Meet the general transportation manager who grew her career by saying yes to opportunities.
Jenny Lovering hit the ground running when she started her Walmart career.
She got her start as an hourly associate at the Lewiston, Maine, Distribution Center. After just three months of filling orders, the then-25-year-old mother of two young kids put in for an open supervisory position—and she got it. Four months after that, she applied for—and got—a job as area manager!
“The opportunities to promote came up pretty quickly in the very beginning,” shares Jenny, who had some leadership experience before coming to Walmart. “I was really able to capitalize on those opportunities.”
After three years as the area manager, Jenny made the leap to transportation.
“I had no transportation experience whatsoever,” she admits. “I knew nothing about drivers' hours of service or anything like that. But I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn something different.”
Opportunity by Opportunity
In 2017, after nine years in transportation, Jenny saw her next opportunity for a challenge: Walmart was opening a new business venture, a dairy plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The company needed an operations manager to get the plant up and running, and Jenny jumped at the chance.
“It was a lateral move for me, but it was just such a great opportunity,” she explains. “I really learned a lot about the overall business because I had to build my team. I hired everybody to start that from scratch. So it was really exciting. I love startups!”
The work in Fort Wayne is among her proudest career moments.
“It's so exciting to be able to bring people into the company and ignite that passion for what Walmart's all about,” she says. “I love seeing somebody come in and just thrive with us.”
When the general transportation manager position at Distribution Center 7814 in Lewiston, Maine, opened up, Jenny grabbed the opportunity to head back home.
In Lewiston, Jenny oversees 183 drivers. One of the most rewarding parts of her job is coordinating Walmart drivers who take part in the annual Wreaths Across America convoy. Thousands of trucks roll across America distributing wreaths to be laid on the graves of veterans over the holiday season.
“This is our fifteenth year doing it, and I'm very blessed to say that I've been a part of it every year,” Jenny says. She notes that while her early roles were more in the background, she now takes the lead on coordinating more than 100 Walmart drivers with stops at more than 40 distribution centers.
All In the Family
Jenny is not the only member of the family working for Walmart. Her 19-year-old son is working as a replenishment driver at the Lewiston distribution center and taking college classes through Walmart’s Live Better U program.
Jenny, who doesn’t have a college degree herself, says, “I feel like I went to the ‘school of Walmart’ and all these leaders that I've had along the way have really helped build me up and molded me into the leader that I am today.
She encourages associates to be their own advocates. “We get people all the time that won't put in for a position because they feel like they haven't been here long enough,” she says. “I encourage them all the time—if you're interested in it, put your name in.”
Her own career path certainly shows that taking a risk on an opportunity can pay off.
