 It isn’t hard to find musicians in this industry. Just about anyone you ask, no matter what their position and at what company, has at least dabbled in music making at some point in their lives. But what makes Vikki Hayward different is that she is not only a musician but also a consumer and fan of the exact products she is now working to support.
“Before I even worked for Gator, I owned a few Gator cases myself, so it was pretty cool when I finally came across the position for Gator,” said Hayward, who plays drums and “dabbles” in guitar. “I think it’s helped me a lot in marketing to be a consumer. You can’t really sell a product, I think, unless you use it yourself.”
Despite being more than qualified to market Gator products, Hayward’s original career path was about as far away from MI as you could get. “My schooling was for criminal investigation and crime scene technology when I started,” she recalled. “I got into that and realized it was nowhere near what I wanted to do with my life.”
So following stints in advertising and healthcare marketing, she came to Gator and “decided to take the marketing department to the next level.” Today she is able to bring many of her unique skills to the job. Though she didn’t come from a musical family, Hayward is naturally creative, not just in music but also in art.
“I get involved in everything from the ground level and get
involved in creating ads, flyers, the photography of the product, getting it into the catalog. And I’m involved in the design aspect from beginning to end,” she said. “In many situations, I’m doing a lot of the design work myself, just because I enjoy it so much. I think of it as stress relief to sit there and do some of the graphics.”
Calm in the Storm
Beyond her various artistic abilities, Hayward brings a unique perspective to her job by virtue of being a woman and being a mother.
“My life truly changed when I was pregnant with my son,” said Hayward. “During the birth of my son I basically had heart failure and could have easily lost my life. Being told you could die is quite a humbling experience. I decided that if I lived through it all I would make an effort to be a better person in all aspects of my life.
“For my career, it meant learning a lot about stress,” she continued. “Marketing is wrapped in deadlines and crazy schedules, [and] it is quite easy to stress yourself into sickness. I learned how to reduce my stress, get organized, maintain control of my projects, and learn to laugh things off once in a while.”
Gator on the whole is very open to women, by Hayward’s estimation. There are many women working there in management positions, and the company allows her to work one day a week from a home office so that she can be with her young son. That wasn’t always the case in her professional career, especially during her tenure in the healthcare industry.
“I had a few comments that people didn’t want to talk to women because they felt they wouldn’t know what they were talking about,” she recalled. “I think it made me stronger because… I built a lot of good relationships; it was just a very big struggle, where in the MI industry it hasn’t been a struggle at all.”
Florida Gator
In the five years since she joined Gator, Hayward has grown in her position and in the industry, and considers herself extremely lucky to have the opportunities she’s had.
“I really enjoy working at Gator. I come from a big Italian family and Gator reminds me of that type of atmosphere. Everyone gets along. Everybody works so well together and everybody communicates,” she said. “It’s exciting to have a job and to be in a position where I look forward to getting up in the morning and going to work. I know that’s something everybody pretty much strives for. So I consider that a pretty good deal to enjoy getting up, driving to work, and working all day. You feel like you’ve accomplished something good.”
As for her future, Hayward hopes to one day have her fingers in Gator’s many pies. “We have several divisions of the company. Eventually, my goal is to move to director of marketing and oversee all of the separate entities,” she said. “They’re very different [and] it’s been an interesting challenge to develop marketing for each separate division but for the same product.”
And when Hayward is unfamiliar with a product, her Gator family is more than willing to help. “One of the advantages of working at Gator is that everyone there is a musician,” she said. “So even if I come across a product I may not be 100 percent sure [about], there’s going to be somebody there who plays who I can go to and get guidance.
“But I think it’s pretty universal, really, no matter what instrument you play” added Hayward. “A lot of the musicians we deal with are so passionate…they consider their instruments to be like their children. It’s always nice when you hear the stories; we get them all the time. ‘Oh my guitar case fell off the back of my truck and smashed and got run over but my guitar was fine.’ We hear a lot of that [Laughs].”
That passion for Gator is something Hayward shares and expects to continue long into the future. “Over the last few years, Gator has moved from a small case company to one of the leading case companies in the industry. It’s been a wonderful experience so far watching that happen. It’s kind of like having your child grow up,” she said. “Hopefully, I’d like to think I had something to do with that.”
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