Maria Inglesby

Careers rarely follow a perfectly straight line. When we are young, there is so much pressure to decide exactly what we want to do for the rest of our lives, as if one decision at eighteen years old is supposed to determine our entire future. The truth is, most people’s paths change many times along the way, and that is completely okay. I originally earned my associate degree in horticulture and spent four years working in the green industry. At the time, I fully expected that to be my...

I had to use a plant metaphor for this one—because some people may not know, I’m a bit of a plant nerd. I earned an associate’s degree in horticulture and spent four years working in the green industry before joining the Navy. When I was assigned the rate of Information Systems Technician (IT), I had no background in computers and honestly had no idea what I was doing—but I made it work. Now, I’m working as a bookkeeper at Mettle Ops. It’s not the path I originally pictured, but in a way, it...

There’s something about spring that feels like a quiet reset. Not loud or dramatic—just steady change. The air softens, the days stretch a little longer, and everything that felt stuck during the winter starts to move again. After months of gray skies and routines that can feel repetitive, spring shows up as a reminder that progress doesn’t always have to be forced. Sometimes it just happens when the conditions are right. In work and in life, winter seasons are real. The busy periods, the...