Helping students is in Cardoza’s bones. She calls her philosophy “Students first,” and this informs everything she does at ARC, which serves over 30,000 students, making it the sixth largest public two-year college in the nation.

I work for a small company, and I’ve been here for three months. I get horrid PMS symptoms and would like to take PTO one day a month so as not to have to go into the office when I’m at my worst. If you were a manager, how would you feel about a new employee requesting this kind of PTO request? Should I have asked before I started? Should I wait till I have more tenure?

“Between working in high-pressure work environments and raising kids, by the time I was 40 I was just physically, emotionally and mentally feeling like I was exhausted and falling apart,” Pire says. “At that point, I went through a life-changing timeframe.” That’s when she envisioned The Rising Zone, a Rocklin-based event and co-working wellness center.

PODCAST EPISODE: How do you lead diverse teams with differing opinions? Where do you find the confidence to make big career moves? Are women leaders expected to be nicer than men? Comstock’s Women in Leadership honorees Cassandra Jennings and Yvonne Pire join us for a special episode recorded in the wine cellar at Mulvaney’s B+L in Midtown Sacramento.

Pawlek keeps that positive outlook through all aspects of managing the 800-employee operation. One secret to keeping a positive morale: lots of dad jokes.