Faces of Interface Featuring Karla Salaz

You can be successful anywhere when you possess worldly knowledge and a wide range of career experience as our Global Supply Chain Director, Karla Salaz. In today’s Faces of Interface, we spoke to Karla about her career experience and 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 ability to pick up new skills and roles 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 of 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. She began working for a broker for military exchanges in her new home.

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

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

Today, Karla is responsible for our entire supply chain for all of Interface. She also leads a critical team for our ERP system. Her immeasurable experience and initiative have led to her leadership promotions. Her contributions are felt throughout our entire value chain, part by part and customer by customer.

She says that what she enjoys most about working at Interface is that the company has such incredible potential, and in her role, 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 members she interacts with allows her to meet new people and engage all the time. Something she still enjoys after all this time after her first procurement job.

In her free time, Karla loves to spend time with her family. Her daughter studied medicine at NAU, and she gets up to see her as often as possible. She also has two sons and a granddaughter in Texas, whom she also visits as often as possible. Finally, she’s a huge sports fan: basketball, baseball, football, and her favorite, hockey.