Chester County has a lot of best kept secrets. West Pharmaceutical Services is at the top of the County’s best kept secrets list.

The Eagleview-based company employs over 7,000 people around the world and is a leading manufacturer of packaging components and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products.

West’s 2014 sales of $1.42 billion reflect the daily use of approximately 110 million of its components and devices, which are designed to improve the delivery of healthcare to patients around the world.

VISTA Today asked Karen Flynn, West’s Senior Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer about growing up in New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Michigan and then back to Ohio, why she choose to attend Notre Dame over the University of Michigan after high school, how two supervisors at West mentored and guided her career giving her opportunities and experiences she would never had gotten on her own and the impact her mother, sister and the Catholic nuns in grade school had on how she lives her life.

Where did you grow up, Karen?

I was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, the second of three girls, and lived in Plainfield until I was five. The Plainfield area is where my parents were from. We moved around quite a bit when I was young, so I grew up in a lot of places. We moved to Bath, New York, when I was five years old and then to Mt. Gilead, Ohio, when I was 10.

In high school, we moved to Indiana and then Michigan. When my parents moved to Michigan in my Junior year, I moved back to Mt. Gilead, Ohio, a small town north of Columbus, to finish high school.

Why did your family move around so much?

My father, like the movie “The Graduate,” was in plastics! He was with Westinghouse and then he took a series of different jobs with different companies in different places. My mother, who was a tremendous role model, was a nurse.

Whenever we moved, my mother always got her nursing license and went back to work. She worked part time, usually crazy hours like the midnight shift. The fact that she worked all those years and had a great work ethic allowed her to support herself after my parents were divorced. She worked until she was nearly 70!

What was it like to move back to Ohio to finish high school?

I’m a small town girl. I like living in small towns, going to small schools. The high school in Mt. Gilead only had about 120 in my graduating class, so I was involved in many school activities. One of the things that moving so many times taught me was to be resilient and adapt to change.

What activities did you participate in high school?

I was a cheerleader and also danced from the time I was six until I graduated from high school. I also played the cymbals in marching band, participated in student government, and was a member of the National Honor Society.

When did you notice you had leadership capabilities?

I’m a person that always tows the line and tries to do the right thing. The nuns in the Catholic schools I attended were tough and always said ‘do what’s right, and you’ll do well.’ I took that to heart and started to sense early on if I did the right thing, people would notice me, and I had more opportunity to develop my leadership skills. I became comfortable with the accountability and responsibility.

My older sister, who is a very driven person, was president of the student council and very involved as a leader in high school. She paved the way for me and set the expectation for me, which also helped.

What jobs did you work in high school?

I worked fast food, for McDonalds and Burger King. I learned how to get along with and respect people and how to get the job done. Back then, we didn’t have the technology we do today, so I wrote everyone’s order on paper and then did the math in my head before entering the order and making change. Because I was good at math, I got to work the counter instead of doing the grill or wiping ketchup off the floor!

One summer after my freshman year in college, the girl who was my crew chief didn’t like me all that much because I was older and had more experience than she did. I figured out I had to learn how to get along with her if I wanted to have a good summer.

What kind of music did you listen to when you were in high school?

My taste in music was typical for the times: Queen, the Bee Gees, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen.

Why did you choose Notre Dame for college?

I looked at two schools: Notre Dame and the University of Michigan. I choose Notre Dame as a result of the influence of my father. He was an Irish Catholic, die-hard Notre Dame fan. His brother had gone to school there, and my grandparents were proud Irish immigrants.

Was Notre Dame a good experience for you?

I loved it! I was a pre-professional studies major, which is essentially a pre-med major. I never wanted to be a doctor but thought about becoming a dentist. Even though I decided not to become a dentist, I stayed the course and completed most of the requirements to be considered a Chemistry major.

What did you do after college?

Right after graduation in 1984, I moved back to Ohio and took a job doing material analysis with Firestone Tire & Rubber. After six months, I married my college sweetheart, who was in the Marine Corp. After we got married, he went back to Georgia, and I went back to my job at Firestone in Ohio. After a few months we realized that being apart wasn’t going to work. While he was stationed in North Carolina, I moved there and found The West Company.

I stayed with West for 15 years before taking a job with a division of Cardinal Health in 2000 to gain more industry experience.

What brought you back to West?

I wasn’t looking to come back, but I had a lot of respect for West and had retained contacts at the company. In the years I was gone, the executive leadership of West had changed, there were a number of acquisitions, and I could sense a real energy and pride in West from the people with whom I stayed in contact. When the company asked if I was interested in returning to West, I enthusiastically agreed.

Who saw potential in you at West?

When I started at West in 1985, the Director of Operations took me under his wing. He knew I wasn’t from North Carolina and told me when I was ready to move back to the Northeast, he would help find a position for me in the organization. When my husband left the Marine Corp. I reached out to him and he offered me a job in R&D at the headquarters in Phoenixville, Pa. A couple of years later when I wanted to go to graduate school at Penn, he sponsored me and encouraged me to get an advanced degree.

The other person who took a chance on me was Steve Ellers, West’s former Chief Operating Officer. I had always been on a technical career path at West, Steve called me in his office one day and asked me if I want to join West’s sales team. I thought he was crazy! Why would I want to be in sales? Without someone reaching across the isle, encouraging me to take my technical blinders off and look at myself a different way, I may not have ever pursued an experience on the commercial side of the business. Taking the job in sales was the smartest move of my professional career.

You mentioned going back to get a Master’s Degree at Penn. What was the degree in?

I have two advanced degrees. My husband Mike and I took advantage of a generous military program where they would fly Boston University professors down to North Carolina to teach business courses on the weekend. Through that program, I received my MSBA. When I came to Pennsylvania, I did an Executive Masters Degree program in Engineering at Penn.

What challenges or opportunities do you see in the New Year?

We are really excited about the company’s future. West is a global leader in innovative solutions for injectable drug administration. If you look at the pipeline of biologic drugs currently under development, the majority of them are injectables. Being able to participate with our partners to deliver these important new medicines to patients is exciting.

We are also aligning the company to be more market-focused. My personal focus this year is to drive behavior and enable the organization to more effectively understand and anticipate the needs of our customers, and then to funnel the resources and energy of the company to bring forward new products and services to meet those needs.

When you think back over your career Karen, who gave you the best piece of advice?

I can’t think of a single ah-ha moment where someone said something to me that changed my life. Rather, I think it was series of people who took an interest in me and reinforced the benefits of hard work. My husband and I always tell our girls, ‘do the right thing, do well, and you’ll have options in your life.’ That’s what my sister, my mother and the nuns taught me! I fundamentally believe if a person does the right thing, works hard, and continually learns, that person will succeed.