Deep inside the mind and heart of Penny Spalding lies a supreme desire to help people, by whatever means necessary.

When it comes to the Datamax Corporate Leasing Manager making a difference, she’s not just willing and able. Penny senses a calling.

Four years ago, her ailing father-in-law was transferred to Hospice Care. In being there with him, every time she walked the halls at the center, she noticed an elderly woman in a nearby room, in her bed, alone. The white-haired, frail woman lay curled up in a ball, with no visitors to speak of, no hand to hold hers amidst her final days on this earth. It moved Penny. But it also motivated her. So, she soon after began her journey as a regular hospice volunteer.

“I made it a point right then. If I had the honor of being with patients as they take on their final days, I would do so. If I could offer someone a hand to hold while he or she is lying in a bed, I would do it,” Penny said. “And that’s what I’ve done.”

Difference Makers reveal their magic in many ways. Penny’s difference-making abilities come to light through her processes as a Leasing Manager, through her philanthropy, and certainly through her organic, simple desire to help people.

“I love our Mission Statement, Creating Raving Fans!” Penny says with emphasis. “Everything I try to do revolves around ‘what can we do that benefits customers, and still helps sales do what they need to do?’ We’re one team. We’re one company. So how do we all work together to Create those Raving Fans?”

Difference Making is about Community.

Penny was born in Missouri’s “Bootheel,” the southeastern most part of Missouri, so-called because its shape in relation to the rest of the state resembles the heel of a boot. As a child, she moved to Arnold, at the time a rural Missouri community that embraced a simpler time for families to live, work, and play together.

“It was just sort of country (living),” Penny recalls. “Growing up, it was skating, playing hockey in the ponds out back. We rode bikes until the street light told us it was time to come home.”

It was also “all about family.” As a young adult, Penny recalls regular family vacations and boating outings at Kentucky Lake along the Tennessee/Missouri border. Today, in the same family spirit, she brags openly and fervently about the success of her two sons, 31 and 41, and as Christmas approaches, she eagerly awaits their arrival.

Penny takes that ingrained sense of community to the workplace. Since arriving in June 2020, she’s worked hard to create and build on relationships with people across the Datamax organization. COVID has halted many of her travel hopes, but in 2022, she’s included in her business plans to do more to expand her own sense of community.

“I really want to go to each and every one of the offices to meet the managers, get to know people at each location on a more personal level, and really just get that one on one time,” Penny said.

It’s all about Communication.

Prior to coming to Datamax, Penny spent 35 years with a Healthcare Insurance company, which was acquired three times in her time there. When people ask what her biggest accomplishment was, she replies candidly, “being in middle management and keeping my job.” So how’d she do it?

“It was the ability to think big picture and see what is best for the company as a whole,” Penny says.
Certainly, doing so means stepping outside of your own role and stepping into the roles of her peers, to gain a wider view of company operations at large. By learning the roles and responsibilities of others – seeing their perspective – communication becomes much easier.

“Communication is so important. If there is an email that’s going around and we’ve gotten to two or three, it’s time to pick up the phone,” Penny said.

Which is one reason she plans in 2022 to broaden her Datamax operations IQ, by visiting with different departments and stepping into their roles.

“I’m not someone who wants to know just my piece of the puzzle. I would like to expand my knowledge of how other pieces of the puzzle fit into what we’re doing (in leasing),” Penny says. “Yesterday I had a question about equipment pick up – I don’t know a lot about the warehouse operations. So that’s a perfect example where I could benefit from sitting with Tony (Ashcraft) or Alex (Hernandez) and learning more about how their operations work.”

It’s all about the Calling.

As a professional, Penny’s calling is to manage and facilitate one of Datamax’s greatest differentiators – its In House Leasing program.

For customers to realize so many of the advantages that come with leasing from us (flexibility, responsiveness, convenience, etc.), Penny must assist with orders, setups, addendums, and buy outs. She takes calls from sales to seek customer-first solutions. And, in the spirit of Datamax Leasing and Datamax culture at large, she often gets creative.

“It’s hard to keep me in a box. So I try to think outside the box,” Penny said. “To me, the difference (with Datamax leasing) comes down to having that personal connection vs just being a number to a company you lease with. Those customers know they can pick up a phone if they have an issue, because we truly care, and we have guidelines, but we can make exceptions. We can ask ourselves, how can we look at this differently?”

As a person, of course, Penny’s calling is much larger. She’s a caregiver. A volunteer. A companion with an open hand and heart for hospice patients who’d otherwise be alone.

In either case, we see an individual with the mind and heart to help people in any possible way she can, by whatever means necessary. That’s what Creates Raving Fans.

That’s what truly makes a difference.