National Disability Employment Awareness Month Spotlight: Tiffany Emmons
 By Equal Opportunity Office
  Program Manager
Battle Creek, Michigan **Woman holding a sign that reads My Goal In Life Is to Become The Person My Dog Thinks I Am.
        Tiffany Emmons
            Tiffany Emmons has worked for DLA since 1999 and works with a variety of partners on various IT projects.
        
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                    VIRIN: 230919-D-D0441-5000**I work with a variety of partners on various IT projects that unfold for Technology Foundation Services. **How long have you worked for the federal government?**I have worked for DLA since 1999. **How long have you worked for DLA Disposition Services?**I’ve worked for Logistics Information Service, J64, and Disposition Services in a variety of positions at HQ and Italy. **What is your favorite thing about your line of work?**I love being able to help others. I enjoy bringing different resources together to solve challenges in support of the warfighter. **What is the best piece of advice someone has given you?**Realize that you aren’t here to solve the world’s problems. Do your best and help others in the way you’d want to be helped. **What do you think about when you hear National Disability Employment Awareness Month?**I think about people learning to think outside of who they are. I see people gaining additional understanding of people with unique problem-solving skills. I think of people learning that disabilities don’t all look alike. I see people broadening their understanding in a way to learn to relate and appreciate all people. **Why is it important to you that we celebrate People with Disabilities Month?** It is too easy to just think “everyone is like me” and forget that people operate differently, oftentimes through physical limitations that may not be apparent to others. **What challenges do People with Disabilities face today and how can understanding history help us overcome them?**The more we can increase awareness, the more respect and understanding we can gain. This has become more apparent as we take a look through time. As times become more challenging, we improvise, adapt and overcome. PWD are experts at improvising, adapting and overcoming. Oftentimes, unique ideas to overcome challenges with a disability become a ‘new, cool’ way of doing something that can benefit the community as a whole. **Tell us something that most people might not know about you or your directorate?**In my spare time, I am a health coach. I love helping others achieve their personal health goals. Being able to step into the gap to help others realize their potential is invigorating. **What was your first job?**I delivered newspapers and babysat. My first “real” job was a server in a restaurant, which was a fun, action-packed job. **What is your best memory of working here?**That’s a hard one! I’d have to say some of the community-wide events like a picnic. I loved “growing up” in the organization and seeing people bring their families to events. Seeing that we are all people with our own passions is a better way to view someone across the meeting table later. **What did you want to be when you grew up?**A veterinarian, but then realized I couldn’t handle the end-of-life stuff with someone’s pet. Then, there were lots of crazy jobs I considered. I guess I’m still trying to figure that one out. **What are your hobbies?**Travel - love to explore foreign places including food, architecture, people. Dogs -my children are grown, so I’m a “dog mom” through and through to my two morkies and black lab. **What is your favorite quote?**Choose thoughtfully that course which occasion and conscience demand.