Mitzi Lloyd's first "real job" was at the Tomato Shed in Grand Saline, TX.
Nearby farmers would bring in bundles of tomatoes, and she was tasked with washing them, sorting them and packing them in boxes as they moved down a conveyor belt. It was a popular summer gig among local teenagers, even if it was hard work outdoors, during the hottest months of the year.
Mitzi didn’t suffer long in the sun, though. Within a week, she was promoted to payroll manager. She was 14 years old.
It served as an early, yet significant, example of Mitzi’s life-long, persistent path upward in her professional endeavors.
The Datamax Tyler Office Manager has been ascribed many titles over the years. Educator. Administrator. Manager. Mentor. And Mother. But not one individually can accurately portray Mitzi’s abundance of professional success or her determination with any given task. Her list of degrees (an Ed.D. in Supervision, Curriculum, and Instruction; a M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education, a M.S. in Home Economics, and a B.S. in Home Economics Education) certainly offers a snapshot of her ambition and breadth of expertise.
But it’s only when you meet Mitzi and work alongside her that you absorb her true impact.
“I love helping people grow. I’m really a mom in that regard,” Mitzi said. “Growing up, I didn’t think women always had role models to show everything they could accomplish professionally. That was a lot of it for me: Helping people get to where they needed to be.”
Her current Datamax role, managing administrative employees, helped her realize just how much she missed supervising and mentoring fellow team members.
“I feel invigorated,” she said. “It’s very fulfilling. Within the last month, I feel much more at home in my mind.”
Small Town Roots
Mitzi was born and raised in Mineola, a sleepy East Texas town with historic ties to the railroad and several antique shops along its main street. She describes it as an idyllic place to be a child, where kids traveled the roads by bike without hesitation, and later as a teenager, she and friends burned many tanks of gas up and down Broad Street on weekends.
Her mom was an office manager most of her childhood. Her dad drove a truck.
“I was just a home town girl, and didn’t know life any other way,” Mitzi said. “I was into everything: I was a cheerleader, in the drill team, I was in those crazy little pageants. We grew up very poor, so I saw school and professional success as a way of getting out of that (poverty).”
An Eye on Education
That’s precisely the route she took. Aspiring to be a Home Economics teacher, she earned her bachelor’s degree in education in three years from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M Commerce), and earned her first master’s degree in her fourth. Her first teaching job was as an assistant instructor at East Texas State.
“There wasn’t really a lot of academic advising. I really only knew three things a woman could do: Be a nurse, or be a teacher or an office manager. I knew I couldn’t be a nurse,” Mitzi said.
As she was teaching, she also completed her first doctorate. The following year, Mitzi took a job teaching Kindergarten at nearby Alba Golden ISD. Most of the 12 children in her classroom were severely economically disadvantaged, so Mitzi took it upon herself to provide support and education that went beyond the school's curriculum.
“I became their mom. Literally, I became their mom,” Mitzi said. “I became their Daisy Leader. I had parties for them at my home. I took them to Pizza Hut after school, as none of them had ever been to a restaurant. They were learning to read at the time, so they could read the menu and make their own choices... Those kids had hearts of gold and were sponges. For whatever reason, they had never been given certain opportunities, so I wanted to share them with these kids.”
In the years that followed, Mitzi taught high school home economics, and then became a high school counselor in Canton and later Hawkins, where she stayed eight years. She would later transition into Administration, serving as Special Programs Coordinator for Region 7 in East Texas and, eventually, the Assistant Superintendent at Gladewater ISD. After 30 years in the education field, working from sunrise to late into evenings regularly, Mitzi needed a break.
“But I knew I wasn’t going to stay home,” she said.
A New Phase Professionally
Late in the school year of 2015, with retirement in mind, Mitzi went to an employment agency in search of a position with regular, more stable, working hours. That day, the agency told her about an opening at East Texas Copy Systems for an Administrative Assistant. She interviewed, and was hired the very same day.
“I didn’t take a day off,” Mitzi said. “I ended the school year, and June 1, started working at East Texas Copy Systems.”
Now, as the office manager for Datamax, Mitzi finds herself in a familiar role of mentoring, supervising, and guiding those around her. Her career path has zig-zagged the greater East Texas area, impacting students and fellow employees with that mother-like sense of willing others to succeed.
But really, in a career that’s taken her many places, there has been one true, consistent direction for Mitzi all along – upwards.
