Masters of The Turnaround: Kim Atkinson of AMETEK MOCON On How She Turned Crisis Into Success

Celebrate your successes. Even if it’s a small step toward a much bigger goal, if you have a win, celebrate it! My goal was to become independent, financially and emotionally, from my abusive boyfriend. Getting a restraining order against him was a small step in that direction, and I celebrated it: Now he’d stay away from me, and I could begin to move on. Celebrating your successes lets you keep moving forward without dwelling on the past — to learn from your past without letting it keep dragging you backward.

As part of my series about prominent entrepreneurs and executives that overcame adversity to achieve great success”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kim Atkinson.

Kim is the Accounting Manager for Accounts Receivable and Payable for AMETEK MOCON, a global company that makes precision testing equipment for the medical, food, manufacturing and other industries. As a student, Kim gravitated toward accounting courses, and throughout her career, she has leveraged accounting systems to elevate global business outcomes. Known for bringing new efficiencies and meticulous attention to detail, Kim is considered a rising star by her colleagues at AMETEK MOCON.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve always been good with numbers. From an early age, I was passionate about two main things: Accounting and teaching. Even in high school, I completed one year’s worth of accounting courses in just one semester. As my focus centered on the business world, I found accounting was my niche and began to take more courses to expand my skills.

Can you share your story of when you were on the brink of failure? First, take us back to what it was like during the darkest days.

When I was younger, I was in a relationship with the wrong person — someone who manipulated and abused me, taking me far from my hometown in Minnesota to Tennessee. I had no nearby support network. At the time, I had no higher education to qualify me for better employment, so I ended up taking a job at Walmart.

That was tough, but I had no idea what was on the horizon. Right after Christmas, our landlord kicked us out, giving us just 12 hours to move with all our possessions. Just like that, I was homeless, using the last of our money to rent a cheap motel room. To make matters worse, my boyfriend’s mom also lost her home, and he had her move in with us as well. Neither of them worked, so my small paychecks from Walmart had to support all three of us.

There were weeks when we only had $40 for food for three adults. At one point, I knew I didn’t have enough money for another week at the motel. I was just one day away from living in my car before a friend from back home wired me money so I could stay in the motel.

What was your mindset during such a challenging time? Where did you get the drive to keep going when things were so hard?

A coworker at Walmart knew what was happening. She found me crying at work one day and asked what was wrong. I told her everything and that I was trying to figure out how to get myself and two other adults out of that situation. She looked at me and said, “God would not put you through this if He didn’t know you could handle it.”

That’s why I started buckling down and figuring out how to get back to my home state of Minnesota. My mindset was survival! I knew I had to find any way I could to survive. My boyfriend wouldn’t let me speak with my family, so I had no support network which meant I had to find strength within myself to push forward. I knew this situation wouldn’t be my end story — that there was something better out there for me.

Can you please tell us how you were able to overcome such adversity and achieve success? What did the next chapter look like?

To solve any problem, you need an overall plan that you break down into smaller steps. I needed to get back on my feet. The first step was to lower my expenses: When you’re supporting three people on one low income, your options are limited!

I scraped together enough money to buy his mom a ticket to live with her other son. Now I only had two adults to support, which freed up some money to put toward my ultimate goal of moving back home to Minnesota. After a lot of planning and saving, I was able to move us to a small apartment in Minnesota, transferring my Walmart job to a local store. I enrolled in school but had to drop out because I couldn’t afford it.

That was a setback, but I kept working toward my ultimate goal of financial independence. My first step was to get a better job, which is how I began working for AMETEK MOCON, a global company that makes precision testing equipment for many different industries. I started in production, helping to manufacture those test instruments.

I got out of the bad relationship, re-connected with my family and went to a technical college for an accounting degree. I liked my job, but I knew I’d be happier doing something different — hopefully within the same company. When a position opened in our warehouse, I took it. The supervisor took a chance on me and let me make improvements to the department’s procedures, which made it more efficient and better able to serve our customers.

Because of those changes, I got on other people’s radars at the company. When they learned I was back in school for accounting, they hired me for an accounts payable role — which encouraged me to keep pursuing education and work toward a bachelor’s in accounting.

Based on your experience, can you share five actionable pieces of advice about how to develop the mindset needed to persevere through adversity? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. The only person who will get you out of a tough situation is yourself. Others may help, but if you aren’t committed to changing your circumstances, it’s very unlikely to happen. If you want something, you must work for it. That mentality is what helped me claw my way out of the situation I was in.

2. Find a support system. Whether it’s family, friends or coworkers, it’s crucial to have a network of support, whether it’s emotional or physical. I confided in my old coworker, and her support helped me keep pushing to improve my situation. We’re still friends to this day. Having someone believe in you when you’re going through hard times is invaluable.

3. Address your mental health. I knew I needed professional help to keep pushing to change my circumstances. I started therapy once per week. It was terrifying! There’s still a stigma about needing mental health care — that first visit with a therapist was extremely frightening, but I stuck with it and began to see a transformation. One example that resonates even today is that I had a mental block about buying things for myself. For four years I never had money to treat myself, but once that started to change, I still had significant reluctance to spend any unnecessary money on myself. I was OK buying essentials like food, but if I wanted new clothes, it was difficult to allow myself to buy them. My therapist encouraged me to look in the mirror and tell myself I was going to buy myself something every time I went to the store.. It worked! Sometimes I buy too much, but that’s better than the alternative: It reminded me that it’s OK to do things for myself, not just for others.

4. Bring joy back to your life. Find something you’re passionate about. For me, it was photography and being outdoors. I camped, went snowmobiling and learned everything I could about photographic techniques. None of this was for my career or had any real practical purpose, but it gave me that mental break where I could be happy in my own space.

5. Celebrate your successes. Even if it’s a small step toward a much bigger goal, if you have a win, celebrate it! My goal was to become independent, financially and emotionally, from my abusive boyfriend. Getting a restraining order against him was a small step in that direction, and I celebrated it: Now he’d stay away from me, and I could begin to move on. Celebrating your successes lets you keep moving forward without dwelling on the past — to learn from your past without letting it keep dragging you backward.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Jim Petersen was the warehouse supervisor at AMETEK MOCON who recognized my unused talent in production and asked me to join his team.. By giving me the space to transform our shipping procedures, he not only helped me make my company even better than it already was but also helped start me on the path to getting noticed by others at work. Once I moved to the Accounting department, there were managers — both past and present at AMETEK MOCON — that recognized my skills and helped guide me to my current position.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

When I transferred to Accounts Payable I began working to make the department more efficient. We went entirely paperless within my first year. That’s one of the things that really drives me at AMETEK MOCON: I always want to find better, more efficient ways to do things. Even if you’re world-class, which is true of the instruments we make, there are always improvements to be found if you look for them.

Here at AMETEK MOCON we’re always working to make finance more efficient. It’s better for us, and even more importantly, it’s better for our customers. Finance, service and sales teams recently redeveloped an internal process for the way our in-house service orders were being handled by the order entry and finance teams, cutting the number of steps needed in half. That new internal process is going live soon and will provide an even better customer experience.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Telling more stories like this. My situation used to be terrible, but not unique. Lots of women are in bad relationships, stuck in poverty and wondering if they’ll ever be able to climb out of the hole they’re in. Seeing stories like mine that show, yes, it’s absolutely possible — that those terrible circumstances don’t have to be permanent, and you can work your way to a pretty terrific life — is valuable. My wish by sharing my story of transforming a crisis into success could inspire others who are facing similar challenges and offer them a sense of hope.

Any parting words of wisdom that you would like to share?

Find and channel your inner strength, and you will overcome any obstacle in your path.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can visit my LinkedIn page:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-atkinson-a74140114/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.