early life

Kate Morgan was born and raised in Kennesaw, Georgia, the youngest of 3 children. Her 1st job was at 14 as a bagger at a grocery store. She instantly loved working, and more importantly, enjoyed being able to learn and the opportunities a job provided her. Having some money in your pocket when you’re 14 was a pretty good benefit as well.  

From the ages of 14 to 21 she worked in an incredible variety of jobs; animal hospitals, doggy-daycares, movie theaters, haunted houses, spas, delivered flowers, Amazon, family fun parks, and even a photography studio. If someone was willing to teach her, she was willing to try it. Not surprisingly, coachability remains one of Kate’s superpowers.

A great inflection point came for Kate at the birth of her daughter in 2015. It was around this time that she began her journey at Starbucks, her 1st hospitality job. She had the opportunity to work with an amazing manager who pushed her and helped her see that she was doing meaningful work beyond just performing a job. This is where she learned to challenge herself and realize her own potential. Kate’s incredible understanding and systems and processes also emerged during this time.

y3s journey

Kate applied to Y3S to be a bartender. She bet on her ability to learn and believed her skills learned from being a barista would translate well to a new role. More importantly, she was looking for a chance. She was drawn to the Y3S culture and was excited by the idea that a job and company could celebrate who you are and work around your strengths. It seemed like a unique environment and a big shift from previous work experiences. 

She was hired in early September of 2022, a month and a half before orientation and quickly connected with the Y3S leadership team. The team was impressed with Kate’s mindset, communication and steady stream of referrals. Recruiting is hard, and her efforts were a big part of putting together the founding team at Y3S.  

Throughout the training process and opening, Kate quickly gained the respect of her peers and leadership team through her work ethic and ability to raise her hand and execute whatever was thrown her way. During an opening, it’s a true test of adaptability. Everyone and everything is new, but Kate stood because of her consistency, optimism and a growth-mindset.  

Impressively, even with her lack of bartending experience, she dove right into beverage operations. Her background and skills were a perfect compliment to the rest of the team. Partnering with Charles Williams and Kaitlyn Knaak to spearhead the Y3S beverage program. Quickly mastering inventory, and supporting ordering and menu rollouts. She earned the role of the 1st Beverage Systems Admin at Y3S- a role created FOR her due to her outstanding efforts.  

In her role, she literally helped raise the bar through a commitment to Kaizen with our processes, project management, menu development and much more.  
   
Now, Kate takes on a new challenge in becoming the 1st Y3S Training & Development Manager. In this role, she’ll get to exercise her creativity and her knack for systems in taking the onboarding process at Y3S to the next level. She’ll help develop training materials, processes, support our mentors, coordinate seminars, training schedules and much more! It’s a fantastic opportunity that everyone is grateful to see her tackle. 

What Kate loves about working at Y3S is the level of support she receives from the team. Every day is filled with the opportunity to grow and move closer to your goals. It’s an environment where she feels cared for and seen. She has thrived in, and been a huge contributor to, the Y3S culture, where we proudly say, W3 Different. 

When not at work, you can find Kate spending time with her children and her boyfriend Nick. She is also into playing video games (World of Warcraft is a guilty pleasure, she is also the all-time Fuzion Frenzy Twisted System champion), hiking and finding ways to be creative (specifically ice dyeing clothes). Her big bucket list goal is to see the Northern Lights.

Excited for the next steps in Kate’s journey, stay tuned to see what’s next…