Celebrating Culture, Community, and Connection

Connection has been a recurring theme throughout Beverly Garner’s life.

She keeps people and details connected in her daily work as the leader of a value delivery team in Booz Allen’s Global Defense business. She relies on connections as a parent of three and an Army reservist. And she’s forging new relationships across Booz Allen as part of the firm’s Mi Gente Employee Community.

Read on for Beverly’s story—and how she’s using the power of stories and personal connection to bring people together during Latin/Hispanic Heritage Month (LHHM) and year-round.

Beverly’s path to the firm started half a world away, in an active combat zone.

“I enlisted in the Army when I was 17. I joined as an intelligence analyst and spent 15 months in Afghanistan,” she says.

Undergraduate and graduate degrees in international relations followed, then a job with a small defense company in San Diego. In her new career, she supported the Navy on everything from scheduling to on-ship software installations. “They were some pretty cool projects,” she recalls.

This trend continued at Booz Allen. Her first job involved missile defense systems, and she traveled to Romania to support a presidential mandate.

Exciting projects like this attracted her to Booz Allen in the first place and were just one reason she stayed.

“When I interviewed,” she remembers, “I thought ‘Wow, this is a place where I want to work.’ It aligns with the things that I really care about.”

For example, Beverly says, “Booz Allen always talks about bringing your whole self to work.” She explains that such a supportive culture led to leadership roles within the Mi Gente Community, known as the firm’s Latin American Network (LAN) at the time.

“Having a leader who was invested in the things that I wanted to do and where I wanted to go was important,” she says. “I was able to pursue things I'm really passionate about.”

Beverly joined LAN as part of the programs and education team. This evolved into her current role as co-lead of communications and digital strategy.

She helps with postings, news articles, and “elevating stories across the firm.” She’s focused on how the group’s activities bring people together—"building those connections and relationships across geographies and in real time.”

With the Mi Gente Community, connections and relationships are wide-ranging by design. Members include people with Hispanic or Latin heritage, Portuguese speakers, spouses and partners, and more broadly, allies, anyone interested in Latin culture. “Mi Gente is a community anyone can join,” Beverly declares.

“For me,” says Beverly, “Mi Gente is an opportunity to be involved in this greater community at Booz Allen.”

Booz Allen employees have many opportunities to participate and celebrate during Latin/Hispanic Heritage Month. Starting in mid-September, a month-long slate  of in-person and virtual activities will be held across Booz Allen, such as career discussions with senior leadership, a talk with award-winning author Valeria Aloe, networking and social events.

Community doesn’t end with Mi Gente, however. There’s also active cross-collaboration with other Booz Allen groups—and initiatives with the Armed Services Community remind Beverly of interactions on her own teams.

“It’s really important to take the time with fellow service members, especially as they’re making the shift to civilian careers,” she says. “We need to help them realize all of the transferable skills they have to offer, how they trained and managed people under difficult situations, executed missions, and demonstrated results.”  

It’s important to open up about life’s challenges as well.

“Whether it's struggling with your kid to put their shoes on or transitioning back from a deployment, we need to share those stories,” Beverly says. “In those moments, people can see that they’re not alone in their struggles. There's somebody else who gets it.”

One common way of telling stories and offering connection is through food, Beverly says. She mentions Mi Gente’s cross-collaboration with Booz Allen’s Middle East and North African (MENA) Employee Community. “A lot of the foods that we currently think are Latin American foods actually have a Lebanese or Arab origin.”  

“Sharing stories about what foods mean, talking about your favorites—it’s all a way to build relationships and community,” she says.

As for Beverly’s own personal food stories? “I was born in Guatemala, and I’ve recently been reintroduced to the foods that I knew when I was younger,” she says. Occasions like Potluck Tuesdays at Booz Allen’s San Diego office have given her an opportunity to connect with her culture, and then share the fruits of her labors with her colleagues. 

“One of my favorite things is caldo de gallina, or chicken soup,” she says. “It takes all day to make, but it’s a labor of love.”