Emily Wagner-Davis ’12 ventured more than a thousand miles from her California home to visit Hesston College on a hot summer day in 2010. The admissions team and Andrew Sharp ’99, then the Larks’ softball coach, greeted her warmly, too.

“I didn’t know anyone,” she said, but Hesston’s people quickly helped her feel at home.

A few weeks later her mother drove her to campus and felt at peace, leaving her daughter in friendly, capable hands. One of her fondest early HC memories is Mod Olympics (now called Nest Olympics), the giant social mixer that helps a campus full of strangers come together. Wagner-Davis quickly discovered how easy it was to make friends and feel part of a team and community.

She remembers Biblical Literature as one of her favorite courses.

“I loved the concept of having an end-to-end picture of the Bible that helped us learn,” she shares. “The professors cared so much, not in a way that moved us simply through the course, but through the attentiveness and thoughtful care they took to ensure that we fully understood the topics. They were passionate about us as people and empowered our learning in ways that I find instrumental in the work I do today.”

After two years, Wagner-Davis graduated with a business degree, prepared and ready to transfer into a bachelor’s degree program. She followed Hesston with a bachelor’s in fashion marketing and management from Stephens College (Columbia, Mo.) and later a master’s in global supply chain management from Portland (Ore.) State University.

After stints as a buyer and product manager for Dillard’s and a department manager for Nordstrom, Wagner-Davis now works as a senior manager for ecommerce excellence, five years into a career at Adidas, the second largest sportswear manufacturer in the world, located in Portland, Ore.

She feels strongly that her Hesston College experience changed her trajectory when it came time to get her first job, as she felt prepared to transfer the skills she learned into her professional life.

“The learning at Hesston College helped apply critical thinking,” she says. “Even now, 10 to 12 years later, it helps me today and is needed in my career.”

When she graduated, Wagner-Davis needed to build a network in the business world which was sometimes intimidating. She recognized those feelings of uncertainty were shared by her fellow graduates and others searching for jobs.

“Hesston College helped me really learn how to put myself in someone else’s shoes,” explains Wagner-Davis. “Professors took time to ask, understand and empower me.”

That well-modeled practice of empathy, one of her key traits as a manager and colleague, is an important tool as she works toward a personal goal of helping others reach their potential.

Her education also nurtured a passion about sustainability, a growing commitment to helping others and a dedication to overcoming unconscious bias.

“Over the years when I am looking to hire or partner with people for work, I do my best to step back and understand what I am looking for,” she said. “I found early in my career that I tend to gravitate towards people who have similar personality traits as myself. That being said, I’ve worked really hard to uncover any bias I have had and conquer that. Whether it be through LinkedIn learnings, or offerings my employers have to work towards the unconscious bias we have, it’s been awesome to work through.”