Ellen Albright
Toni Reece: Hi there. I’m Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have one of my favorite women in Berks County, Ellen Albright. Ellen, welcome to the Project.
Ellen Albright: I am super pumped to be here, so thank you so much for having me.
Toni: We are happy to have you. So, take a minute and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Ellen: Sure. Let’s start with a little history lesson. I am a Berks County native. I live in the Exeter Township area, and I swore that once I graduated from West Chester, I was never coming back to Berks County, yet I very quickly came right back here to my very first job, which was with Junior Achievement. At that point, I realized how thankful I was to be in this community and to be able to work with and alongside so many great individuals that have so much passion for what they do here in Berks County, which then translated into my current work with the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, where I’ve had the opportunity to play a few different roles and wear a few different hats. Most recently, I am the Director of Workforce Development and Education Initiatives, which is really where my passion lies and where I’ve been able to see a lot of great work come to fruition here in the community.
Toni: You are one busy lady. All right. Let’s get into the Project. What does inspiration mean to you?
Ellen: I spent some time with this question, and I realized that to me it’s a gift. The fact that we can all be inspired by different things, be it the places we go and see, the work that we do, the people we surround ourselves with, it’s really a gift that we get to give ourselves. We each have so many experiences in our lives, both good and bad, and I think they all push us to move higher and inspire us to move greater mountains in whatever work that we feel inspired by. I also think it’s a gift that we can give to others, and I really think that that’s the important part of what I believe inspiration is to me.
It’s something that no matter what you’re doing, be it good deeds, be it the work that you’re doing, following your passion even when you’re maybe held up with some barriers or adversity, being brave enough to be yourself, I think even when that’s not the popular vote or when you’re being asked to be something or someone different. I think every decision we make, every bold choice we choose to move forward in can really impact and inspire those around us. Even if we don’t have necessarily a title or a platform to really say and go out and do those things and advocate for those things, just doing you and kind of being okay with that and being able to impact people around you is really a gift that you can give others.
Toni: So, this inspiration can be wrapped up for you in a gift, but a gift that’s almost a multipurpose gift. Almost like a regift, isn't it?
Ellen: Yeah.
Toni: A regift, and you can just keep giving that gift or getting that gift.
Ellen: Yes.
Toni: Do you know when you’re inspired?
Ellen: I do.
Toni: What’s it feel like?
Ellen: For me — and I really thought about this, too — but most times when I’m my most creative self of when I’m feeling most inspired by something or motivated by something, I know it because the barriers just seem to go away; whereas, if it’s not something that I’m necessarily into or something that I’m finding is just challenging and I keep hitting walls, I’ll allow those barriers to kind of deter me from getting something moved forward. Whereas if I’m inspired by something, those barriers just don’t exist or they don’t matter, because you’ll find a way around it or to go through it.
Toni: So they’re almost like, when you’re inspired you put those blinders on.
Ellen: Yeah.
Toni: You just put the blinders on and get it done.
Ellen: Yeah. Another piece of that, generally when I’m inspired by something there are other people involved in that, because it’s not just a matter of the thing at hand; it’s the people involved in it, so I find that if it’s the right project with the right people, it just can really turn into something great.
Toni: So, when you are given this gift or you’re going to regift the gift, how do you put that into practice here in Berks County? Give me some examples of that.
Ellen: Sure. In my role, which is a very heavily community focused role with the Chamber Alliance, I find that there are just so many opportunities to partner with those that do really great things, and so while we can certainly move forward with our own projects, they go so much farther and are so much greater when involving others in the work that we do.
A couple examples from within my own work — we have recently started an initiative for talent attraction and talent retention to Berks County, knowing how important it is for our businesses to attract the right talent, and then to also be able to keep that talent here. In order to really make this a robust project, we had to pull in some really strong partners. We’ve been able to really lift our message in doing so by involving those folks in the project.
The big piece of this that we are continuing to work on and continue to really be excited about is the storytelling component, and making sure that we are working with folks like The People Chronicles, like Lone Cricket Productions, and some of these other really great community partners to help lift up our platform to share the stories of some really amazing talent here; whether they’re from here, whether they transplanted here, and whether they have really made a career here or chose to go out of the community and come back, which is really a lot of what I think we all want to hear — those success stories and those inspiring stories from folks that have done it.
Toni: It sounds to me like there’s a lot of inspired collaboration that’s going on. So when you are motivated or your passion is up and you are inspired to collaborate, do you find that that is reciprocated or contagious?
Ellen: Contagious, yes. I think that the more you can go to work every day and if it’s not work, volunteer or whatever it is that you do and you bring a certain energy to it, you can't help but then inspire others to feel that way. I recently looked into — we all know we all want our good vibes and we all talk about good vibes only and that’s a thing, but there’s this whole vibrating higher I’ve heard about. I was Googling it a little bit. How do you vibrate higher? I want that.
A lot of the themes around that were respecting yourself and taking care of making healthy boundaries and self-care and all these things, and they kind of had the same theme around in vibrating higher, you’re also inspiring others. I aligned the two things, and that kind of goes along the line of this whole contagious atmosphere where if you’re taking care of you and you’re really vibrating higher at your best potential, which is really what that’s all about, you are going to, in turn, be inspiring others and, in turn, that will be contagious.
Toni: You’re spreading good juju everywhere.
Ellen: Yes. #goodvibesonly
Toni: All right. So, who in Berks County inspires you?
Ellen: This one was probably the toughest question that I had to really think through, because there are countless people here doing really great things. I think the thing I want to highlight here is it takes all kinds. It’s volunteers that are retired individuals that are doing really great things. It’s people that are just stepping into midlevel management roles that are really impacting the people around them in the workplace. It’s the C-level executive in the community that really pushes the needle and moves mountains to make impact. But to pick a few people out of that giant spectrum of people making things happen here is very, very difficult for me, especially because I am so honored to be able to work with and talk to so many of those people.
One person that I really enjoy their message, and I think they’ve done a really good job of kind of branding themselves, Rick Wolf has this saying. It’s three words, but I think it really inspires people to be their best self. It’s just, “Embrace the challenge.” That’s stuck with me. He’s been in this community for a very long time. He was assistant superintendent at Governor Mifflin and has gone on to kind of do his own thing, and his own thing, his business, happens to be Embrace the Challenge. That’s been really impactful for me.
It’s people like him who don’t do things for perhaps the credit but just to inspire people to be their very best self and really help them to see through. There’s always a way around a challenge, just keep going. That’s been really, really impactful to me, but there are so many others. There are people I work with in manufacturing that are doing really incredible, innovative things. There are people that I work with that just really believe in who they are and really who just want to advocate both for what they believe in, but also what they see in our community.
I think of people like Tricia who is one of the biggest cheerleaders and advocates for community that we’ve all had the privilege of working with. I think it takes all kinds. There are really awesome people that I know that don’t measure their success in their role or in their title, but they measure their success in the ability to make change. I think those are the people I really want to surround myself with.
Toni: That’s fantastic. So, what would you like your legacy to be?
Ellen: This one actually came easy to me. I have found that whether to a fault or not, I tend to be someone who will advocate for others and will sometimes do the thing that’s not easy because it’s the thing that I know that is right. At times my mom growing up would be like, “You should have just been a lawyer, because you’ll just argue your way into anything if you really believe it.” But I think that translates a little bit more now to the fact that the people in my circle and the people that I care about, I will play that intermediary role if I feel it will move people to a greater good. I think just being there and stepping up for people is something that I would like to leave as my legacy, and knowing that I can always pull people together for the greater good and move better forward together.
Toni: It is amazing that I still get to do this. I consider it a privilege to do the Get Inspired! Project. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’ve known you for a while now, and you are inspiring and you do inspire and you do pull people together, so you are living your legacy now, Ellen. I can only imagine by the time you are my age how many more people you’re going to pull together and the changes that you’re going to make. Thank you for living your legacy now, and thank you for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Ellen: Thank you for having me. It’s been an honor.
