Local business alumna leads through service
When Kendra Blake walked across the stage last December to receive her Master of Business Administration with a concentration in management, it marked a journey that began long before graduate school. A journey shaped by loss, grit and a determination to finish what she started.
A Port Lavaca native, Blake is also a first-generation striver in many ways. Raised by a single mother after her father died when she was six months old, she learned early on in her childhood that education could be her pathway forward.
“I was told, if you want to go to college, you better make the grades, and you better be the best you can,” Blake said. “You better get a scholarship because there’s no funding for you.”
After high school, she enrolled at Victoria College. But without a car and living in Port Lavaca at the time, the logistics of getting to campus became overwhelming, she said. She took a hiatus from school and found work at Formosa Plastics, where she would stay for 23 years, building a reputation as someone who could handle increasing responsibility.
"Kendra exemplifies the perseverance and purpose we hope to instill in our students," said Rhiannon Smith, A&M-Victoria assistant dean in the College of Business. "Her story of turning setbacks into leadership and advocacy for others is exactly the kind of real-world impact the College of Business is proud of celebrating."
But there was a ceiling Blake couldn’t break through. Despite being told she was capable of doing the work, she was passed over for promotions. At 34 years old, she made a decision: she was going back to school. While working full-time and raising children involved in multiple extracurriculars, she earned her associate degree from Victoria College in 2017 and immediately enrolled at Texas A&M University-Victoria to pursue her bachelor's degree.
In November of 2019, she had her fourth child, just as the COVID-19 Pandemic began to reshape higher education and daily life. Two courses in human resources stood between her and her undergraduate degree. She tried to push through but took a short break to care for her baby. Because the human resources course was only offered in the spring, Blake waited until Spring 2021 to complete her degree. That Spring, Blake earned her bachelor's degree in management and human resources from A&M-Victoria.
Currently, Blake works as a business sales executive for Sparklight, selling business fiber internet in Victoria and surrounding markets. Her days are filled with calls and visits to local businesses, asking tough but necessary questions about their current providers, costs and service reliability. The biggest challenge is convincing potential customers to leave their long-standing providers, some of which they have been with for decades, she said.
“People have a hard time leaving their comfort zone, what they know and what they’re accustomed to," Blake said.” “For $50, I’ll put up with it, that’s what they tell me.”
For her work, she draws heavily on her management and economics coursework she learned at A&M-Victoria to understand consumer behavior and market dynamics and to get a glimpse into why customers stay with familiar brands and how price-sensitive they are in a market where internet behaves like a utility but is priced like a discretionary service, Blake said.
To differentiate Sparklight, she leans into a local presence and community investment. Sparklight, formerly known as Cable One, has reoriented its business toward smaller markets like Victoria, Port Lavaca, Edna, Kingsville and Bay City. Places where fiber infrastructure is a significant capital investment and a differentiator, Blake said.
The company backs that strategy with community grants and partnerships, funding local nonprofits such as the Salvation Army and the food banks in town, she said. One of the most memorable efforts for her was a back-to-school clothing initiative at Walmart where the company partnered with the Salvation Army to provide shopping budgets for children.
“We were simply asked to pair with a child, and they had $70 to spend on clothing or shoes,” Blake said. “It was a very humbling experience.”
Beyond her day job, Blake serves as a Victoria Chamber ambassador and volunteers with organizations such as Keep Victoria Beautiful, Christ’s Kitchen, Victoria Christian Assistance Ministry and Restoration House. She often brings her children along to these volunteer efforts, turning service into a family affair and a lesson in civic responsibility.
“If we are not teaching our children in our community, then who is going to do it when we are gone?” Blake said.
For Blake, looking over the course of her journey, the core lesson is simple but hard-won: Keep going, even when the path is longer, messier and more complicated than you planned.
Texas A&M University-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 50 academic programs in the colleges of Business, Education & Health Professions, Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, and Natural & Applied Science. A&M-Victoria provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as online classes that students can take from anywhere. The university supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.