Part 1 with Misty Mayes of Management Solutions

**Misty Mayes** (0:04)
Well, that night, we got a phone call from an individual that said, President Obama wants to meet you all tomorrow, and just thank you for what you've done in the world of business. And so I just said, tomorrow, which was the state championship in Nashville.
And I said, can I call you back in 10 minutes? And they said, sure. And so I hung up from that phone call, kind of went off by myself, and I just thought, you know what, he's a senior. State championship right now is the biggest thing in his world. President Obama, as great as he was, is not going to know my name five minutes after I leave the White House.

**Paul Sponcia** (0:35)
From the IT Company, it's Made Right Here, the stories of East Tennessee founders, creators, and builders. From the idea behind it to the impact it had on the community, their employees, and their personal lives, we're taking you behind the scenes of the movements they built.
Hey there. On today's episode, I've got part one of two of my conversation with Misty Mayes of Management Solutions. And really, the first part is just her family, her life story of growing up, and the heavy influence of her dad is really going to come out. Him and her mom both, like their work ethic, the way they cared for her and her family, just made a massive impact on the woman that she became, and also the importance and the impact of family to her, especially as a female entrepreneur. So this is really going to be a great first episode, and I hope you love it as much as I did talking to Misty.

**Misty Mayes** (1:35)
I am born and raised in Knoxville. I grew up in Farragut. My parents met in South America, which I think is interesting. My father grew up in Arkansas and came from a low-income family and was actually a sharecropper that picked cotton most of the time. And so as soon as he turned of age, he jumped out and enrolled in the military and was in the Marine Corps. My mother, on the other hand, grew up in a more fluent Knoxville family, be it South America at the same time because my dad was in the Marine Corps and my grandfather on my mother's side was involved in the military over there. And so my dad was actually the driver for my grandfather, and that's how my mother and he met. Neither one at the time had a college degree. And so my mom had been in and out of college, but traveled a lot with her family and just it wasn't a priority to finish her degree. And so when they got married, my mom was insistent that my dad get his degree. And he worked at the same factory for 35 years in Knoxville, Roman Hoss, which is now Dow Chemical. He worked the night shift, would come home during the morning, play with me for a couple hours, sleep, wake up, play with me, have dinner, and go right back to that shift. And he was going to school during the day. And he would tell me stories on how he could remember that, you know, he wanted to make me a priority. And so he would play with me in the morning and play with me in the afternoons, but he would be so tired from not sleeping enough that he would go to UT for his classes and be in the parking lot and literally try to be doing his homework right there and would oftentimes fall asleep in the car.
But he worked and he did that, and it took him five years of working the night shift, going to school during the day, raising a young family, and he graduated. And he was then able to move up from the kind of the blue collar role to more of the professional side in that company. He had a huge influence on my life, I think just from his beginnings, because the stories that we heard is he had nothing. He grew up in a small town. They literally had no time, didn't have food. He could remember one Christmas, getting a toy.
So everything to him, when my mom convinced him to come back to Tennessee and he got the degree and was able to make a decent income, everything to him was like a huge blessing and a gift. And so I think that instilled in all of us just this strong sense of thankfulness. He was also a very competitive athlete. He had kind of this ad hoc basketball league that went on in Knoxville that he ran and he was a participatory in. And so as soon as we got of age, all three of us, sports was just a way of life.