April Castañeda’s Blueprint for HR Success: People, Purpose, and Passion

April Castañeda, MITRE senior vice president and chief human resources officer, says she’s excited about all the things on her heaping plate: HR excellence, science and technology, enabling and empowering people ... plus superheroes, arts, roller derby, and more.

Despite her numerous passions, two constants about Castañeda are her “West Coast casual” approach and her focus on prioritizing relationships with people to enable mission success.

A Blend of Influences Shape a Career

Her education—an undergraduate degree in women's studies and a master's in organizational social work—reflects a melding of influences from her mother, a social worker, and father, a retail executive.

When Castañeda found a social work graduate program focused on human resources and employee assistance programs, “I got super excited because it was all the things I loved, which were bringing the people part and the business together,” she explains. “People spend so much of their life at work; they identify with what they do. I felt that if I could help impact that, it would be amazing.”

Her first job out of grad school was running Caltech’s employee assistance program. Since then, she has worked at federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) environments. Enabling people to contribute to the public interest has been rewarding, she says, and she jumped at the chance to work at MITRE, which operates six FFRDCs.

MITRE is a powerful model because “you have the power of all of these FFRDCs coming together, doing things similarly and having that sort of brain power and ability to reach into each other,” she says.

Castañeda’s career focus on learning and development, and employee relations and investigations has taught her an important lesson: Every employee needs an HR professional who is fair, kind, and respectful, whether the task is related to building skills or managing a workplace challenge.

“I take that seriously because it's about creating social experiences and thinking about people first,” she says.

Aligning HR with Business and People Needs

After joining MITRE, Castañeda went on a listening tour across the company to understand employees’ needs and concerns based on their experiences with HR. She’s since developed and launched a three-year People Strategy to continually improve HR operations. Her desired result is to align HR more closely with MITRE’s business side, reduce the administrative burden, and enhance the employee experience.

“One of the biggest impacts we're going for is HR operational excellence. My philosophy is simplicity,” she says. “We're going to streamline our processes and make it so people know where to go for HR help and that they really feel heard.”

This approach is important to Castañeda because “everything that HR does is personal. If we mess up, it's your benefits that get messed up. It's your kid who can't go to the doctor. Anything and everything we do is personal,” she explains.

She’s keenly aware that current disruptions and uncertainty in the business world impact HR in numerous ways—for example, constrained budgets must be balanced with offering competitive pay and benefits to attract and keep talent. Yet Castañeda is up for the challenge because she believes that effectively supporting people who do the work is the key to mission success.

Balancing Personal Passions with Work Priorities

Outside of work, Castañeda is a self-professed science fiction fanatic who also enjoys reading, knitting (albeit badly), art museums, and a variety of live, on-stage performances. She is deeply involved in her teenage daughter's competitive roller derby activities and serves as a non-skating official, complete with a whistle, during bouts (games) and tournaments.

Amid Castañeda’s many passions is her work, where she is committed to transforming MITRE HR by fostering a supportive and efficient environment that empowers employees and supports the company’s mission and goals. Her goal is to continually facilitate an environment of trust and respect where employees feel heard, and “we can collaborate together, and we’re better because we have each other,” she says.

“It’s a privilege for HR to do the work we’re doing. My goal is always for us to take care of our employees’ HR issues so they can focus on what the nation needs. Our work frees them up to continue doing amazing things.”