Candace Jarrett transplanted to St. Louis from Arkansas with her family at a young age. Much the storyteller, she said she always remembers wanting to be a writer.
“I was going to be an editor for Vibe magazine and had my life all figured out,” Jarrett said. “As much as you can as a kid, but working at the St. Louis Science Center exposed me to many things about science I would have never thought about doing on my own.”
In 1999, as an incoming freshman in high school, she joined a program at the science center called Youth Exploring Science (Y.E.S.). The program introduces teens, ages 14 to 18, to the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM). Jarrett was a part of the second cohort of students. She said she had the opportunity to take flight lessons and fly and airplane through the program’s partnership with the Black Pilot’s Association. She taught the science behind art at the Saint Louis Art Museum through the program’s partnership with Zoo Museum District. She was a teen ambassador and strengthened her public speaking skills talking at events about the importance of the program. Once she graduated from high school and went off to college at the University of Missouri – Columbia to pursue a television and radio journalism degree, opportunities the Y.E.S. Program provided didn’t go away. She was one of a handful of former teens allowed to return each summer as a staff supervisor.
Jarrett said during her time at the Science Center, president Doug King, and program director Diane Miller, and her staff bonded with the teens and had genuine interest in each teen’s success. Jarrett said both individuals wrote letters of recommendation for her college applications.
“You start the program at 14 so they are teaching you about science but also about how to prepare for the ACT, how to be successful in college, and how to network,” Jarrett said. “They even saw my love of writing and helped me blend it with science.”
Jarrett said in her final summer as a supervisor in 2006, Miller asked her to create a program newsletter. Rather than manage a group of teens teaching science experiments, Miller encouraged her to develop a group of Y.E.S. writers, and teach them journalistic principles so they could contribute content to the newsletter. The program also allowed her to be the journalist on record for a partnership they had with Washington University’s Genome Institute and the NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. WashU researchers and the Y.E.S. teens with which they’d been working, along with Jarrett and other Y.E.S. staff traveled to Johnson Space Station and tested experiments in microgravity conditions on NASA’s C-9 Zero Gravity Jet above the Gulf of Mexico.
After she graduated from college in 2006, Jarrett packed up the skills she developed as a reported for KOMU-TV, the local NBC-affiliate in Columbia, and moved to South Carolina where she took on a role as a convergence reporter for the Florence Morning News and WBTW News 13. From there she set a plan in place and moved to Jacksonville, Florida to develop her marketing skills.
“I had a very strong support system at home growing up and my parents taught me if you want to do something, make a plan and go for it,” Jarrett said. “I’ve always applied that to my career. I don’t think about ceilings or barriers. I focus on learning all that I can in a position while, work smart to add value, and then move on to a new opportunity. Science teaches you learning is limitless.”
Jarrett said in Florida she applied to many advertising, public relations, and marking agencies and they all told her the same thing. “You’re young and you need more experience, “she said. “But I didn’t give up. I researched small woman-owned agency called Hester Group, found the president’s email and emailed her every week for a month until finally she had me come in to meet her.”
Jarrett said she offered her an event planning contract to plan her company’s 10-year anniversary celebration. She had less than a month to plane and execute but if she did well she was told there may be a position in the company for her. “I rocked it,” Jarrett said. For the next two years she was an account executive at the firm working with clients like VISIT Florida, Florida Medicaid Reform, EPA, and Mayo Clinic. “I am forever grateful to Hester Clark for that opportunity,” Jarrett said. “I learned so much from her mentorship.”
She returned to St. Louis region where she accepted a role with AOL Media’s Patch.com subsidiary as an editor and search engine optimization specialist. After a restructuring at AOL, Jarrett worked for County Executive Charlie Dooley, during the last year of his tenure, as a communications specialist. She launched an online interactive media center on St. Louis County government’s website. She managed the @SaintLouCo social media handle, as well as created content, coordinated events, wrote speeches, and collaborated with the county’s IT department on the website redesign.
From there, Jarrett set her sights on a position in higher education. She accepted a communication specialist position for the shared IT services initiative at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). She was responsible for marketing and communications support for multiple technical and organizational change projects with high visibility and complexity based out of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Information Technology & Chief Information Officer. Jarrett was recently promoted as the senior technology customer relationship manager for the Washington University Information Technology organization (WashU IT). In that role she is part of a team responsible for building and sustaining relationships with WashU IT’s end users. She work to track and report on service quality and develop an understanding of the universities technological needs to ensure governance and strategic priorities align.
Jarrett also serves as board president of Family Resources and Community Connections, Inc. The nonprofit has a mission to empower and positively impact children, families, and under-served, communities by addressing their social needs and issues through education, prevention, and awareness.
When asked to advise young African Americans pursuing careers, she said, “Harness the power of public speaking and networking. I learned that very early, and I really think that helped me tremendously. I’ve had a lot of really great mentors along the way that helped me harness and hone the skills I use today in life. I believe that comes from getting so comfortable with networking early in life.”
Jarrett said to this day, the relationships developed from the Y.E.S. program play an active role in her career, which is works to share internship opportunities with Y.E.S. teens in college who are interested in technology careers.
