Terri talks with Theresa Piasta, CEO and Founder of Puppy Mama about her experience in the Army, her deployment in Iraq, finding a civilian job and how playing competitive soccer helped her professionally.
Terri talks to Theresa Piasta, CEO and Founder of Puppy Mama about her experience in the US Army and her 14-month deployment in Iraq. Theresa shares her journey in choosing to go into the military, touches on some of the challenges in being a woman in the military, and how she leveraged LinkedIn and informal veteran network to land a civilian job on Wall Street after she got out of the military.
Who is Theresa Piasta?
Theresa Piasta is the Founder of Puppy Mama - a pet-tech company leveraging technology to enhance the lives of dog moms around the world. The Puppy Mama online store is bringing style to dog moms everywhere! And, the Puppy Mama web application gives dog moms a safe place to share, connect with one another, effortlessly schedule fun meet ups with their friends, and rate businesses, travel services, and hotels to advocate for a more dog-friendly world.
Before Puppy Mama, Theresa was a Vice President at JPMorgan, and served as an Army Captain in a Field Artillery Brigade. During her 14-month Iraq deployment in 2008, Theresa led a large team to defend thousands on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Delta near the Iranian border. She was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for her service.
Theresa attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business Ignite program and received a B.A. in Economics from Wellesley College. She also studied military science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a ROTC scholarship recipient and was a collegiate soccer player for two seasons during her time at Wellesley College.
Show Highlights
- Theresa talks about her experience in the US Army and her deployment in Iraq
- She expands on why military veterans would make good founders and employees in the civilian world and the difficulties in getting jobs after being in the military
- Theresa talked about leveraging LinkedIn when she came back from Iraq to get her job on Wall Street and how she leveraged the veterans network
- Terri asks Theresa if her time playing competitive soccer helped her achieve her professional and entrepreneurial goals
- Terri talks about one of her favorite soccer tournaments in Petaluma over Halloween when she was a kid
- Terri asks Theresa about whether she’s had trouble being taken seriously because she is beautiful or if this has helped her
- Theresa talks about how she had two choices in the type of woman she was going to be in the military and suffered retaliation as a result of her choice to not date men in the military
- Theresa came from a military family and chose to go into the military after she graduated from Wellesley College after participating in the ROTC program at MIT
- Theresa is very proud to have been in the military and to have served her country, but she didn’t sign up for the extreme sexual harassment she experienced while in the military
Terri’s Key Takeaway
It is important for girls to play competitive sports to learn valuable life skills that apply beyond the field or court.
References in the Podcast
- Puppy Mama: https://www.puppymama.com/
- Skillmill: https://www.skillmil.com/
- Shift: https://www.shift.org/
- Jillian Manus of Structure VC: http://structure.vc/
- Serena Williams Gatorade commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JvRVILczps
Contact
Theresa can be reached at woof@puppymama.com
Waffles can be reached at waffles@puppymama.com
Instagram: @puppy.mama
Puppy Mama application; https://app.puppymama.com/auth
You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.
Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.
To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.