Meet Trailblazer Jessica Mooney

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Mooney.

Jessica, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started my career by refuting my parents’ careers. Three of my four parental figures are engineers and the fourth works in the medical industry. For various reasons, but mostly an expression of childhood disobedience, I made it a point to tell my family that I didn’t want to be an engineer. But what did I want to be instead? I had no idea.

I’ve always been a successful student (if you pardon my barely adequate performance in high-level math and science classes); but, like many students, I bounced around majors in college. I started out as a Psychology major at CU in Colorado Springs, determined to fix other people’s problems because turning inward to explore my own didn’t appeal to me as much. After a semester of homesickness, which somehow helped me find some kind of independence, I transferred back to my hometown school at CU Denver for another approach, only to find myself hopping around majors again, eventually taking a break from school altogether.

In hindsight, I realize how lost I was. At 18, my main goal was a trifecta: date boys, drink vodka and explore options. I didn’t know what I wanted to “be” when I grew up, and after returning home after my time in the Springs, the trifecta prompted my mother to not-so-gently ask me to move out. I responded promptly. (A decision that has led us to an unequivocally wonderful mother-daughter relationship).

Six months later, I was working two restaurant jobs and received my first student loan bill in the mail. My “sense of independence” taught me I had nothing to show for my academic “exploration,” and restaurant life has a way of making sure you only scrape by, month after month. Enough was enough so I enrolled for the next term in Community College.

I got an “Explorer’s” Associates, General Studies there and, finding a new appetite for academia, I once again enrolled at CU Denver, where I found the English Writing Program.

English had always been my favorite and strongest subject growing up, but my fear of the prohibitive professional writers’ market led me to other pursuits, psychology, business, anything but English. Reading about the practical, career-oriented coursework of the program, I realized it was time to stop using fear to avoid my passions, and instead use it to motivate me for excellence.

It was then I realized, so what if I had to keep bartending part-time while I built my professional writing career? I wasn’t doing it to scrape by anymore, I was doing it for the flexibility to take any professional writing job that would keep me on course to my goals.

After earning my BA in English Writing at CU Denver, my first writer opportunity came as an editor with an oil and gas company. We’re talking entry-level here: a contract editor, not trusted to write anything, not trusted to be a real company employee. Nevertheless, I quickly earned my keep and soon became a Technical Writer. It wasn’t magic, natural talent, or even the years of practice that got me there, but my insatiable appetite for instructional writing, documentation, and, put simply, the principles of effective communication. Looking back at the diagrams I used to teach myself this craft, you’d never believe I could decipher any of it without extended periods of hand-holding.

But contracts are contracts and after two years, the company’s projects were drying up and I was on the hunt for another opportunity. That’s when I joined the ranks of Colorado’s largest family-owned cannabis company, The Green Solution.

After three years of service (each one including a promotion) and many late nights. I’ve watched the young industry and its practices beguile and distress even the most seasoned of professionals Those of us who last longer than the average 18-month lifespan (that’s not just TGS, that’s the industry) know: if you don’t survive with flying colors, you won’t survive at all.

Start-up life is gritty and chaotic. Anyone who doesn’t admit continued learning is a requirement probably hasn’t had a stable job history. There are growing pains, both internal and external. And working for an industry that still carries a stigma and pesky federal laws that make it illegal brings a unique set of challenges as well.

But the beauty of chaos is in the freedom it allows you. I’ve carved a great niche in my field. And in Technical Writing, I’ve found joy in what most consider nap-inducing. You see, our corporate writing team handles procedural documentation for our entire library of products and procedures. And our work has protected the company from the many, many violations that make it so difficult for other brands to operate in the cannabis space.

To bring it full circle, I’m still using the engineer’s gene my parents passed down to me, but on my own terms.

Has it been a smooth road?
I doubt I’d be successful if I didn’t experience failures or a bumpy road. Trials truly lead to tribulations. I struggled personally with mental health (depression and anxiety) and fought through days where the balance between my personal and professional life blurred.

The day that I decided to take a break from college was the day I went straight from a final exam to the hospital to sit with my family while my mom–my best friend–underwent brain surgery for a malignant tumor.

When I actually made it through the struggles with my education and personal life, I entered the workforce that, as we’re all finally acknowledging, doesn’t see women in a technical way. People seek my male peers out before me in almost every way, even though we both maintain that I’m the technical expert in the department. I’ve had to subtly coach those around me in the professional space to see me as a technical woman, not one that embodies many of the “soft skills” stereotypes.

I recommend that young women starting their journey, whatever it may be, find their role model to take influence from and to simultaneously build a strong community of like-minded persons from whom to seek encouragement and inspiration. I’ve found it helpful to have strong female role models within the company to emulate, those who don’t quiet their opinions or voices to accommodate their peers. I’ve also found that this absolutely doesn’t have to come from a loud, boisterous personality. The strongest and most powerful woman I work with now has the quietest speaking voice I’ve heard, but she knowledgeable, concise, and respected throughout the company. I’ve also found some of my greatest support in a select group of male advocates (who tend to be minorities as well) who relate to the struggle of underrepresentation and inherent hurdles the corporate ladder can present.

Essentially, ladies, I suggest you surround yourself with people who share your vision and hunger for success. Those who can relate to your experiences and both encourage and challenge you to grow as an individual.

What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of? What sets you apart from others?
I specialize in manufacturing technical writing. Taking complicated, high-level concepts and procedures, and breaking them down into digestible, comprehensible content for a multitude of audiences. I’m most proud of my ability to learn highly-complex procedures expeditiously, then convert them into understandable content. I’m also proud of my consistently developing portfolio, including the diverse content I’ve been able to develop, including social media, SEO, blog, training, and even proposal content. This Swiss-army-knife approach to my portfolio, demonstrable on my resume and within my writing samples, allows me to code-switch and write in almost any style and for any need thrown my way.

Do you feel like there was something about the experiences you had growing up that played an outsized role in setting you up for success later in life?
I had a four-parent upbringing. My parents divorced when I was young, and both were remarried by the time I was eleven. Having four adults, each with unique perspectives, opinions, and advice to guide me through my youth provided me a broad perspective on the options laid out in front of me. It also provided me with a lot of accountability and built my discipline. Having to explain a bad grade or a missed curfew to four people is both terrifying and exhausting, and I worked hard to avoid it (and other times I worked harder to not get caught).

But watching each adult and role model in my life intentionally carve out their unique path in life, career-wise and otherwise, gave me a well-rounded idea of how to pursue my own goals. Also, when they all got together to cheer me on at events, which they did (and still do) often, I felt immense support and community.

Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t all support me in every decision I made. I wasn’t able to jump from parent to parent until I got the answer I wanted. More often, I heard four perspectives of hard truths Frankensteined into a piece of cumulative advice that set me on a path to internal resolution with any issue I was facing. I’m lucky to have the same collective guidance now in my life.

Image Credit:
Photos are either self-taken or taken by a friend, Carlos Hernandez

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