Meet Emerging Leader, Steph Hahn! She works at our McGrath Buick GMC Cadillac location and has been with us for two years!
She grew up in Tripoli and went to school to become a dental assistant at Hawkeye Community College. After 15 yrs, she decided it was time for a change. She did some odds and ends jobs and joined the McGrath team in 2015.
She lives in Vinton with her son Blake (18) and two daughters, Raelyn (15), and Ashlyn (11). Her girls are very active with volleyball and softball. Her son has High Functioning Autism/Asperger’s so days can become challenging, which has taught her to have patience and take nothing for granted. She loves the fall and the change in weather. Iowa football is a must in the fall! Even though she doesn’t go to the games, she tries to never miss them on TV. Her parents, Steve & Jana, still live in Tripoli and she has a younger brother, Nathan and sister-in-law, Christy and niece Lauren, who live in Bondurant.
When she’s not working, you can find her at her part time job at Wildcat Golf Course in Shellsburg managing the beverage cart. She is also in a golf league and pretends to know how to golf.
She joined Emerging Leaders because she wanted to have more confidence in herself and learn new skills to help her succeed with her career at McGrath Auto and to give her some guidance in everyday life outside of McGrath. She always wants to expand her learning skills and this was a great opportunity and was very excited to be included in this year’s class!
She has always looked up to a teacher of hers and still does to this day. Roger Goudschaal was her high school business teacher. She never thought about how much she respected him until after high school and came across a letter he wrote her when her grandfather and grandmother were in a car accident and, sadly, her grandfather passed away. She was very close to her grandpa and took this loss very hard, taking a week off from school to be with her family. She was in 9th grade at the time. A lot of her classmates were talking about how crazy it was to be gone for a week for a grandparent. She took this very hard as well and Mr G. (as they called him) called her in after class and handed her a letter. He told her to wait until she got home to read it. When she read that letter, he discussed how everyone grieves differently and never let anyone tell you how you should feel or act when someone dies. He also discussed a personal experience he had with his grandmother which was very touching. She has always looked back at that day and knew he was telling her more than “you are going to be okay because your grandpa died”. She realized he was telling her to be yourself and never let anyone tell you how to act or respond. That everyone is different and you are the only one in control of your life. Because of that handwritten letter, that he took time out of his busy day to help her through a rough time in her life, she will always admire Mr G.
One piece of advice that Steph has received and applied to her every day life is, “Learn to take constructive criticism and learn from that experience. Criticism is meant to be a learning tool and to expand your knowledge and learn from your mistakes.”
