130 Years of Family Serving Family: Stephanie Chartier and Alyssa Shaw, HQ

One in a series honoring the Exchange’s 130 years of family serving family. 

Who they are: Stephanie Chartier, senior e-Comm merchandiser, HQ; Alyssa Shaw, menswear e-Comm buyer, HQ (Alyssa is at left in the above photo).

Years with the Exchange: Stephanie, 20 years; Alyssa, 10 years.

Family connections: Alyssa and Stephanie’s parents both worked for the Exchange; Sean retired in 2018 as vice president of supply chain optimization while Jill was stationed with the Exchange from 1996-1999 while serving in the Air Force. She retired as a major in 2002.

Their stepmother Barbara retired in 2018 as a director of operations in IT and Stephanie’s spouse Chris currently works as a senior LAN administrator in IT.

What they did at first

Stephanie: “I had a bit of experience working at a call center, and my dad at one point suggested coming to work a similar job here. That’s where I got my foot in the door and worked with the MILITARY STAR_® call center at the start.”

Alyssa: “I started at the end of 2014. I first worked on product information management projects with the e-business team doing data entry, then as a buying assistant in softlines before working my way up to menswear buyer.”

The best part of working at the Exchange

Stephanie: “My main job is outreach and onboarding for suppliers to get their products on ShopMyExchange.com. One of the best things is hearing the backgrounds of the owners—this is their dream to get their products sold and we’re helping them achieve that.

“One of the suppliers that we just onboarded is a coffee supplier that was started because their 10-year-old daughter wanted to, so the daughter is actually the CEO and was in our meetings and everything. It was really cute and made me realize this is special.”

Alyssa: “I think what makes it so special is our customer. With my job in menswear, it’s not like everybody needs branded clothes, but it’s nice to bring that experience and taste of home to people, especially overseas, who put their life on the line for us.

Memorable moments

Stephanie: “It was always funny when we would have daily lunches at HQ with our dad when he also worked here,” Stephanie said. “We would just be talking and joking with him by the soda fountain and someone would say, ‘Do you know who you were just talking to like that? That’s a VP.’ And I would just say, ‘Yeah, I call him dad!’

“There are a lot of people like that who we’re comfortable with since we grew up with them coming to HQ as kids, now we get to bring our kids to HQ, and it’s all a big family.”

Family Serving Family

Stephanie: “When I used to work in the call center, ‘serving the best customers in the world’ was ingrained in us since that was our opening statement when we answered, but it’s true. We really do serve the best customers in the world, and it means a lot to help bring in products they need.”

Alyssa: “It really is family serving family. I believe in that, and that’s what gets me through the workday.

“Looking back at when even more of our family worked here too, it was like a family reunion every day at work. Being a part of it for most of our lives is very special.”