Employee Spotlight: Vanessa Torlone, Office Manager
What’s your background?
I worked part time with my parents company, a cleaning and renovation company. But my full time job is I was a general manager of an automotive shop, doing detailing, scheduling, all that good stuff.
You were our second employee! When did you join and why?
I joined August 15, 2016. I was the first corporate hire. A friend had referred me to Seema. I worked with Seema from then. We always worked well together. She's been a mentor for me, trying to help me and guide me on my path in my career.
How have you grown while at Makpar?
When I first started, we were hanging out in a two desk cubicle space. I helped with onboarding and book keeping, but I didn't have experience yet in government or commercial book keeping. Seema and I both learned the specifics of government accounting together. She helped me learn basic accounting principles, and that snowballed into more. Seema encouraged me to take on classes, learn more, and go to college. She definitely pushed me in that direction of constantly learning hands on and through education.
I've always done HR. Recently, I've gotten involved with the pricing aspect of proposals. That's gone hand in hand with accounting. I had expressed that I was interested in it and she told me to go for it.
What drew you to Makpar originally?
I was in a place where I really wanted to figure out what I was going to do. I had never had a corporate job before. As soon as I met Mushtaq and Seema, it just clicked. We joked around and had a great time in our interview, and I thought this is pretty cool. This was definitely a stepping stone into something I was interested doing.
What's your favorite thing about working at Makpar?
For me, it's the personal aspects behind it. It's not just you're another number. I feel like there's room to grow and it's up to me to pave the path to see where I want to focus on and figure that out. The constant learning that I have. There's always a new challenge. And Mushtaq and Seema truly care about my kids and family and I love that.
Advice to new Makpar employees?
Keep your mind open to what you're taking on. For example, if you're coming on as a billable employee and you're focusing fully on the client and not on corporate, you could miss out on chances to grow even more. Being open to collaborating with the corporate side shows management that you care a lot about the company you're working for, and opens the doors for you to grow in big ways and gain new challenges. Because if that contract drops, they could still keep you because you're establishing these relationships to help you expand further.