Jennifer Braaten, Cancarb Ltd. | Women Breaking the Mold 2024

Jennifer Braaten came from a small community where her parents were self-employed grain and cattle farmers, and she and her two sisters grew up helping on the farm.

"It was a lot of hard work, it was long days, but it was something that I would never change," Braaten said. "I even look back now and think, 'Man, that was fun.' It was a lot of fun to grow up that way, and it taught me good work ethic."

Today, Braaten is the manager of customer service and logistics at Cancarb Ltd. in Medicine Hat, Alberta—about an hour and a half south of where she grew up.

Cancarb is Braaten's first job in the rubber industry, where she's worked for the last 15 years. But she never expected she would work in the rubber industry, "not in a million years."

Prior to her current role with Cancarb, Braaten did a two-year business administration degree in office technology from Medicine Hat College, and for nine years, worked front administration for an optometrist's office.

She lauded the office for its flexibility and family atmosphere, and even credited it for helping her become more confident and courageous.

But after nearly a decade in this role, she was ready for the next step in her career.

"I decided … I wanted to change my career to where I'm more driven toward an actual career path," she said. "There was an opportunity at Cancarb that came up, I thought I would apply, and lo and behold, here I am 15 years later."

On her first day at Cancarb, she admitted feeling overwhelmed by the work the company did and how she fit in the middle of it all.

"It's quite complex once you get doing it," she said. "After the very first day that I started work at Cancarb, I went home and I said to my husband, 'I'm never going to be able to do this. There's so much to know.' "

Now, she's right at home.

"It's amazing how resilient we are," Braaten said. "We grow into the positions, and then we look back and it was like, 'What was the big deal?' "

Since working with Cancarb, Braaten said she's learned so much that it's difficult to make a comprehensive list. But the one thing that stands out the most, she said, is learning that it's okay to make a mistake.

"And it's okay to show people that it's okay to make a mistake because it shows everyone that you're human, that you're not perfect, that people are still going to be accepting and they're going to be there to support you and help you find a solution," she said, adding that this also teaches everyone to operate as a team.

At Cancarb, Braaten said her department is the "center pivoting point" of the company.

"Customer service and logistics at Cancarb, it's like imagining a huge jigsaw puzzle. What we're responsible for doing is anything that falls in between receival of a purchase order to when the container is loaded onto a ship," she said. "We're dealing with the lab, we're dealing with production, we're dealing with the accounting, we're dealing with the warehouse. Everything kind of crosses through customer service to get our goods delivered."

And this work doesn't just benefit Cancarb.

Braaten, according to her nomination, "was instrumental" in developing a partnership with one of the trucking companies Cancarb works with, Paul Brandt Trucking (PBT), and a local food bank in Medicine Hat.

Braaten said she heard from one of her coworkers that the food bank was dealing with high shipping costs to bring in food and supplies from distribution sites in other cities.

"They just couldn't afford, based on their budgets, to get the food that was essentially available to them at a different location because they couldn't pay for the (shipping) cost," she said.

When hearing about this challenge from her coworker, she said the idea to form a partnership to assist the food bank "popped" into her head.

"Paul Brandt Trucking is very community-involved and very generous, and we also like to give back to our community, so it was a very easy decision to approach the owners of Paul Brandt Trucking to say, 'Is there some way we can collaborate on this?" she said. "It took no time at all for the owners to come back and say, 'Absolutely.' "

Braaten said Cancarb has the PBT trucks running back and forth through their warehouse every day with the food bank within route.

With the current arrangement, PBT now picks up the food and supplies and offloads it at Cancarb's warehouse at no charge before reloading the trucks with Cancarb's products for shipment to customers. This way, the food bank can pick up the supplies from Cancarb.

"We've supplied them with over 15,000 pounds of additional food in the last five months that they would have had to pay (shipping) for out of their budget," Braaten said.

She considers this partnership one of her greatest accomplishments professionally.

"To collaborate on the project with Paul Brandt has been such a great honor and so rewarding for myself and the entire team behind the scenes because we were able to give back to the community that's supported us, even myself, for many years."

When it comes to the people who inspire her, Braaten noted two women along her career.

"There were two amazing ladies throughout my career that really paved the path and inspired me to be the person that I am today," she said, naming the first supervisor she ever had from the optometrist's office, Brenda, and her previous supervisor at Cancarb—whose role she inherited upon her retirement—Donna.

"In the rubber industry, you're going to deal with a ton of strong personalities. Because (the percentage of) women in the rubber industry is still much lower than the percentage of men. We need to be mentally tough, and they taught me that," Braaten said.

"They taught me—both of them—to be confident, to be positive, stay true to who I am, but don't forget where I come from."

And she certainly hasn't forgotten where she came from. Because most of all, Braaten said, she is inspired by her mom and dad. The two self-employed cattle farmers who taught her how rewarding hard work can be.

"They showed me since I was just a little girl to work really hard, (and) if you do work hard, it can be very rewarding. And not to wait to be told to do something. If there's something to be done, just go do it. Just take the bull by the horns and go," Braaten said.

"I guess my courage and my mental toughness started when I was smaller than I thought."

Years with company: 15

Years in rubber industry: 15

I was looking for a career change and a friend told me about an opening at Cancarb in the marketing department and thought that I might be interested.

Managing customer service and logistics for Cancarb is like overseeing a giant jigsaw puzzle. The difference is that the puzzle pieces are always changing, and you have to be able to adjust quickly. However, when the puzzle pieces fall into place, and our Thermax gets to its destination, it is so rewarding to know that the hard work we put in every day helps deliver our premium product around the globe.

In my 15 years at Cancarb I have worked with many amazing people. We have fun at work and enjoy each other's company while managing all the stresses that come along with getting our product to global markets from a remote location in Southern Alberta. Hard work from the entire Cancarb team has contributed to strengthening our brand "Thermax" and making Cancarb the world's largest thermal carbon black company.

Challenge seems like such an aggressive term. Collaborating with different groups internally and keeping the team focused on providing the best possible customer experience is part of my every day. During these collaboration meetings we work together to come up with innovative solutions. This requires actively listening to different viewpoints and sharing my views. During these meetings, and when interacting with my co-workers and team, I share my thoughts and ideas and strive to keep an open mind while listening to other perspectives and ideas as we work towards a solution.

Leadership to me is empowering your team to trust their decisions while supporting them throughout their career. Good leaders should communicate with honesty and not be afraid to own their mistakes. They should show up to work every day excited and ready to take on whatever challenges arise. If you do this, your team will thrive. Always show them that you approach your position by always trying to add value to whatever you do, and they will do the same. I firmly believe in empowering, supporting and coaching your team.

I primarily read books for pleasure to help my mind escape the every day. "Where the Crawdads Sing" would be one book that I would recommend reading. Not only for pleasure but because of the underlying messaging that I took away from this story. The main female character in this book was strong, courageous, and not afraid to fight hard and battle forward despite several struggles she faced. Facing and conquering the struggles and failures she was dealt helped her on her path to success, fulfillment and happiness in life. It had a strong message that I took away as, "Life is tough … but so are you!"

It is always hard to admit a failure. I don't know if it is my biggest failure, but I routed a container to the wrong destination. It was supposed to go to Gwangyang, South Korea, and I had it routing to Busan, South Korea. I worked with our forwarders, and we were able to fix the issue quickly and without any stress to the customers. I also shared the experience with my team, so we could all learn from it. It reminded me that every mistake can be fixed, and it is not the mistake you make, but the approach you take to correct it and how you fix it that really matters. And that sometimes you must fail in order to be successful.

My favorite hobby to help unwind would be some type of physical activity. This could be a run, long walk or cycling. These activities give me time to get in my own head and let my mind wander.

Success to me isn't measured by a position or a salary. That may be how some people rank success, but to me success is being happy and content with who I am (not who others want me to be). You need to be happy with the work you do. Knowing you did the best you could every day. To me success is being content with where you have been and where you're headed.