Texas Diversity Council State Board of Director Profile
Angie Brewer, Director of Human Resources, UPS — Gulf South District
Angie Brewer's most gratifying professional moments come when she sees growth in people's attitudes. She's spent the better part of her career in human resources focused on diversity and inclusion, including a six-year stint with UPS in the Pacific Northwest before taking on her current role in the Gulf South District. In Seattle in 2006, Brewer stepped into a primarily male dominated work environment where insensitivity to employee differences was the norm. Through strategic relationships in the community with both male and female CEOs of businesses representing a variety of ethnical backgrounds, Brewer slowly introduced alternative points of view to her workforce and management teams in non-threatening ways. "I brought them in to talk to groups of UPS employees. They told their stories about the challenges they had to overcome to aspire to the CEO level," Brewer says. "The amount of learning that took place from that was tremendous. Diversity and inclusion took on a life of its own after we introduced them that way." Brewer partnered on diversity and inclusion with the new, female district president, in a sometimes-uncomfortable task of re-educating the male senior staff. Engaging employees and valuing that engagement simply wasn't something in their management style. She says, "We kept introducing the non-traditional ways of motivating people, valuing people and recognizing people." "Over a two-year period, we created energy by getting those males to really understand people as a whole, not just ethnicity or gender, but to value people as a whole. There was so much growth on that staff from a leadership perspective," Brewer says. "It completely changed the way the district ran, how they approached things, how they engaged with employees." "That district still continues to see positive business results because they were able to develop inclusion of all their employees, where they feel valued and everybody contributes," Brewer says. As Brewer transitions into a new U.S. region, she sees both differences and similarities in workplace attitudes and inclusion education needs. "Texas has a different culture. But even in just the nine months that I've been here, we're talking about the same dynamics–caring for people, relationships. We've started to become a more sensitive management team, but there's additional work to do because there's a different appreciation for diversity as a whole in Texas. It was a man's environment in Seattle. In Texas, it's more about the value that people of different ethnicities bring," she says. "I'm always an advocate for inclusion. I know how it feels to be on the outside. I don't know if it's just who I am or because of my profession, but I don't like people to feel they are excluded," Brewer says. She joined the Texas Diversity Council looking for an opportunity to give back, help others learn from her experiences, and accelerate the success of diversity and inclusion in the state. The Texas Diversity Council plays a role in Brewer's strategy for building a more diverse and inclusive work atmosphere at UPS. "It affords me symposiums to engage my staff where they can learn more," she says.
