Hearts Afire

welcome to hearts of fire the podcast for the team working every day at biobridge global to save and enhance lives through the healing power of human cells and tissue we're happy you're listening and thank you for everything you do and now here's the host of hearts of fire adrian mendoza welcome to our next episodes of hearts of fire i am here with sal castaneda and i am so excited to get to have you as a guest get to know you get to ask you questions and have everybody learn a little bit more about you and your experience here thank you for having me well so we understand that you had a little bit so i'm told at least you have a little bit of an unusual start with the organization tell me a little bit more about that okay um so this all goes back to august 2015. a friend of mine uh he's like hey sal i you should work here like i really like this place and i feel you would like it to i'm like sure by all means what do i do so you just go to hr ask for an application and i know it was 2015 and there's like you know the internet existed already but i thought you know showed up in person even more you know like oh i want to be here so i show up down the hill and they're like wrong place okay so they redirect me up here to hr of the old building and i walk in and marie was there and i was like hello one job application please she gives it to me i pull it out uh eventually return it i also do my pi a couple weeks later i got a call from jordan and it's like hello sal uh would you be interested in you know do an interview i'm like by all means and again i was pretty young but also i wanna you know show that i really wanna be here so i should open a suit i'm so nice and tidy i come in to the interview and jordan's basically telling me that they go out of town overnighters to do all this and this is really curious because my friend never told me he did this well you know what maybe i mean i don't ask about work vice versa should be fine next date and asked to be doing a second interview perfect so i show up and it's jarvis debbie and rudy and they're like so how did you hear about us well my friend works here who's your friend christian lopez they're like that's weird because we never heard of him and i said well that's weird because he works here and again i i guess i should have taken the hint um minutes later we all get congratulated we took we got hired but it didn't actually dawn on me until elizabeth development was doing our orientation and that i was in the wrong position he worked at qualtex i applied at svtc and you can transfer for at least six months but overall i feel being a donor care specialist really like brought me out of my shell and allowed me to use be more talkative but it's overall just grow instead of being in the dark lab nothing that is wrong with being in the dark lab we love what you guys do but i just really need it to come out of my shell i love it so i well at least you're at least kind of part of the same organization that call text is part of that your friend was you know so that but that's a that's a hilarious start to begin like and i love that you showed up you know in a suit which you're serious about getting a role here i'm gonna show up and and you know get up suit up show up is kind of the model right so you you lived that and you you came to work you got a got a role and so you started out on the on the mobile side that is correct okay uh darker specialist for the mobile operations oh very nice so what was that like you know going out on the road and getting going to different places i'm sure you know that is probably one of the more grueling in terms of physically grueling jobs i've heard in our group it is but um overall it's more like a dinosaur you you basically get like a new handout every single day and you're like well what am i gonna face today and i guess the next time you're facing you know it's a tough situation you're like well it's not as bad as last time and every single time you kind of like adapt and you get i guess hardened or desensitized but overall it's a really rewarding experience a lot of the times we go to places where they can't make the trip here and they tell us well thank you for what you guys do and i'm like i'm just collecting your blood but you don't necessarily know their side you don't know why they're giving blood maybe it's really personal i'm not going to ask them of course but again just it really was a rewarding experience not only learning mobiles you know my staff members the procedure but from donors themselves like what what is the reason why they show up they kept showing up for a reason so yeah kept doing it it sounds like it was the right fit because you you enjoy being around people i mean being in the laboratory environment you're around your colleagues you're around people you get to interact together but you're not getting that public sort of face and getting a chance to meet new people and interact with them and some people aren't really comfortable in that kind of role other people thrive in it where do you see yourself in that is that something they kind of grew out of the role in getting comfortable with it or did you already have that sort of gregarious uh extrovert type personality i it kind of was forced on you and a lot of times even when i first started i was just very like shy like oh like are you sure you wanna you know no and now i was like oh how are you feeling and like you know what it take you it just varies not only am i able to just ask basically what the other community needs but also for my like my crew members and it really helped me get out of my shell and just not being as soft spoken i'm still a little bit shy honestly but it helps me be more forward with what i would say when you were out there and doing mobiles or just starting in this organization do you remember does anyone come to mind that kind of youth looked up to as a mentor and you um you were inspired by uh yes even to this day uh rudy flores uh he uh he wasn't um my actual supervisor or manager to like maybe like four years uh then i was a mobile care specialist uh but i would always leave like c in my drives he would interact with me he actually talked to me and that was he just like hey how are you doing or like he was always looking to see how else well i could succeed even though necessarily i wasn't asking or searching for it he was just kind of like well you can always do better but i can't really help you so much and i need you to also go ahead and just do better for yourself so to this day i'm always like i guess thank you rudy and he just runs off that's awesome so then what what did you you're in a different role now tell us what you do now in your role um so right now i'm a compliance specialist so i handle a bit of some of the quality events that we have but also help integrate with certain um maybe like equipment or even procedures protocols so help i work alongside rose and rich and claudia all the training department regarding okay some of the staff development quality events and just a little bit of a mixed bag and then sometimes they do i.t but don't tell them to do that because i've been in trouble again but you really help make sure like people are ready whether it's ready with equipment you're ready with training ready with making sure they're responding to a concern or a complaint or an issue that came up that you're helping make sure that they're ready for the next day to hit the ground running get are there prepared they've learned what they need to for this particular day's operation and they have all the things they need equipped with the tools to get the job done right yeah and that's one of the biggest things that where mistakes are going to happen unfortunately but if i can identify maybe a gap maybe they would just don't get the process what can i do to teach them the process and i just kind of revert back to when i first started what i wish i would have been taught or shown when i first started and just pass that on to them and say now that you know this whenever at some point you are going to be your team leaders otherwise whatever or not even maybe somewhere else how do you wish that you would have been trained apply that to your you know to your trainees your staff and just keep that going and hopefully that'll start a chain reaction with not that person and so forth and so forth that's just my thing i think that's beautiful did that chain reaction that sort of pay it forward you not only did you you know see that there was a gap maybe in what you had access to so you're not just sitting back sort of reluctant to take action with that but actively doing something to actually improve that and make the next person's career opportunities and you know uh their readiness for the role even better and that's i think that's really um to me uh you know be proud of that as being part of your nature that you look for things that need improvement and instead of sitting and waiting for those things to be corrected you either bring it up or you bring yourself to that to actually serve as a solution and i think that's in my opinion one of the things that i see as people who are looking for leadership and growth is taking that initiative showing up and and putting forth their own energy to solve a problem so kudos to you on that thanks so much how would you explain our organization to someone outside or even what you do um who's looking to come here and work um overall i think i just kind of i gotta see what the person excels at first if i what do you like to do like well i like talking to people like you mean sales like oh well maybe like recruitment or something like that uh in my sense i know that i went to the wrong place but physically yeah but now that i know basically how we our organization works it does help just being able to redirect them like hey i understand that maybe you like more of a slowly steady pace what about fix sites you said you like being out mobile sites or even like again down the hill it just really depends on what the person is asking overall whenever they ask like oh like where do you work what are you doing like oh i grab love from people to this day like even though i do much other stuff i always just go back to you saying that i'm really proud of just being able to collect blood yeah so we have i know you're like a star athlete at our corporate cup we got to see another side of you there i think you're like an animal on the athlete field so um we you know when you you finished first overall in the obstacle course competition how did that feel and tell us about the experience there at the corporate cup um so overall like so my this is my second year doing corporate cup uh i just wanted to just try because that'd be funny to just do something out of the box um so last year was my first world pickup i did the 5k because i thought it'd be funny oh people practiced for this wow okay by the end of the night i was using the little heb like electric scooters because i was like it's so much pain so again practice for what you want to do uh but overall um i just really enjoy just like just like doing like these events um and peer pressure the first reason the that i did the actual obstacle course last year was that it was kind of peer pressure into doing it and it's like sure and that was ended up being being fun this year i was just like okay i'll do it again it won't be as bad as last year uh it was worse actually this one was a lot more draining i was like like halfway through us like

am i gonna pass out but that's just getting hot and i didn't worry something but overall just i really just enjoy just doing like random like physical stuff and maybe maybe i like it maybe i won't except a basketball i cannot

there's proof what sports do you like the most i mean is there like a particular sports uh that you enjoy or just generally do you enjoy working out and being athletic as a whole i used to play tennis oh really used to be really good at tennis um and just like i feel like more like i'm okay at like a bunch of like sports and stuff so like okay like even like volleyball or like pool but when it comes to like best at least the absolute war so it's not even trade off um swimming i can swim but i can't float random fun fact really yes well i i think you know floating uh well number one i think you have to have a certain amount of fat so if you're if you if you're really athletic you might not float as easily as someone who's you know got a little bit extra weight but also air in your lungs you got to like you know bring in some air to help you float a little bit but that's funny you can swim but you can't fly like so it's like in the pool i know i just i'll swim across when i just can't be in the middle yeah yeah well um i really enjoyed getting to know you here and i think uh it's fascinating story hearing about you how you join the organization that interesting twist and you know getting a chance to be part of south texas blood and tissue we're really fortunate to have you you have such a smile a great personality you bring your energy to work you are really engaged in these kind of events like corporate cup and paying it forward learning from your own experience and making things better i think those are all the features of someone really with bringing that sort of engagement to the picture and the more we have people like you working day to day and working side by side with us i think the more exciting our organization is going to become and um we already do such great things but having a great place to work is so important um being inspired by our colleagues is so important i know you are an inspiration to your team as well so thank you so much for being here we really appreciate it so for having me i appreciate it

executive producers of hearts of fire are heather hughes and jay paginsky your director is david king with technical assistance from matt flores our logo was designed by roberto esquivel our host is adrian mendoza if you have an idea for hearts of fire please feel free to email us hearts of fire at byerbridgeglobal.org