Melanie L Brechka lives in Central New Jersey. Melanie is a graduate of the Sigmund Weis School of Business at Susquehanna University. She has worked full time in sales and sales management since 1998. Over the last twenty years Melanie has held middle management positions with Hormel Foods Corporation and Glanbia Nutritionals. Melanie is currently Vice President, East for Glanbia Nutritionals North America.
What People Say
“Melanie not only resonates what great management is, she helps you create magic for your clients, encouraging development of great ideas, reinforcing innovative assignments, and challenging on positive successful personal goals, a definition of true leader!” A. Walter
“One of the things I admire most is her ability to lead through adversity and empowering her direct reports to do the same. Self-development was a focus that Melanie instilled in our team.”
W. Cunningham
“Melanie is the type of leader who is interested in the company’s bottom line AND also in her employees’ professional growth. She is always the go-to resource for a colleague who wants to improve their ability to command a room.”
A. Lane
“When I think about how Melanie has mentored me in my career, I value how much she has approached it holistically from the start. She values seeing you realize your goals both in your role at work and the things you plan for that will make you happy outside of work as well.”
L. Bernier
“A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
I graduated from college in 1998 with a Business Degree. I had big dreams of climbing the corporate ladder and multiple offers in sales with companies including Pillsbury, Hershey Chocolate and Hormel Foods. I took the job that offered me the most money at the time and what I thought would be my future corporate office location in Austin, MN; 7 hours south of my family’s summer cabin. The sales role was originally based in the state of Connecticut. I packed my bags and moved to start what I thought would be a progressive climb up the corporate ladder, putting in my time to just get to the top. The purpose in my naive 22 year old mind was just to get to the top, never mind what could be lost on the way there or if actually getting to the top would even be worth the arduous climb.
Nearly 25 years later, life has had other plans and the two corporations I have worked for have presented opportunities that I could not always take advantage of, or at least not in the way that they presented them. I have spent over 20 years in middle management as a sales manager, national sales manager, sales director, senior commercial director… whatever the title, the responsibilities have all been relatively the same. The day to day struggle to achieve a profit expectation and to close every fiscal year better than the one before. From hero to zero on the first day of every new fiscal year.
But over the last 25 years, I have also had two children, emotionally supported a mother who was on a liver transplant list for 14 months until she was transplanted. I was married in 2000 and had a child diagnosed with epilepsy at a very young age. He grew out of his condition many years later, but the heartbreak of leaving a sick child for work travel never sat well with me. I have dealt with mental health issues in my immediate family and a few health challenges of my own.
In all my literary searches and favorite audible listens, I have been unable to find the voice of those of us in the middle. Those of us that are doing the day to day grind. For the women that instead of breaking the glass ceiling, we sit just below it, tapping our fingernail on it as we carefully contemplate if we really want that glass to break on us; because just below that ceiling, the space we occupy feels safe, warm, if not sometimes a little boring and the same thing day in and day out. The honest truth is that for most of us, being in the middle will be the place that we stay for our entire careers and it will be on us to seek out fulfillment and joy in the middle.
I have spent the last 20 years searching for fulfillment in my middle management roles. Trying to find ways to make a difference in effecting change for the people that report to me and the individuals I work with; discovering the parts of me that need to change as well. The middle is where I do my best work, the middle is where I have learned to find joy.
This shares the voice of those that are working day in and day out to master the middle, running the treadmill of management but seeking out little gems of joy along the way.
The Heart of the Middle 