Developing Innovative Solutions

Leigh Ann Stender is the president and driving force behind the enhancement and positive culture developed at Jessix. The contributing factor to the success of this culture is Stender’s willingness to act as a sounding board for employee feedback and offer both personal and professional support through collaboration and encouragement. She works alongside her developers, researching ways to aid the warfighter best and determining any needs that can be met with Jessix’s innovative applications. It is essential to Stender that each employee of the Jessix company knows and feels that they are a valuable asset to the team.

Regarding the enhancement of the company, Stender credits her time as a teacher to her success. Leigh Ann Stender began her career journey as an educator, which has played a large part in developing software for customer training. This educational background gave her the edge she needed to assist in providing valuable instruction on the software to the customer. She believes this training is vital to providing customers with more excellent product knowledge and is crucial in preparing them for real-world training and experience. She notes that it is essential that their customers have the confidence and capability to use the software independently and be able to manage it themselves. Once the customer has been adequately trained, they can implement the strategy. The goal is to increase their knowledge through training and reteaching, with the primary objective being to allow the warfighter to expand their capabilities for the time in which they are ready to transfer their training toreal-world scenarios.

By supporting in-depth research that they strive to meet customers' needs best, Stender both supports and empowers the members of the Jessix team to become great leaders of tomorrow. She believes it is imperative to encourage team members creatively, be proactive in encouraging, and lead by example. Developing is a mix of understanding algorithms and displaying a sense of creativity, which can take a tremendous amount of time and brain-power to establish, so praise for hard work, dedication, & fortitude contributes substantially to the company's morale. Stender also ensures ample opportunities for team members to build their knowledge and expertise through providing easy access to workshops and seminars.

When it comes to success, Stender notes that, although she has come a long way from where she began, she still feels that she has a lot to accomplish. However, she notes that her time working closely with others and assisting them in their growth of knowledge within the industry of her field counts as a tremendous success in her book. Her advice to others in leadership is to display and live by the qualities of perseverance, dedication, and loyalty to the mission at hand. “For women in the field of science & technology, there are several obstacles that they must face as opposed to their male counterparts,” says Stender, who observes that it can be challenging not to feel heard. In addition, many individuals do not want the industry to change. For example, in the last few years, Jessix switched from permanent licenses to an annual subscription, and many believed the switch would not succeed in the government sector.

However, as the developers at Jessix continued to craft new software, there was a notable increase over time in developers moving towards the same platform and having similar success. Many have discovered the benefits of the annual subscription, with one such example being that it allows innovative software to be developed quickly and efficiently while providing the latest and most up-to-date technologies.

Jessix is committed to providing user-friendly solutions to warfighters that offer both innovative and cutting-edge technology. “I work closely with our Vice-President, John Stender, to collaborate on what is needed and what we can develop to continue to serve our customers,” says Stender. “It works well to have that collaboration and knowledge he brings to the table to continue to move forward in other areas of technology.”

The company refined an entirely new software suite of applications on the current architecture that is accessible, original, and advanced. They also modified their approach in the area of obtaining software and expanding user experience. As technology evolves, so does Jessix’s unique ability to bring innovative solutions and technologies to their customers for professional use in skill development. Looking towards the future, Stender intends to dedicate her time and energy to continued customer care. The plan is to investigate other areas in which Jessix can assist its customers by developing innovative applications to assist them in multiple places. For Stender, the future of her company is bright, as Jessix remains dedicated to putting user-friendly, advanced technology directly into the hands of the customer.