IntelliDyne Director of Bid & Proposals, Crystal Yauch

Employee Spotlight on Crystal Yauch

What’s your role at IntelliDyne and how long have you been with the company?
I’ve been with IntelliDyne for a little over a year as the Director of Bids & Proposals.

What do you think makes IntelliDyne a great place to work?
The camaraderie and inclusivity at IntelliDyne are what brings me back day after day with a smile. No matter the challenges, I know that everyone is operating with the best of intentions—it is incredibly motivating to work together to achieve our shared goals.

What aspect of your role do you enjoy the most?
Variety! Proposals utilize all of my brain and all of my technical and soft skills. This includes research, writing, process, knowledge management, software tools, people management, collaboration, etc. I love learning and writing about a wide variety of topics—and interfacing with experts with impactful stories. I also love that there is tangible evidence of the quality of my work from 20+ years, and that is very rewarding to reflect upon.

What was your dream job growing up?
My dream as a child of the 90s was to be a “Soft Singer” like Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey. My dad and I did compete and win 4th place in a World Embassy Karaoke Competition in Tokyo that aired on Japanese television during the commercials for the 2002 World Cup and, more recently, I took singing lessons from an opera singer and performed recitals (not opera) at local events.

What is the most important career lesson you’ve learned so far?
It is a common but true sentiment—work smarter, not harder. In my early career, I put in as much time as was needed to complete a task to perfection to the detriment of my health. Now I advocate for proposal (and all) professionals to strive for a healthy work/life balance—it is an important lesson to learn and even more important that leadership understands how to encourage this amongst their bids and proposal staff. Another very important career lesson I’ve learned is that I have a superpower (to win proposals), and with great power comes great responsibility. I must use this power for good (and help a deserving company like IntelliDyne win contracts and grow).

How do you motivate and inspire your team?
Communication, transparency, and positivity! Oh and humor! We work in a challenging field with pressure-cooker deadlines and full-brain-utilizing content generation; it is important to embrace our humanity and remind ourselves that while our work is important, it is not life-or-death. This helps us to disperse the stress and focus on the immediate tasks at hand.

What energizes you at work?
Scalability! I am energized in my everyday tasks by working hard to ensure that tomorrow will always be better than yesterday or today, whether through process improvement or team collaboration—all with the goal of scaling our organization and growing.

What is the most important quality of a good leader?
To be a good leader, you must also be a good follower. I learned this in Air Force ROTC and it has stuck with me throughout my career. What does this mean? To put your team first—to be people-first—to listen.

What parts of our mission do you connect with?
I live and breathe our mission! Our proposals should have ALL of these elements—high-quality, mission-aligned, innovative, people-first solutions—to increase our probability of winning.

What is one unique or fun fact that others may not know about you?
My first job was as a disc jockey for a local radio station in Texas, where I introduced and played country music on Sundays.

What kinds of hobbies and interests do you have outside of work?
I foster kittens religiously for Middleburg Humane Foundation and I enjoy horseback riding and hiking in the Shenandoah. One of my other hobbies is acting as an extra in movies and television shows.

What is on your bucket list?
Due to growing up in a traveling military family and the fact that my mother’s mother and father’s father are both orphans, I have met very few extended family members. Someday I would really love to do a month-long cross-country trip to meet and spend time with extended family members to reconnect and hear family tales.

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