While Megan Henschen’s title is project controls assistant, her responsibilities extend far beyond that.
She’s really in a role of her own as a go-to problem solver, handling everything from payroll to prequalifications/recertifications to Salesforce administration.
“That’s probably why I like it so much, because it’s something different every day,” she said.
The Korte Company trusts her to handle business, and she trusts her team members like family, because they pretty much are family.
But how did she earn such a unique and versatile role at The Korte Company?
Growing up in a tightknit community
Megan grew up as the middle of three sisters in the small town of Greenville, Illinois, where everybody knows everybody. Dad owned a local funeral home while Mom worked at the local hospital as a phlebotomist.
Dad had lots of his family around. They enjoyed regular Sunday dinners at Grandma’s house.
“My grandma would always cook Sunday dinners and we’d go over there for the best fried chicken and mashed potatoes you could have. I remember always walking in my grandma’s house and just smelling her cooking and it just felt like home.”
When they got a chance to get away, it was usually to see her mother’s side in Merrillville, Indiana.
At age 16, Megan started dating her future husband, Craig, who attended nearby Highland High School. They met at the Madison County Fair demolition derby. “Romantic, I know,” she said.
Craig couldn’t remember Megan’s name, so he asked her to spray paint it on his derby car. And they’ve been together ever since.
They return to the fair with their kids every year to show pigs. “Every time we go to the Madison County Fair, we tell the kids, ‘This is where me and your dad met.’ The kids are like, ‘We know, you tell us every year.’”
Megan graduated from Greenville High School early in 2002. By the time she attended her senior prom and graduation ceremony, she was already enrolled in a 10-month business program at Hickey Business School. “I walked the stage when I was already almost ready to graduate from college.”
She also moved to the village of Alhambra, where she now lives with Craig and their three kids.
It was liberating to be out on her own and starting her adult life. “I wouldn’t say I was the overachiever, but I always knew I wanted to be a young mom,” Megan said. “My sisters wanted to do the whole four-year college thing, and that just wasn’t for me.”
The good, the bad and the baby
After school, she worked as an administrative assistant for United Healthcare in Creve Coeur, Missouri.
It was near her business school, so her commute didn’t change. But it was much more fast-paced and commercialized. No one got to know her. She felt like a face in the crowd and missed the tightknit nature of her hometown.
About a year later, she was offered a new job managing rentals at Frey Properties in Highland. Her then-boyfriend, Craig, already worked there, and she enjoyed the close company culture.
“We loved it,” she said. “Everybody seemed like family. And we met a lot of good friends that we still keep in touch with.”
They both worked there until shortly after they got married in 2005. To their surprise, they were both laid off on the same day that September due to budget constraints, which was also the day they found out Megan was pregnant with their first daughter, Emma.
“We were scared. It was crazy,” Megan said. “We didn’t know, obviously, the layoff was coming. It just happened to be the same day that we were already going to be taking a pregnancy test, and it came back positive, and we were both like, ‘Oh shit.’”
Despite the setback, Megan always wanted to be a young mom and knew they would make it work. Two weeks later, she was hired as a loan assistant at Bradford Bank back in Greenville. She was still working there when she had their daughter, Emma, in 2006. Then she was asked to manage a local restaurant and convenience store called Maedge’s in Alhambra and took the opportunity to be close to home. But when her son Ethan was born in 2009, she decided it was time to stay home with the kids for a while.
“I think being a stay-at-home mom was awesome for a little bit and then I just missed people,” she said.
Megan returned to the workforce in 2011 after her daughter was ready for school and her son entered daycare. It was time to get her career back on track.
Back to work with The Korte Company
Megan heard The Korte Company had a project management assistant opening from one of her sister’s friends.
She was interested in an administrative role since she had relevant experience working for Frey Properties.
Sherri Obermark was her interviewer, and she also became her first boss.
Since then, she’s almost done it all in the administrative department. She credits Sherri’s teaching ability for her own success.
And she had a lot to learn, like new regulations and processes. There was one set of rules for working with the government and another for USPS. And then the certified payroll, a once daunting task she’s now mastered.
“That was kind of scary,” she said. “But now I’ve taken over the certified payroll responsibilities for setting up the jobs, training employees, etc. Any questions people have, they come to me. So, that’s pretty cool that I’ve gone from not knowing anything about it to being the certified payroll guru.”
The trusted go-getter
Megan is a one-woman show. She is the only one with responsibilities varying from payroll to Salesforce administration, preparing subcontracts/change orders/invoices for the Diversified Operations crew and working with the federal government on Dept. of Labor audits. And that still doesn’t cover everything she does for The Korte Company.
“They know that I’ll take care of it and get it done. They don’t have to worry, and they know I’m always willing to help.”
People in her position need to be good at multitasking and priority setting. They need to focus on longer projects, but also handle surprises as they arise.
“My job is something different every day and I never know what I’m going to get thrown in my lap that you have to roll with the punches,” she said.
Perhaps the most surprising part of her job is that she still enjoys doing payroll after all these years.
“I enjoy it,” she said. “I enjoy working with the subs. I enjoy knowing how the job is progressing. I would have no idea what they’re doing on the job if I wouldn’t see the different trades that come out there and submit their payrolls.”
She measures success by getting all her certified payrolls done before checking her email and finishing other tasks for the day. “It’s a good day when I can get through my emails,” she said.
Growing family at home and work
While her immediate family has grown, she has a growing appreciation for her work family as well. She doesn’t get to see her coworkers often since working remote, so she enjoys going into the office and seeing them at special company events.
She has learned the importance of the different roles and people at The Korte Company. Everyone has a role to play to get things done, from the architects to the crews in the field to the administrative assistants in the office. But everyone has one shared goal and works together to achieve success, just like one big happy family.
The Korte Company treats her husband like family as well. When he comes into the warehouse or a company event, they all know him.
The work family is also very supportive of her family at home. Megan’s mom passed away due to breast cancer in 2017 and the people of The Korte Company were there to support her.
“Almost everybody that I worked with in the Highland office came through that line to pay their respects,” she said. “And I will never forget that. That’s how close of a family that we are at Korte. I hold that near and dear to my heart for sure … Two of the girls that I work with came over and cleaned my house … They brought lunch, they brought money, they brought cleaning supplies, everything. I didn’t have to worry about it.”
What lies ahead
In the future, Megan would like to visit more sites and get a better sense of the work that she usually only sees through numbers. “It would be cool to be able to fly out there and just spend a couple days looking at the building and knowing that you got to be a part of that building,” she said.
She would also like to gain new leadership responsibilities and become the mentor for new team members, just like Sherri was for her. But she’s too responsible to move up until there is enough support staff to take over her current roles.
Things are quickly developing at home as well. In their free time, Megan and Craig like watching their son play football and daughter run track. The past couple of months, she cherished one last year with all her kids in school. Emma is 18, Ethan is 14 and their youngest, Easton, is still just nine.
Her daughter is a go-getter, just like her mother. She just graduated high school and earned enough credits in a nursing vocational program to start attending SWIC as a sophomore with free tuition. She just got a job at Barnes Hospital as Med-Tech.
Like mother, like daughter, they are both working to do great things in life. And we couldn’t be more thankful that Megan is doing it with us.
The kids may grow up and move away, but Megan will always be among family at The Korte Company.
