2021 Fellowship Award Recipient

April Gonzalez graduated from the University of North Texas with a BS Degree in Advertising, Minor in Social Science. At the university, she was a part of SWOOP, a student-run advertising agency. She worked on the account side (“suits” as the ad world calls it) brainstorming with the team/presenting and pitching campaigns to the client. Additionally, she worked at the university’s newspaper selling ad space. It was during her time at the university that she found a love for sales and working with people.

Right out of college she went into B2B sales selling copiers. Not too long after this, the staffing industry found her, and she joined a general staffing firm to work as a recruiter on the Engineering side of the business. She quickly worked her way up the ladder to team lead, manager, and, ultimately, business development. She began her career in Telecom in November 2020 when she joined the team at TekCom Resources, a staffing firm that specializes solely in placing Telecom talent. Her current role is Business Development Manager over the Central Region.

Her goal as the 2021 WWLF Fellowship recipient is to network and learn as much as she can about the world of Telecom. She loves being a part of an industry that is constantly growing and changing.

In February 2021, she got married and they have one Australian Shepherd and two cats.

She is excited and grateful to be a part of WWLF!

Kelly has over 20+ years in Management and Business Development throughout her career and has recently rejoined the wireless industry with All States Engineering & Surveying. Like some of us, she did not have a traditional career path straight to an engineering firm but a colorful journey along the way. Going back to her college days, she graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing leading her to Neiman Marcus then on to the Westin & Sheraton Hotels and the travel industry. Knowing that the hotel world was quite different from the high-tech/telecom world that was intriguing and constantly pulling her in, she decided to bridge the gap by attending Rice University to get her MBA and take additional challenging telecom courses………. just for fun.

This opened doors to work for Nokia, Lucent Technologies, and Nortel Networks gaining a solid foundation and understanding of the communication industry. After the events of 9-11, her career suddenly changed and focused on the energy industry. Opportunities unfolded to work for such multi-billion-dollar energy companies such as TXU Energy, First Choice Power, and Green Mountain Energy (NRG) where she gained valuable experience and promotions to positions allowing her to lead teams, people, and company vision. This is where she had the most impact on training and molding people to achieve their goals, which lead to achieving the company goals too.

After the energy teams were successful and thriving, Kelly was pulled back into wireless and worked in Business Development roles for Smartlink and then GTL. Now happily established at All States Engineering & Surveying since January 2020, she finds herself jumping into her role and this industry to give back. WWLF serves as a perfect platform to be fully engaged in the events/people/topics of the wireless domain and she looks forward to sharing and doing more in 2021!