Our People
Mansfield Colleague Kat Hammond Takes Great Pride in Her Integra Family
A Shared Dedication to Customers: For Kat Hammond, a materials buyer and planner at Integra’s Mansfield, Massachusetts facility, the camaraderie of her Integra colleagues and importance of ensuring inventory for hydrocephalus and other neurosurgery patients keeps her going. “We have an amazing team at Mansfield,” explains Kat. “We all know each other – no one ever walks by in the hallway without saying ‘hi.’ We lean on one another and strive for the best for our customers. It is an awesome team atmosphere.”
Diversity and Inclusion, Growth and Development, Courtesy of Integra
This Pride Month, Kat is proud of her identity as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and contributions in the workplace to promote acceptance, celebration, and unity of colleagues from all sexual orientations, gender identities and other backgrounds. She is the local ambassador of Integra’s PRIDE employee resource group and lead for the Mansfield Women of Integra Network chapter.
Kat has played an important role establishing local diversity and inclusion engagement activities. As a result, several colleagues have since come out to their teams, feeling comfortable and understood.
Outside of extracurricular activities, Kat has an operations and project management background and credits Integra with furthering her career – and her growth. Thanks to the company’s tuition reimbursement program, she is pursuing a degree with nearly the entire tuition paid for by Integra, and now puts her education to use for Integra patients.
“I stay onsite at night and do work for school there, attending online,” notes Kat. “It paid off for me and for Integra. I was promoted from material handler to buyer/planner, and every day I feel motivated to work hard for the company.”
Since then, Kat recommended the company’s tuition reimbursement program to two other colleagues, knowing that having them grow and stay with the company will benefit everyone down the line. “I would not have been able to get my undergraduate degree without the program,” she explains. “And they made it easy, too. It’s one of the many reasons I look to stay with the company.”
It helps that Kat and Integra share a belief in personal development. In fact, her advice for others is to keep learning and never be afraid to ask questions. “Even if it doesn’t apply to your job directly, it might help you later on and it can only benefit you,” she adds. “Learn everything you can.”
Doing Her Part to Care for Others
Kat had experience as a security guard when she joined Integra. Early on, she set up the material handling system, using her attention-to-detail to ensure stock of critical products that improve the lives of patients around the world.
“At a young age, I had a drive to help people. My mother was a nurse, and my wife is a pharmacist. At Integra, I can do my part by getting that product out the door to help someone,” says Kat, adding that her colleagues share that passion to help.
It’s that genuine care for customers who need Integra’s products that keeps Kat motivated, even as she suffers through her own challenges. An autoimmune disease usually means twice a year she is in pain, temporarily in a wheelchair. But she doesn’t let it stop her. In fact, she and her wife are participating in this year’s Integra Juneteenth 5K, even if she must do it in a wheelchair.
“I keep my head up and stay smiling and positive. Hard days can keep me from walking, but I am grateful to be working with people who are incredibly invested in each other’s lives and are like family to me,” she says.