Shipper’s Guide: Getting Logistics a Seat at the Table.
Our initiative aims to cultivate a supportive environment where women can thrive personally and professionally by fostering collaboration and building bridges across Evans. What better way to celebrate Women's History Month and International Women's Day on March 8th than to introduce several Women of Evans? Please allow us to introduce to you Staff Accountant, Kim Mueller- in her words.
Hi! I’m Kim Mueller, and I’m the staff accountant here at Evans. Was it this little girl’s dream to be an accountant when she grew up? Not at all. I wanted to write the next best-selling novel or be a journalist and, at one point, an attorney. Those ideas fell away as I got older. In fact, Accounting wasn’t even on my radar until the last semester of my senior year in high school. I needed a filler class for my senior year and Accounting was the only business class that I hadn’t taken and fit into my schedule. During senior year of high school, I was being bombarded with the question, “what are you doing after high school?” I didn’t have an answer. I’ve never been a long-term planner, I figure things will work out because, well, they have to. My parents never pushed my brothers or me into anything. Plus, my dad received orders to Washington D.C. that year and they were busy planning their move. I don’t even remember what prompted me to do this, other than thinking to myself that I enjoyed my accounting class and could probably do that for a profession. One afternoon in the spring of 2000, I went and registered for Accounting classes at Gateway Technical College.
Two years later, I graduated with my Associates degree.
Turns out, I wouldn’t use any of my newly acquired accounting skills for several years. During high school and for the next 8 years, I worked in real estate. First at a title company, and then for a builder/developer. Real estate definitely was not my passion, but it did help me break out of my painfully shy shell. In 2008, when the housing market tanked, I got out of real estate and started working at a nutraceutical company. It was here that I started using my accounting skills and gained tons of experience. During this time, I went back to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Two years ago, I joined the Evans team. For a career that I took a blind jump towards, it has served me well and I’ve learned so much.
Outside of work, I have a pretty normal, if not boring, personal life. I grew up in a small town in southeastern Wisconsin, the youngest of three, and the only girl. I’m fortunate to have family close by and in good health. I met my husband in 2014 and we were married in the fall of 2017. No children, but we did get an adorable little puppy in June that has us on our toes.
I’m a proud self-proclaimed nerd, specifically when it comes to books and Disney. I enjoy reading and will talk your ear off if you show the slightest interest in reading! On any given day, I am probably wearing something associated with Disney!
Women’s history or International Women’s Day didn’t really have an impact on me until I reached adulthood. I was reading a book that was written in the mid-80’s, and I couldn’t understand why the main character was saying she was having a hard time with being on her own after her divorce. It wasn’t until I looked it up and discovered that women weren’t allowed to have their own bank accounts until 1974 that I fully understood. That absolutely blew my mind. We aren’t talking about the days of women’s suffrage; we are talking about my mother’s generation. It made me realize how important fighting for your rights and not taking them for granted is.
There are many women in my life that I admire, or who had an impact on my life; but it’s my mom that I admire the most. My parents were married two weeks after my mom graduated high school, and children came soon after. My dad was in the military and gone a lot when I was growing up, so my mom was basically a single parent. Not only that, but she was young herself and had to grow up while raising us. My mom recently shared with me the struggles she went through, and it really made me think of things in a new light.
To connect with Kim on LinkedIn, please click here.