Thousands of dedicated Pantex citizens like Molly Brown work every day to support the Pantex mission. Take three minutes to learn about who she is, what she does, and why she is proud to be a Pantexan.
History remembers one survivor of the RMS Titanic tragedy as the “Unsinkable Molly Brown” of New York. Her can-do attitude helped her assist other survivors on her lifeboat, establish soup kitchens for coal miners, and later in life, push forward the fight to win women’s rights. Pantex certainly isn’t sinking, but we do have a Molly Brown, and she is just as determined to improve the lives of the people around her.
Brown started at Pantex four years ago to put her chemical engineering degree to use in Reliability Engineering. After making connections with her Infrastructure colleagues, she agreed to manage a new team, Infrastructure Process Improvement, which drives optimization throughout the organization.
“My role is to drive process improvement by identifying and addressing outdated or cumbersome processes,” Brown said. “Our goals are to enhance efficiency for plant maintenance, improve job satisfaction for maintenance personnel, and in turn help provide high-quality service to other organizations around the plant.”
An avid listener of crime podcasts and reader of murder mysteries, Brown gets a thrill from being able to solve problems. She is driven by numbers and follows the evidence until she figures out the best solution for an issue.
“Keeping a questioning attitude is essential for our mission because it helps us avoid getting stuck in our ways,” Brown said. “We always try to get to the root of the problem when we look at something so we can fully fix it. It’s so satisfying when we solve a problem for the users to make their lives so much better!”
Though her team is relatively new, Brown is hopeful about the possibilities as they take on the task of improving work within Infrastructure. Being able to
focus on input from people who do that job daily and work to make the process something the process owners can be proud of is the ultimate “why” for Brown.
“Pride in the work we do is what motivates us. For our team, pride means we pay close attention to feedback and use it to continuously improve our
processes and enhance the day-to-day experience for Infrastructure personnel. Even though we are a new team, we have had some significant
accomplishments for our organization and we are excited to build on that momentum.”
Why is being open to learn from others critical for mission success?
Learning from others allows us to avoid repeating past mistakes and eliminates blind spots that come from relying solely on our own knowledge. In fact, a good part of my day-to-day involves actively reaching out to subject matter experts to gain their insights and learn from their experiences. This collective knowledge and willingness to learn from each other ultimately strengthens our team and our ability to achieve our goals.
What has been your proudest moment at Pantex to date?
My proudest moments at Pantex revolve around seeing the success of my team members. I can recall the excitement I felt when one of our reliability engineers received the Engineering Employee of the Month Award for his hard work. Enabling and celebrating the success of others is one of my goals as a leader.
What do you enjoy most about working at Pantex?
Hands down, what I enjoy most about Pantex is the ability to be home with my family every night. Before Pantex, I was traveling weekly for my job, so having time at home with my loved ones makes a huge difference in my daily life and is something I truly cherish about working here.