Women in Technology: Carla Edwards

In this installment of our Women in Technology blog series, we are highlighting the remarkable contributions of our Sales Operations Manager, Carla Edwards. Carla is an invaluable asset to our team bringing her unique blend of skills, dedication, and passion to every aspect of her work. Her leadership and innovative approach make her an integral part of our team.

Carla is deeply involved in her church community. She is not only a talented singer but also takes on the responsibility of managing the audio and visual aspects of church events. Her dedication to her church community extends to teaching the Pre-K Cubby’s class for Awana where she highlights valuable lessons to young children, nurturing their growth and development. It was within this community that Carla met her husband, a fellow member of the motorcycle ministry, Faith Riders. Although their involvement in Faith Riders has lessened since starting a family, the ministry remains a cherished part of their lives.

Carla’s journey into technology began at Oklahoma State University (OSU), where she pursued and earned a degree in marketing. During her college years, Carla worked at Kinkos, a retail chain that provided printing and copying services. This experience was more than just a job for Carla; it was a place where she discovered her love for layout and design. Unfortunately, the demands of her school schedule forced her to leave, but her passion for design continued to flourish.

Today, she channels this passion into her hobby of photography, capturing life's precious moments and creating customized calendars for her family each year. What began as a single calendar in 1996 has grown into a cherished tradition, with Carla now crafting 35 unique calendars annually, each tailored to the individual preferences of her family and friends.

When she was working as an Assistant Manager at a restaurant, Carla’s friend Sarah Thompson, who was working for Standley Systems as a Connectivity Technician asked Carla if she would be interested in the position because Sarah was wanting to move to sales and needed to find a replacement. Carla decided to talk with the hiring manager and a few other people who worked at Standleys and decided she was interested in the position. It wasn't long after that she was hired.  For the first two years she lived in Stillwater and commuted daily from Stillwater to Oklahoma City before relocating.

Carla has evolved over her time at Standleys from service to sales. As Sales Operations Manager, Carla is excited in how that has grown from herself to a full team. Although her formal education wasn't in management, she is thankful for the management courses that she was able to take along with all the self-taught and life lessons she's experienced along the way.

Carla wears many hats here at Standley Systems, but her primary role as Sales Operations Manager includes managing the Sales Admin team, providing support to the Sales team by doing sales order reviews, sales quotes, managing Docusign, and all reporting. This team also creates the data section of the Business Technology Reports (BTR), credit approvals, processing & assigning leads, as well as reassigning accounts in the Customer Relationship Management software (CRM).

In her capacity as the CRM Admin, Carla troubleshoots the CRM and works with the IT team to ensure that things are running smoothly. This also includes bulk reassigning accounts, offboarding, and managing access to portals. As the Portal Manager, Carla ensures that there are current and up to date print technology on the demo floor, making sure everything is networked properly, as well as managing customer visits and training new hires.

Carla says the most rewarding part of her job is seeing people succeed. She admits that she is a trainer at heart, and loves when she can help someone succeed in any capacity. However, she says the hardest part of her job is when someone doesn’t succeed and there’s nothing she can do to help them. She strongly believes in finding the right seat for the right person.

She keeps up with the everchanging technology landscape by utilizing vendor training materials and maintaining her solutions certifications. She has certifications in Papercut, Docuware, and has been Fiery certified for 8 years. She sees herself expanding her team’s role within the company in the next 5 years saying that everyone on her team is cross trained and they are at the point where they can do and take on more.

Carla says that there were two women in the industry who encouraged her in the beginning. Our very own Linda Helmer was one of them. Carla says that Linda was the one who taught her how to make the training accessible and straightforward when training customers on their copiers. The second woman was her friend, Sarah Thompson, who had originally told Carla to check Standley Systems out. Sarah’s husband was in IT and Carla always knew what was going on in the tech world because Sarah and her husband were always talking about it.

When asked if she had any advice for women looking to go into the technology field, she said “Be curious and don’t be afraid. If it’s something you’re curious about and you want to learn about it, then don’t be afraid to do it.”

Carla's ability to adapt and impart her extensive institutional knowledge has made her a valuable member of Team Standley. Stay tuned to hear more about the inspiring women at Standley Systems who are making a difference in the technology industry.