Faces of Interface Featuring Karla Salaz

When you possess the worldly knowledge and the wide range of career experience as our Custom Solutions Procurement Specialist Karla Salaz, you can be successful anywhere. In today’s Faces of Interface, we spoke to Karla about her career experience as well as her travels abroad and throughout the United States.

Karla grew up in Arizona and is a rare third generation Arizonian. Her father worked for the U.S. Forest Service, while her mother was in administrative work. Karla always enjoyed her home state and although her life took her all around to California, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Germany, she always knew she would make it back

Karla’s career is defined by her outstanding ability to pick up new skills and roles very quickly. When she moved to Southern California, she started a job in construction as a laborer before moving into an administrative assistant role. Her next stop was in retail where she worked at Walmart. She began as a cashier and rose through the ranks. Seven years later, Karla left Walmart as an assistant manager.

Then, after a few years working in the retail industry, Karla’s former husband, who was in the air force, received Permanent Change of Station orders to Germany, and she went along. In her new home, she began working for a broker for military exchanges.

After a little while and a move back to the states to Texas, she would take on her first role in manufacturing at a sausage manufacturing plant.  She moved into procurement at the plant and realized that she really enjoyed the various aspects of the position that allowed her to nurture and grow supplier relationships, as well as internal relationships. She also really enjoyed the responsibility of forecasting supply because it could make a huge difference in the success of the company.

Then, Karla returned to Arizona and began at Interface. Her experience in overseas brokering and procurement made her a perfect fit for the role as custom solutions procurement specialist. And while she only started in October 2020, her positive impact has certainly been felt by our team and customers. Her day-to-day responsibilities include processing orders, maintaining the correct level of inventory, coordinating logistics with partners locally and abroad, assisting in customs clearance and finding parts and bringing them in at the best price.

She says that what she enjoys most about working at Interface is that the company has such incredible potential, and in her role in custom solutions, she feels she has a big hand in influencing that growth. In addition, her proclivity for relationship building in concert with all of the different suppliers and Interface team member she interacts with, allows her meet knew people and engage all the time. Something she stills really enjoys after all this time after her first procurement job.

In her free time, Karla loves to spend time with family, her daughter is studying medicine at NAU in her junior year, and she gets up to see her as often as possible. She also has two sons and a granddaughter in Texas whom she also gets out to visit as often as she’s able. Finally, she’s a huge sports fan, basketball, baseball, football, and her favorite, hockey. She’s still waiting for the days that the Arizona Coyotes are competitive again.

Karla has a bright future ahead of her at Interface and we are thrilled to have her on board. If you enjoyed Karla’s story and want to meet more of our outstanding staff, check out her fellow ForceLeaders here.