# data[].attributes.headline
Inside the Story of How H-E-B Planned for the Pandemic

# data[].attributes.subject
Inside the Story of How H-E-B Planned for the Pandemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Photograph by Tamir Kalifa

Before the Outbreak

Justen Noakes, director of emergency preparedness, H-E-B: Just a little bit of history: we have been working on our pandemic and influenza plan for quite a while now, since 2005, when we had the threat of H5N1 overseas in China. That's when we first developed what our plan looked like, [as well as] some of our requirements and business implications. In 2009, we actually used that plan in response to H1N1, when the swine flu came to fruition in Cibolo, and refined it, made it more of an influenza plan. We've continued to revise it, and it's been a part of our preparedness plan at H-E-B ever since.

Craig Boyan, president, H-E-B: Justen leads our emergency preparedness with a group of folks, and that is a full-time, year-round position. We are constantly in a year-round state of preparedness for different emergencies. We keep emergency supplies at almost every warehouse and have water and other supplies staged and ready to go and kept in storage to make sure that we are ready to [react quickly] when a crisis emerges, whether it be a hurricane or a pandemic. We take being a strong emergency responder in Texas, to take care of Texas communities, very seriously.
On January 15, Wuhan's Municipal Health Commission announced that the novel coronavirus was spreading via human-to-human transmission.
Justen Noakes: So when did we start looking at the coronavirus? Probably the second week in January, when it started popping up in China as an issue. We've got interests in the global sourcing world, and we started getting reports on how it was impacting things in China, so we started watching it closely at that point. We decided to take a harder look at how to implement the plan we developed in 2009 into a tabletop exercise. On February 2, we dusted it off and compared the plan we had versus what we were seeing in China, and started working on step one pretty heavily.

Craig Boyan: Starting in January, we've been in close contact with several retailers and suppliers around the world. As this has started to emerge, we've been in close contact with retailers in China, starting with what happened in Wuhan in the early couple of months, and what kind of lessons they learned. Over the last couple of months, [we've been] in close contact with some of our Italian retailers and suppliers, understanding how things have evolved in Italy and now in Spain, talking to those countries that are ahead of us in the curve. We've been in daily contact, understanding the pace and the change and the need for product, and how things have progressed in each of those countries.

Justen Noakes: We modeled what had been taking place in China from a transmission perspective, as well as impact. As the number of illnesses and the number of deaths were increasing, obviously the Chinese government was taking some steps to protect their citizens, so we basically mirrored what that might look like. We also took an approach to what we saw during H1N1 in 2009, and later got on top of it. Our example was if we were to get an outbreak, specifically in the Houston area, how would we manage that, and how would we respond with our current resources, as well as what resource opportunities would we have.

Craig Boyan: Chinese retailers have sent some pretty thorough information about what happened in the early days of the outbreak: how did that affect grocery and retail, how did that affect employees and how people were addressing sanitization and social distancing, how quarantine has affected the supply chain, how shopping behavior changed as the virus progressed, how did companies work to serve communities with total lockdowns, and what action steps those businesses wish they had done early in the cycle to get ahead of it.

Preparing Employees

Justen Noakes: One of the biggest things we've looked at is what are the impacts to their employees? How they dealing with the health of their employees? We're very interested in what's happening in the supply chain world, and the products that are being affected. How are they running their stores when they're impacted by absenteeism? We're trying to get answers so we can get ahead of this and really understand how the overall operations of their companies are being impacted.
On February 12, the first coronavirus case was found in Texas. Over the next month, certain products started becoming scarce, and on March 14, H-E-B announced it would be reducing store hours to 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
Justen Noakes: Going to eight-to-eight has been in our playbook all along, but I think what drove it for us was trying to ensure that we had enough product on our shelves to take care of our customers. That's really what we needed-we needed a little bit of extra time to stock all the groceries that were coming in.

Tina James, chief people officer, H-E-B: [Our partners] have responded exceptionally well. Our volume is up tremendously in our stores, and [as far as] our culture, we are incredibly dedicated and engaged. I have been amazed and humbled by how positive their spirit is, and how great they feel to be serving our customers. That said, it's fairly exhausting work, and the volume has been so substantial that we've cut our hours back.

Michael Leas, stock controller, store number 351, Edna: My overnight crew, they're just coming in, and it seems like they're ready. They just ask me what I need them to do. I haven't had very many complaints from the guys or anything. It's been really nice. You can tell that they understand it's not our fault; this is just something that's happening.

Craig Boyan: We're not in a super glamorous job. We have a lot of hard-working people doing hard jobs. But there's a strong sense of pride at H-E-B. We describe ourselves as a purpose-driven company, and we're at our best amid times of crisis. There's a great sense among H-E-B partners that they're doing what's needed to take care of Texans, and that keeps the morale very high.

Tina James: For example, when we saw what was happening with the volume, we asked at corporate if people wanted to volunteer to take shifts in the stores and at the warehouses. We immediately had hundreds-800 corporate folks volunteered for 350, 400 shifts in our stores and warehouses, to be able to help out and give some relief to our stores.

Stephanie Lowe, customer: I met Alma, who has been with H-E-B for 21 years, if I recall, and works in the store's bookkeeping department. She had answered the "all hands on deck" call and was working checkout for the first time in years and she was so excited. She kept saying how much fun she was having being back at checkout and took great delight in looking up the codes to ring up produce. It was such a positive interaction in the midst of organized chaos, and I have thought about it throughout the week at work when things have been stressful.

Making work fun while we go thru this crisis 😂🤩 #HEB #HEB18 pic.twitter.com/48ni3trMm1

- lesliee✨ (@Lesliemarieq) March 19, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Command Central

Justen Noakes: We activated our Emergency Operations Center in San Antonio on March 4 [the EOC is run out of H-E-B's new 1.6 million-square-foot super-regional warehouse]. The driving factor behind that is when we see even a potential upswing in customer activity due to one of these events. The Emergency Operations Center at H-E-B is a collection of the most impacted areas of the company, and the leaders in those areas are brought together to make streamlined decisions and collaborate together on a daily basis. That's almost every area of the company, so we've got a lot going on in our emergency operations center right now. It's very busy.

Dya Campos, director of government and public affairs, H-E-B: Even in the EOC right now, we're practicing social distancing here. We're all very far away from each other, and we're very careful around each other, and taking precautions to take care of each other.

Tina James: There's so much product coming through the super-regional headquarters where the EOC is that we're having two hot meals delivered every day, for the partners who work here. We also have set up an essential store for them within the warehouse, because it's difficult for them to get to a store during the new hours, so they're able to pick up canned items, toilet paper, peanut butter, and water.

Trying to Keep Up

Craig Boyan: When a hurricane happens, it's in an isolated part of the country. We're quite good at pulling product from around the rest of the country and feeding it to Texas. That is much more difficult in a pandemic, where every area of the country is under real stress. So our suppliers, where we're getting paper towels from, our wipes, our hand sanitizer, are getting hit from all retailers, and we are seeing much higher levels of out-of-stock [goods] as a result. We're working really hard to be creative in how we source product when the supply chain is under real pressure.
In early March, retailers around the country started seeing shortages of common household products, and H-E-B began limiting quantities that customers could purchase on a single trip.
Justen Noakes: What we really started seeing first was runs on N95 masks. I think people were sending the masks back home to their families, and it started exponentially increasing at that point, particularly around cleaning supplies, disinfectant, things of that nature. But I don't think anybody saw the toilet paper rush coming.

Craig Boyan: We did not see runs on toilet paper as one of the first things to go out of stock. That was something we still kind of have a hard time understanding.

Michael Leas: When we get to work, it's been empty in the stores, certain sections, like the paper aisle, water, just a bunch of stuff. Bread is just completely blown out, so it's been kind of weird. They changed our hours too. So we're coming in a couple of hours earlier and staying a little bit later now, at night ... My store is a tiny little store. It's got nine aisles. So it's like a big Walgreens.

Craig Boyan: We have a number of Texas companies that are pitching in and doing great work. I can give you a few examples: Labatt is a food distributor here in Texas. Their primary customers are schools, institutions, and restaurants. Obviously those businesses are under real pressure, and many of them are shutting down. So we have been partnering with Labatt to deliver rotisserie chickens, deli lunch meats, and a variety of products.

Blair Labatt, president, Labatt Food Service: We just sort of bolted onto H-E-B's need in the conventional grocery supply with our trucks and drivers, because obviously our core restaurant business is very adversely affected by the crisis, so it's really worked out well for us.

Craig Boyan: We're partnering with the beer distributors in Texas, for the first time ever, to deliver eggs to our stores. We're seeing these types of businesses coming together in a powerful way to support each other, and it's a wonderful thing.

Michael Leas: There have been some nights where the paper [aisle] is out and just didn't really get restocked. But then there's nights where it gets completely jam-packed with products. It almost feels like we're coming into an empty store, and we're completely filling it up every night. You will have a little bit of of holes here and there throughout the store, but it's just not that bad.

Craig Boyan: We've been working very hard right now to deliver meat and poultry and eggs to our stores. We're accelerating opening a new warehouse in Houston that was due a few months later. We're taking some of our warehouses in the state and transitioning them over to serving just meat, because we're seeing such significant demand for meat, poultry, and eggs. We're still having a real hard time sourcing eggs. We had big loads in the last few days, and they've been scooped up as soon as they hit the shelves, so we're working very hard with egg suppliers to see where we can get additional eggs. But our meat plant is running 24/7-we have our own meat plants here. They normally don't go 24/7, but we've focused them down to serving the top fifty items out of our meat plants; they normally carry several hundreds. [Focusing on top items] means fewer changeover delays, and it allows us to ship significantly more meat. We're seeing those kinds of moves across the board as we look to ramp up volume in a rapid way.

Zak Houram, customer: Nothing was super out of stock when I was there last. The staff is super friendly and upbeat, with all things considered. One store [a Central Market] is in Southlake and the other is in Fort Worth, off of Hulen. The Hulen store was considerably better stocked, but Southlake is still better compared to the Targets and Krogers and Tom Thumbs I've been to.

The Great Unknowns

Justen Noakes: We're here to take care of our partners, take care of our customers, take care of our community. So I think that that's really our number one focus, and what we're really trying to do is to meet those objectives-but I will tell you that the challenge of it is the longevity. With a hurricane, you can see the wind coming, you can see the rain. You can see an end in sight. We've been having conversations about how this equates to Harvey, and although the need is very similar ... there is not really a clear end in sight on when we think we will be out of this. On a twice-daily basis, we're monitoring trends in Europe and China, so we can forecast an estimate on when we think we'll be out of this. But unlike a hurricane, we just can't see it.

Tina James: When we have a hurricane, we often know fairly quickly which of our partners have been impacted. At this point, we can only project from a personal impact statement, so at this point, we don't know.
On March 11, President Trump gave a prime-time address about the response to the virus. That same evening, the NBA announced that it would be suspending its season, and actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had both contracted COVID-19.
Craig Boyan: We've had several different spikes, but one of the most significant was [around March 11], when we saw a second furious wave of buying. I don't know if it was the announcement that the NBA had shut, or one of the presidential news conferences, or Tom Hanks, but we saw a major spike that day. And we've seen increased spikes since.

Michael Leas: The cleaning aisle has been insane lately. The canned aisle has been insane. Sugar is one thing that's been out of stock a lot lately, but it feels like they started concentrating on that too. There's certain things, water, definitely water. We're getting trucks with just water, which is not normal.
On March 16, local officials ordered bars and restaurant dining rooms in Houston and Dallas to close; Austin officials made the same decision the following day.
Justen Noakes: I would say rural and urban stores are very consistent, as far as the increase. What we are seeing is a little difference as far as the timing goes. I think that's directly related to confirmation of cases. You're also seeing local governments come in and issue quarantines like closing restaurants and bars, and I think that really fuels some of the purchasing and shopping, and as that goes from town to town, and as cases increase in other towns, that's what's driving it for a lot of our shoppers.

Michael Leas: We've had a lot of extra help from people that aren't stockers, a lot of day crew, the cart pushers or the baggers. They've been coming in early in the morning to help us stock the shelves. These trucks have been massive. Our heaviest aisle during the holidays is a canned aisle, and you'll get maybe about three cases. That's a pretty heavy night for our little store. Last night we had over seven hundred cases on that [aisle]. Some of these aisles have been two, three times heavier than they normally are.

Let's talk about how NO STORE DOES MORE THAN @HEB. pic.twitter.com/8KmKcD3422

- Jess Elizarraras (@JessElizarraras) March 23, 2020

Jessica Elizarraras, customer and bride: Our wedding was supposed to take place on April 5, [but] it didn't make sense for us to try and have this party. So we scheduled everyone-the officiant, co-maids of honor-for Sunday at 4 p.m. and scrambled for a photographer. But I didn't think of flowers. By Saturday, we didn't feel comfortable running around San Antonio finding flowers. So I emailed the H-E-B Blooms department at 5:59 p.m. and received an answer almost immediately. [H-E-B corporate designer] Andy Hopper called us on Sunday morning, went to the wholesaler, found a few goodies and whipped up this amazing bouquet. We picked it up at the Lincoln Heights H-E-B, and he even included a boutonniere for TJ, which I didn't even think to order (bridezilla, much?)! Given the circumstances, I didn't think they could spare anyone. They truly made our day. A bride needs a bouquet and I ended up with a gorgeous one because they cared enough to make it happen, COVID-19 or not.

Lessons Learned

Craig Boyan: Any experience, you learn from and you continue to get better. The way we focus on pushing our business is to try to adapt as quickly as humanly possible, as we talk about the daily adjusting of our supply chain and our store operations.

Justen Noakes: The most important lesson for us is to listen to what's going on in our stores. When we started seeing the N95 masks and the sanitizers, we took that as a good sign that our customers were concerned about what was going on, and that's what really spurred us to activate our program. That's the biggest one-to make sure that we're really paying attention to what our customer does, and to actually respond to it. As we continue to maneuver our supply chain and support our stores during COVID-19, we'll bring some lessons learned and tools out of that into hurricane season.

Dya Campos: One thing we learned from Hurricane Harvey is that our customers want to hear from us. They want to hear our perspective, they want to know what we're doing, what we're thinking, how we're helping our communities.

Bernice Calderon, customer: Whoever is managing their crisis communication is on top of it. And all of their staff has been just as friendly as ever. I did a quick grocery trip on Saturday, and my favorite H-E-B employee told me she missed me cause she hadn't seen me and "Que dios la bendiga." I mean!

Tina James: It's not lost on us that we are offering an essential public function, and it's not lost on our partners, either. And they continue to come to work with a very positive attitude, and continue to serve above and beyond even their normal hours. That never ceases to amaze me. We are very fortunate in that H-E-B has a chief medical officer as well as a medical board, so we have resources at our fingertips to offer up medical advice and guidance to our partners. So we play a unique role in our partners' lives that allows them to have some comfort and calm so they can turn around and take care of our customers.

Blair Labatt: It's inspiring to see people rally around and meet a crisis. It's uplifting to see people cooperate, and energizing to see that all happen. The whole process has been one huge unified response.

Y'all remember when Titanic was sinking and the band was still playing?

Here's H-E-B version of it while people are freaking out over the corona virus

Schertz, TX pic.twitter.com/b0DOYoqlw0

- TEXAS FOREVER (@_TexasForever) March 14, 2020

Dya Campos: A customer sent mariachis in appreciation! We feel a lot of that.

Craig Boyan: The spirit of Texans and their treating H-E-B partners with the respect and pride that they do makes us feel fantastic. I drove by a church the other day in San Antonio that had a sign out front that said 'Thank an H-E-B checker." We've seen an outpouring of support for our partners and truck drivers that gives us a great sense of pride.

As we cover the novel coronavirus in Texas, we'd like to hear from you. Share with us your tips or stories about how the outbreak is affecting you. Email us at [email protected] .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Inside the Story of How H-E-B Planned for the Pandemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Justen Noakes, director of emergency preparedness, H-E-B: Just a little bit of history: we have been working on our pandemic and influenza plan for quite a while now, since 2005, when we had the threat of H5N1 overseas in China. That's when we first developed what our plan looked like, [as well as] some of our requirements and business implications.

# data[].attributes.headline
H-E-B will use robots to fulfill online orders for pick-up, delivery

# data[].attributes.subject
H-E-B will use robots to fulfill online orders for pick-up, delivery

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Texas grocery chain H-E-B will be using robots to support its curbside pick-up and delivery services.

H-E-B will be partnering with Swisslog, a logistics and robotics company based in Switzerland, the companies announced this week.

Swisslog will provide H-E-B with several automated micro-fulfillment centers -- small-scale warehouses that use robots to fulfill online orders -- that will "efficiently meet the growing demand for curbside pick-up without negatively impacting customer experience in the store," the announcement said.

It was unclear how many centers H-E-B will have installed. Currently, the retail chain has more than 400 locations in Texas and northeast Mexico.
COSTCO'S BOOZY ADVENT CALENDAR IS BACK
According to the announcement, H-E-B will use AutoStore for its micro-fulfillment centers, which is one of the "most flexible automation solutions available," according to the release.

AMAZON COMING TO A SUBURB NEAR YOU: REPORT
The AutoStore system will use Swisslog's SynQ software to manage the center's logistics.

Swisslog has more than 170 AutoStore centers installed around the world, according to the announcement.
ANTI-MASK PROTESTERS MARCH THROUGH FLORIDA TARGET, YELL: 'TAKE OFF YOUR MASK!'
"Swisslog is pleased H-E-B put their trust in us to automate and support their facilities with state-of-the-art automation and software," Mitch Hayes, Swisslog Logistics Automation's vice president of e-commerce and retail in the Americas, said in a statement.
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
"COVID-19 and anticipated behavioral changes have created increased urgency around the need for automation within many grocery operations," Hayes added. "E-grocery automation is no longer an option ... it's a requirement for survival and continued growth."
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B will use robots to fulfill online orders for pick-up, delivery

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Texas grocery chain H-E-B will be using robots to support its curbside pick-up and delivery services. H-E-B will be partnering with Swisslog, a logistics and robotics company based in Switzerland, the companies announced this week.

# data[].attributes.headline
Apple CEO Tim Cook says he's 'proud' of H-E-B's 'astonishing' growth on the App Store

# data[].attributes.subject
Apple CEO Tim Cook says he's 'proud' of H-E-B's 'astonishing' growth on the App Store

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Apple CEO Tim Cook is singing H-E-B's praises, but it's not for the "everyday low prices" or fan favorite Meal Simple options.

Cook is lauding the grocery store's expansion in the Apple App Store. The CEO included H-E-B in a tweet with other leading developers who have added to the App Store's growth on Wednesday.

RELATED: H-E-B unveils food hall with five restaurants and a bar inside Austin location

"We're proud that developers like @Caribu, @HEB & @ShineText are growing their businesses on the App Store," his tweet reads. "Our iOS developer community now supports 2.1 millions jobs across all 50 states, providing opportunities for Americans in the face of immense challenges."

Apple further explained the growth in an article posted to the company's newsroom.

According to Apple, the App Store economy has added nearly 300,000 new jobs since April 2019. Apple recognized the importance of applications as users make pandemic-era adjustments to every part of their lives.

H-E-B contributed to Texas' addition of 36,000 new jobs within the last year, which is a 30 percent increase, according to Apple. Before the pandemic, the grocer launched the new My H-E-B app with a glossy Super Bowl commercial starring Eva Longoria in February.

The mobile app makes amenities like curbside and delivery easier and safer for customers. H-E-B has also added features like no-touch coupons, self checkout, in-app donations, and SNAP payment integration.

Since launching, the app's monthly active users have increased by an "astonishing" 1,050 percent and H-E-B has reached their 2021 revenue goals in a matter of months, Apple says. H-E-B has grown the digital team by more than 150.

H-E-B Digital's Chief Product Officer Mike Georgoff explained how critical the app has been for customers throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

"Our focus on ease of use turned out to be even more important than we'd imagined, and we're proud that our app is making it possible for more Texans to take care of their families during the pandemic," he said in the Apple article. "Our company's strength is our workforce - so much so that we call them partners. It means so much to us to grow that team every year as we expand our footprint and offer our customers new digital services."

Some customers reacted to the big name shoutout by asking about the possibility of Apple Pay, a cashless mobile payment option, being offered at H-E-B checkout lanes. The store replied to some of the tweets saying they are "looking into" the option and other ways to minimize contact at the register.
Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @maddyskye

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Apple CEO Tim Cook says he's 'proud' of H-E-B's 'astonishing' growth on the App Store

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Apple CEO Tim Cook is singing H-E-B's praises, but it's not for the "everyday low prices" or fan favorite Meal Simple options. Cook is lauding the grocery store's expansion in the Apple App Store. The CEO included H-E-B in a tweet with other leading developers who have added to the App Store's growth on Wednesday.

# data[].attributes.headline
How the H-E-B offices were designed for Texas

# data[].attributes.subject
How the H-E-B offices were designed for Texas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At H-E-B, we love Texas. The spirit of the state is part of everything we do, down to how designed our offices. Both our San Antonio headquarters, The Arsenal, and our Austin space, the Eastside Tech Hub, are filled with nods to our Texas heritage. Take a tour and see how our spaces pay tribute to the Lone Star State.

The Arsenal

In 1859, the US Army founded the Arsenal to store munitions and supplies bound for frontier forts during the Mexican-American War. Since being decommissioned, the Arsenal was designated as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1964 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the H-E-B offices were designed for Texas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At H-E-B, we love Texas. The spirit of the state is part of everything we do, down to how designed our offices. Both our San Antonio headquarters, The Arsenal, and our Austin space, the Eastside Tech Hub, are filled with nods to our Texas heritage.

# data[].attributes.body
Creative Conversations that take you behind the scenes of H-E-B Digital's Business.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Chandra Kay Bricker: Hello and welcome to Staple and Fancy by H-E-B Digital. I'm your host Chandra Kay Bricker. Today we've got Kat Bransom, Karla Gross, and Marsha Faichtinger. (I won't attempt to spell that.) Before we get started can we tell our audience what all of you do for a H-E-B?

Marsha Faichtinger: Sure. I am a part of the corporate HR team and focused on our Digital teams across the board. So that work includes a lot of talent development work, coaching, change management and whatever else anybody comes up with. We're looking ahead to what's next in the field and what kind of innovative things we should be looking at. So each day is a little bit different.

Chandra Kay Bricker: That's fun. Miss Gross?

Karla Gross: I manage the Quality Engineering team for the enterprise and we ensure the quality of the solutions we deliver to our customers, both internal and external.

Chandra Kay Bricker: And you are an engineer, is that correct?

Karla Gross: I am a female engineer.

Chandra Kay Bricker: Miss Kat?

Kat Bransom: I lead our digital recruiting team. We have a fantastic team of recruiters who are responsible for finding the best talent out there for H-E-B Digital.

Chandra Kay Bricker: That's awesome. Well, today in honor of International Women's Day we want to talk about women in tech, which each of you have a passion around. You created this Women in Tech group for H-E-B, and I wanted to talk a little bit more about that. What was the impetus for starting a Women in Tech group at H-E-B Digital?

Marsha Faichtinger: Kat and I worked really closely back then. We were kind of the sole folks in our field. At that time I was the single HRM for our technology team. She was the single recruiter for Digital, and both of our areas have exploded with the growth. This all started with our CIO wanting to focus on how we could increase our number of females in our field. At that time we were just launching our e-commerce group and I wanted to blend together the technology team and the commerce team. I knew that was going to mean more talent we were going to need to find. Recruiting was already a difficult challenge at that time, so how do you get more women and be intentional about our efforts? Part of that included looking at where do we recruit. How do we focus on finding women? And that led us to: how do we make sure that we retain the women that we have? How do we create a sense of community for them? How do we help them focus on their own careers and their growth and what they needed? Then, in turn, if we built that internal community it could become very attractive to folks looking to join our company. That's where it got its start.

Kat Bransom: We co-founded the group in 2017, so we're coming into our third year of the Women in Technology group. To reiterate what Marsha said we were just in this period of incredible growth and wanted to help bridge the gap between some of the hiring that we were doing for the new areas at H-E-B and some of the current Partners that were already working for us. So we sat down and we brainstormed what we wanted our...I guess we could call it a mission statement, what our purpose was for the Women in Technology group. We came up with three things, three big buckets. The first was really to help build a community within existing H-E-B women in technology by organizing meetings and different events that they could go to. The second thing we wanted to help with was professional development, not necessarily technical skills because they were getting a lot of that in their current roles or learning that on their own, but going outside of that and talking about leadership and other personal development areas. Then finally we wanted to have outreach with the community. So much of what H-E-B does is not just about H-E-B. It's about the community as a whole. So we've done a couple of different volunteer events or community outreach events. We wanted to target a lot of younger girls as well. We felt like that was a great place to start. So at H-E-B, we have high school interns. We worked a lot with CAST Tech, a school here in San Antonio that's focused around STEM. Once we had those three points it kind of took off from there.

Marsha Faichtinger: Yeah, we were looking to plant those seeds early on so a young girl at high school level could see that this is as a viable option. A lot of what girls saw on television or in an ad at that time was, you know, guys, and so how we started to change that narrative was important.

Chandra Kay Bricker: And Karla what did that mean for you as a member of Women in Tech?

Karla Gross: I was one of those new teams that had no people on it (laughs). I was with Kat recruiting a lot and trying to make sure that we continued to build a diverse team. Being a woman and being in technology for over 20 years now, it was really important to me that I have female applications coming in, that we had people that we could talk to. But also, for me, it was about finding ways to connect with other partners in the organization where we could share stories, share information, and then learn from each other. So it was cool that they came and said: "hey do you want to help us do this?" We just kind of sat down and they gave me their ideas and we said who should we invite and we started that way

Chandra Kay Bricker: SoKarla, I imagine the STEM classrooms of today look a little different than when you were in school getting your degree in engineering?

Karla Gross: Well, when I was in school getting my degree I was the only woman. Everything I did was always with this group of guys or multiple groups of guys and in every class, I was usually the only one. Now I've gone back to the school a few times to connect with some of the new deans and the new engineers coming out, and there's a lot more women-not as many as there could be or that there should be-but there's a lot more. I think more women are finding an interest in it than they did when I was growing up. If it wouldn't have been for my parents pushing I don't know if that's where I would have ended up. But my father was the one that was like, "You got this go do it."

Chandra Kay Bricker: So to build a welcoming network of other women who are seeking a career in technology is absolutely critical to our strategy and to our success going forward. So talk to me about these events. What's a typical Women in Tech event look like? Or what happens?

Kat Bransom: I think probably the number one event that we had wasn't anything super fancy or hard. A lot of what we did was getting H-E-B leaders or Partners to come to speak to our group. And what we try to do was a mixture of both females in tech Partners, and also outside of the tech world. We got some other female leaders at H-E-B to speak to our group. So I think what was really powerful about that is that all of the Partners in our Women In Technology group got to hear from other really powerful talented women, whether it was inside or outside of technology, and just kind of hear their story and their path. I think sometimes as women we think we're the only ones struggling or we're the only ones that have this problem. "It must be just me." So, even me not being in technology, you get to see wow this person who's this top leader at H-E-B has this incredible story or this path that got them to where they are today. So just hearing those stories and knowing you're not alone. You're not the only one who is maybe the only woman in their group or you're not the only one that's run across this career problem. Just hearing from other leaders at H-E-B for me was one of the most powerful things that we did and that was a lot of what the meetings were about-just hearing from other leaders and allowing them to kind of share their stories.

Marsha Faichtinger: I think if I'm remembering because we run queries to figure out who's that audience to get the invites out since we were hiring or people were coming and going. I think we were probably around 70ish in the early days as we looked at kind of how we defined who was considered "digital women." And that included folks in our digital marketing team and our e-commerce team and our technology team-so we were pretty liberal in how we defined that because we wanted to be much more inclusive. And we did ask Partners what they wanted to see and solicited their ideas for topics or leaders. I remember us having Tammy Hermann, one of our directors in technology, come and tell her story. Most people only know of her time at H-E-B and to go back into her entire career history and find out where she's been and what she's done, I think people found that pretty fascinating, to hear things that she had learned or struggled with. I remember planning with her, we had lots of debate and discussion over should we target women in technology. Should you separate that out or not? And I thought that was a great discussion. She tends to say "Oh I don't look for things that are just for women, because I'm just a leader. Why make that distinction?" We had some good debate over that early on. But what we found is there are differences, right? And it was important for the community that we were creating to have a place where they could talk openly and freely with other folks who may have shared some of their similar struggles. Most of them were, just like Karla going to school, on teams where they were the only female or one of two females on the team. It's not like you'd have full teams of other women. And you get in your workgroup and you're just working and a lot of people had never connected with the other teams, so you don't know how many people are out there and how to connect with them and that they're sharing some of the same struggles. We did a great session on mental health. The discussion was fantastic. We watched a couple of TED Talks and then it was amazing how brave these women were about sharing their stories of things that they've struggled with in their lives or their families. And the connection that that created among people who were willing to speak and share freely was pretty amazing

Kat Bransom: The other thing that to tack onto what Marsha was saying is that we got all these women in a room. Some so many people work for H-E-B, it's just impossible to know everybody, but by having this group it allowed us to bring everybody that was in a similar role together to be in one room. And the meetings were always optional so we had a different crowd every time it was never the exact same group of women. It allowed the Partners to form relationships and meet people that they ordinarily would not have been able to meet in their role, which was also a pretty powerful part of the group. Especially now, at the time when we started the group in 2017, all of our technical roles were based in San Antonio. Now over the last two years, we've opened the Eastside Tech Hub in Austin and so now we have two different locations even in San Antonio we have several different locations for different buildings. I think our hope moving forward is that we'll continue to build those relationships even with people that don't work in the same city or that don't work in the same area.

Karla Gross: I think it gives us a chance to network with each other. We're so busy being heads down all the time trying to get the work done. But there are so many people in the same department even that don't even know who each other are. I think it's less about dividing women out and making them a separate group, and more about celebrating their differences, so that's been great.

Chandra Kay Bricker: That's an absolutely great point. The last question I'm going to ask you, and I'm gonna ask all of you to answer it, is what advice would you give to a female interested in technology who wants to work for a company like H-E-B?

Karla Gross: Be fearless. Go in full-on. Don't hold back. It doesn't matter that you're a woman. Go in.

Kat Bransom: I would say you know if you're looking for an opportunity, try to find a company like H-E-B where they have these types of groups and they have the resources available to you. Being fearless is great, but you want to have people alongside you, so really make sure that as you're looking for a company and you're doing your research that you're finding a company that's going to support your goals and have groups like this that are there to support you as well.

Marsha Faichtinger: I would say I think whenever you're looking for: where do I fit, where do I belong, where do I want to work, trying to figure out you know how do you find an organization that matches your values. That is interesting work for you that you can create a sense of connectedness and community and that there's opportunity. And I think H-E-B brings all of that. We work on really tough problems. We work for a great company that has a focus on the community and doing the right thing of being bold and innovative in many ways and being gritty to solve those problems. So again we've got great work. There are great people here. And we're always looking to figure out how do we do it better.

Chandra Kay Bricker: I couldn't agree more and I think that having a Women in Tech group creates a sense of belonging that so many people are looking for, so thank you all for the work you do. Thanks for being on the mic today. This is your host Chandra Kay Bricker and we're out.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Chandra Kay Bricker: Hello and welcome to Staple and Fancy by H-E-B Digital. I'm your host Chandra Kay Bricker. Today we've got Kat Bransom, Karla Gross, and Marsha Faichtinger. (I won't attempt to spell that.) Before we get started can we tell our audience what all of you do for a H-E-B?

# data[].attributes.body
This link helps us know who you are! Please make sure you include your resume.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
HireVue is an AWESOME new way to interview - on demand!

# data[].attributes.body
You get a rich, skill-building experience – we’ll get our own coffee. During your 10-week summer internship with H-E-B, you’ll help us find solutions to real life problems that drive the business forward.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B University Grad & Summer Internship Opportunities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In H-E-B's 10-week summer internship, you'll help find solutions to real problems that drive the business. For new grads looking to start their careers, H-E-B is the land of opportunity.

# data[].attributes.body
Check out the aisles and aisles of career opportunities here at H-E-B.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B Careers | View Texas Jobs & Apply Online

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find amazing part time jobs & full time employment opportunities at H-E-B. Being an H-E-B Partner is an opportunity for a rewarding, never boring career. Named a Glassdoor 2019 Best Place to Work!

# data[].attributes.body
Learn more about what makes H-E-B so special.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B Culture | Company Values, Service & Heart

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At H-E-B giving back to the community is our way of saying thanks! Learn about H-E-B's commitment to Customers & Partners and why diversity, sustainability & innovation matter.

# data[].attributes.body
We've Grown From a Store, to So Much More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
About H-E-B | Company History, Culture & Stores

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
H-E-B has been proudly serving Texans since 1905. Learn more about our rich company history, and why staying true to our values and people has made H-E-B a fantastic place to grow your career.

# data[].attributes.body
Come chat with our H-E-B recruiting team and learn about our career opportunities.

Dial: +1 346-248-7799
| Meeting ID:  | 927 7467 4013
| Passcode: | 021685

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

# data[].attributes.body
Whether you’re an engineer, an eCommerce professional, or in product or design, we have a role for you. Though each position is different, any career at H-E-B Digital promises to provide more than your average tech job

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B Digital | See Austin & San Antonio Positions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find full time positions in Digital Product, Digital Commerce & Digital Technology. We welcome out-of-the box thinkers, and at H-E-B, your big ideas will have a bigger impact.

# data[].attributes.body
Get an insight into our internship program!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B College Intern Recruiting | H-E-B Careers

# data[].attributes.headline
H-E-B Careers: Karen – Finance Manager, E-Commerce

# data[].attributes.subject
H-E-B Careers: Karen – Finance Manager, E-Commerce

# data[].attributes.body
Big companies come with big data! Put curiosity to work – form theories, test hunches, find patterns, and make predictions – to open the doors of new possibilities for our Partners, facilities, Stores, and Customers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B Careers: Karen – Finance Manager, E-Commerce

# data[].attributes.body
Amber talks about her experience and role as a Developer in H-E-B’s San Antonio Development Center.

# data[].attributes.headline
H-E-B Careers: Kristin – Software Developer

# data[].attributes.subject
H-E-B Careers: Kristin – Software Developer

# data[].attributes.body
Kristin discusses what makes working at H-E-B different from other jobs and her favorite part about working at H-E-B!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
H-E-B Careers: Kristin – Software Developer

# data[].attributes.headline
H-E-B Careers: Sarah Dunn - Design Researcher

# data[].attributes.subject
H-E-B Careers: Sarah Dunn - Design Researcher

# data[].attributes.body
For this design researcher, people are the most important thing. Learn how H-E-B offered her a chance to have real impact.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sarah Dunn - Design Researcher | H-E-B Digital

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
HEB Careers Business Card Digital Recruiting