Even as a young child, Lidia Santos
was drawn to math and science, with
plans to one day become a teacher,
nurse or doctor. In high school, she met a
female engineer who showed her possibilities
beyond status quo occupations.
“She was so passionate about her career
and I was fortunate enough to spend a
whole day shadowing her,” Santos shares.
“I remember wanting to be just like her.
That was a very ‘aha’ moment. That was
understand what skills they need for their
current role, and if they want to improve
upon their skills, we point them to learning
activities whether that’s something to watch,
read or go do, it helps them increase their
proficiency in those skills,” Healy says.
In 2016, Healy received the prestigious
Circle of Excellence award, which is Microsoft’s
highest recognition, for an innovative solution to
a problem.
“Our business-to-business partnership
had multiple sites they had to go to, to do
business with us, and within that they had
multiple log-ins, lots of different usernames
and passwords,” Healy shares. “They were
continuously up in arms about it. They were
really distressed about it. Our solution was,
Lidia Santos
Director, Information Technology,
UPS World Technology Headquarters
the first-time engineering even popped in
my mind as an option.”
The engineer and Santos had similar
backgrounds, including attending the same
public school system, graduating at top of
their classes, and raised by hardworking
immigrant parents. The interaction was a
turning point for Santos.
Today, Santos is Director of Information
Technology at UPS’ World Technology
Headquarters. She leads enterprise architecture
‘Someday, we’ll have just one site to log into
that does everything.’”
But, realistically, that meant rewriting all
those sites to integrate everything. Healy
found software that could accommodate an
interim solution within weeks and scale it to
hundreds of partners within months.
Prior to working at Microsoft, Healy completed
stints at Napster, Movielink and as Lead
Software Engineer on NASA’S Pathfinder
project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
She’s a sought-after mentor and speaker
working to become a certified coach on top
of her day job. Healy is passionate about
serving others in her community and helping
people achieve their dreams and cross items
off their bucket lists.
and innovation initiatives focused on areas
such as Internet of Things (IoT), mobility,
c loud technologies, automation, augmented
re ality/virtual reality and modern development
and collaboration technologies.
In th ese disruptive times where technology
is continuously evolving, Santos is passionate
about contributing to the future of technology
and the logistics industry at UPS.
Th e Portuguese descendant describes her
ca r eer as “an incredible jungle gym” rather than
a journey up a “perfect ladder.” She credits he r
education and supportive environment she
has found at UPS for her success.
She can’t go into detail about some of
her projects for confidentiality reasons, but
she did shed light on a recent development in
the AR-VR space.
“We are using AR-VR to transform how
we train our drivers,” Santos says. “I’m
very proud of that accomplishment by the
team. There are so many others we are
working through right now.”
A c cording to Santos, she is ver y passionate
about her company, her work, her team,
the community and the environment.
Lidia Santos giving a presentation on
Enterprise Architecture & Engineering (ENG).
LATINAStyle Vol. 24, No. 2, 2018 www.latinastyle.com 23
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