40 Under 40 The Class of 2011

Joan Maylor: 39

Manager, Stop & Shop

Joan Maylor

Joan Maylor

Joan Maylor used a picture of her parents in her 40 Under Forty portrait because, she said, “they truly represent who I am today.”
She recalled something her father always told her. “Once a task is begun, never leave it until it is done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.”
Well, Maylor certainly has lived up to that. She started her career with Stop & Shop as a bagger 21 years ago, “then worked every single department throughout the stores, through three levels of management, to the position I’m in now as store manager.”
When she started out in her entry-level position, she didn’t see supermarket work as a long-term career. But, she said, as she continued to grow and mature, she saw the many opportunities that can come to someone who sets her mind on a goal and works hard to achieve it.
Maylor is active in her church and, through her faith, committed to being a role model for younger generations. “I see that the young people these days can have trouble with focus or have a lack of purpose,” she said, “and I believe that, if I can show them how I grew up and became who I am, they can see possibilities.
“I’m hoping, through my position as store manager, that I can reach out to the community and get them interested in working in my field,” she told BusinessWest, “so they can see that there’s more to grocery stores than just stocking shelves.”
There were people at every stage of her career at Stop & Shop who would act as mentors, “teaching me what I didn’t know, but also what I needed to move on to the next step,” she said. “I still talk about all of them, and they have each given me a piece of who I am today.”
For Maylor, that’s what is most important, for her nieces and nephews and all the youths she works with: to help them understand, she said, “and to get the word out that you can make it.”
— Dan Chase