Leah Mcgowen-Hare
Leah Mcgowen-Hare · Master Technical Trainer · Salesforce
Leah learned to code at the age of 12 on a Commodore PET. She wrote a program to print out banners on a dot matrix printer. Word spread about her programming skills, as friends and neighbors requested custom banners for their parties. She went on to study Computer Science and Management Information Systems at UMass Amherst, where she built an ATM program using LISP.
After college, Leah joined Anderson Consulting (now Accenture), where she worked on a variety of projects from finance, to government, telecom, and human resources systems. At Oracle PeopleSoft, Leah built a program for businesses for employees clocking in and out of work. Years later, she started working part time as a hip-hop dance instructor at a 24 hour fitness and noticed that they were using the software that she had built! Leah felt accomplished empowered seeing her software put to use in the real world. Leah then started her own consulting company Above Ground Railroad, while she got her Masters in Technology and Education at California State University East Bay (CSUEB).
She joined Salesforce, where she now teaches developers how to use Apex and Visual Force. Throughout her career, Leah has trained over 13,500 developers! She also volunteers for Black Girls Code and recently helped teach girls to program and build robotics at a hackathon. Recently, Leah set a goal to create the first all women’s developer’s training session for Salesforce, which she offered for free to women developers at non profits! Leah’s advice is to “own what you say, and say it with conviction.” Leah’s experience programming or “dev-cred”, empowered her to gain the respect of her peers and open doors for new opportunities. Leah is evidence that with tenacity and the power of programming you can pave your own way and create your own dream job.
