valero, Steel Dynamics, Webber, Savage and The Port of Corpus Christi to name a few. I feel that one of the reasons that I was so successful in fundraising for an event that had never been done before was that as I reached out to potential sponsors, I didn’t just talk about the conference but I shared the mission and the goals of TOFTG. I made sure that they knew that this wasn’t just an event – it’s a movement.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Sharing how it all started! In October 2021 I approached my manager at Steel Dynamics asking if we could help sponsor girls from our local high school and help them get to the POWER Women in Industry Conference that is held at Moody Gardens in Galveston, Tx every year. He said yes and told me to contact the school and see if they were interested. I went to meet with the principal and CTE Director for Sinton High School and they were immediately onboard. They said they would love to collaborate and would provide bus transportation and take their girls the night before and pay for a hotel. Our kids go to a school down the road and I wanted them to have the same opportunity so I asked my husband Chris, Power Distribution Specialist for GCGV/ExxonMobil who I might be able to contact there for a sponsorship. He gave me a contact and I reached out and told them what SDI was doing for our local high school and asked if they would be interested in sponsoring Taft High School. They said they loved the initiative and would love to help. Then I kept going. I knew there was another industry partner down the road and another school. What started out as me thinking I could get 10-12 girls to that conference in Galveston turned in to me getting over 200 girls to that conference. It was amazing! The evening before the conference we were in the hotel lobby and one of the counselors came up to me and thanked me for getting the initiative started. Then she said something that I will never forget. She said that I may not realize it but the majority of their girls had probably never stayed in a hotel before with many not ever having been out of their hometowns. I like to say that’s the night that TOFTG was truly born because it was no longer about a conference or a field trip. It’s about creating opportunity! It’s about getting our girls to want more out of life and stop being okay with just being okay and just getting by. It’s about them being in a place like Galveston and say to themselves, I want to come back here one day with my family. I want to travel and see places like this; what kind of job can I get that will afford me those opportunities. Another thing, I do the hard work! I’m boots on the ground when it comes to getting exposure for TOFTG. I’ve spent weekends at vendor markets and church bazaars with my TOFTG exhibit booth talking to passers by about our mission. I travel to bricklaying competitions and welding competitions to support the girls that are participating; whether it’s 2 girls or 200, if we can be there we will! Sharing all of this with our supporters is what has helped me build our brand and our reputation in this space. I don’t hold back; I want them to know how important this work is and the impact that it can make on our communities. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thisonesforthegals.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisonesforthegals_tx/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisonesforthegalstx
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thisonesforthegalstx
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/forthegalstx
- PayPal Donation Link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=TLMXNJ448SPS4
Image Credits
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