On a morning at Bartlesville High School, Annie Saltsman is working in a role that might have remained unfilled if she hadn’t started the conversation. She works with students as a Career Development Coordinator, helping them think about what comes next. Internships, interviews, conversations about skills and direction.
For many students, it is the first time someone has asked them to consider what they want and how to say it out loud. The conversations began in the middle of the school year, while the role itself was still uncertain.
"We're not taught to promote ourselves."
“We’re not taught to promote ourselves,” she says. It is something she had to learn for herself.
Standing in her café, Annie found herself thinking about the career development role at Bartlesville High School. She didn’t see a clear path into it, but she knew the position had existed before, and she could see the value in it. It combined the parts of Human Relations that mattered most to her: helping people recognize their strengths, guiding them toward opportunity, and helping them see a future for themselves.
She also knew what she didn’t want. Corporate HR had never really been the goal. She wanted work that felt personal. Work that allowed her to invest in people directly.
At the time, the role wasn’t filled, and she didn’t know whether the district planned to bring it back. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She reached out anyway. Not because there was an opening, but because she had started to recognize what she wanted her next season of work to look like, and she knew she could help students.
Annie didn’t just talk about what she wanted her future to look like. Like she had done in other seasons of her life, she started looking for places where she could put action behind the idea.
When the school district hosted a job fair, she showed up. She walked into the high school commons area in a business suit, resume in hand, ready for a conversation that did not formally exist. Fewer than fifty people were there that morning. People recognized her and laughed, asking what she was doing there. She laughed right along with them, smiled, and answered simply, “I told you. I came for the interview.”
"I told you. I came for the interview."
Within a few days, the conversation began moving from “what if” to “we’re launching the program in a few weeks, and we want you to be part of it.”
It wasn’t the first time Annie had talked herself into a new season. There was a time when Annie’s work looked very different. She completed her bachelor’s degree in business administration at the University of Tulsa and later earned a master’s in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma. In larger cities like Tulsa, those roles are easier to find. In a smaller community like Bartlesville, the options are fewer, and often already filled.
So Annie focused on the season she was in. She was raising three young children and looking for work that fit around family life while still giving her room to create, build, and challenge herself.
A birthday request from her daughter led her into cake decorating almost by accident. She taught herself through repetition and practice, staying with it until she got it right.
“I’m an all-in kind of person,” she says. “I found joy in my cake baking and I wanted to be really good at it.” Before long, people began asking for orders. What started at home eventually grew into a storefront business. Three Kids and a Cake became a place people returned to, and Annie began thinking beyond special orders and bakery cases.
She has a habit of imagining what could come next. One day she simply asked, “Wouldn’t it be fun if we opened a place where people could sit every day?”
That question led to a café, a catering business, and a larger operation that required coordination, leadership, and constant attention. Annie built it step by step, learning as she went, using her background in Human Relations to guide how she worked with people and how she led.
For a season, the café gave Annie exactly what she needed. It allowed her to build, lead, create, and stay closely connected to her community while raising her children.
She was building something people relied on. A place that became part of their routines and gatherings. Over time, something became harder to ignore. The business was stable. The café had become part of the community. People filled the tables, met friends for lunch, and saw a business that appeared to be doing well. What many didn’t see was how difficult it is to sustain a small food business at that level. The café itself was not what kept the operation financially afloat. Much of the revenue came through catering, long hours, and constant problem-solving behind the scenes. Annie saw it every day. Customers sometimes compared prices to chain restaurants without fully realizing what it costs to prepare fresh food, maintain staff, and keep a small business running well.
“Sometimes I feel like I choose the difficult path.”
“Sometimes I feel like I choose the difficult path,” she says. “My days were often 18-hour days. Keeping up with rising costs of goods and services made it a challenge to balance making quality affordable for everyone.”
She cared deeply about what she had built. At the same time, she was becoming more aware of what it required from her.
It was not dissatisfaction. It was awareness. Her children were getting older, their schedules were fuller, and the way Annie wanted to spend her time was beginning to change.
“I realized I didn’t want to be at the Eatery every day anymore,” she says. “It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I just knew it wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time anymore.”
That realization did not come from failure. It came from paying attention and being honest with herself about what she wanted next.
“I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my time.” This time, instead of simply responding to what was in front of her, Annie started naming what she wanted. She talked about it to friends, to people she knew, and to just about anyone willing to listen.
“You need to think about what you want to do,” she says, “and then tell people.” It sounds simple, but Annie knows many people are never taught to do it. Especially women, who are often taught to wait to be chosen rather than step toward something directly.
Annie chose a different approach. She said it out loud, stepped into it, and made it visible. And that is exactly what she teaches her students now.
In her work at the high school, Annie helps students recognize their own ability and learn how to talk about it. She connects them to internships, prepares them for interviews, and helps them see that there is more than one path forward.
“There are so many paths,” she says, and Annie helps students make those connections. She helps them see that what they already know, what they have already done, has value.
“Some kids just need someone to help them see what they already have,” she says. “We’re not taught to promote ourselves,” Annie says, so she teaches students how to recognize their own value and speak about it with confidence. Looking back, each season seems to have prepared her for the next one, even when she couldn’t fully see it at the time. For now, Annie is where she wants to be. She is still connected to the business she built, still part of the decisions that matter, but no longer carrying it every day. Her time looks different now, with more room for her family and more space to do the work she had been moving toward all along.
“You need to think about what you want to do and then tell people.”
At the high school, Annie asks students a question many of them have never been asked directly: What do you want?
Some hesitate. Some don’t know how to answer because they’ve never really said it out loud before. Annie gives them time to think about it, then helps them begin putting words around what they want for themselves and their future.
“You need to think about what you want to do,” she says, “and then tell people.”
Some of the students will remember that advice for years. And somewhere down the road, some of them will use it.
Download Annie's Story PDF (abbreviated)
About Annie Saltsman
Annie Saltsman serves as Career Development Coordinator at Bartlesville High School, where she works directly with students to help them explore career paths, prepare for interviews, and connect their skills to real opportunities. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Tulsa and a master’s degree in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma.
Before stepping into education, Annie founded and grew Three Kids and a Cake, which later expanded into The Eatery, a café and catering business in Bartlesville. Her work has always centered on people, whether building a team, serving a community, or helping students find direction.
She and her family live in Bartlesville, where she continues to stay connected to both her business and her work with students.
About the Writer
Angie Thompson is a fundraising strategist, storyteller, and creative brand consultant who believes words and images can spark transformation. For over 40 years, she has partnered with nonprofits, small businesses, and purpose-driven individuals to move beyond generic messaging into communication that connects and inspires action. Her work spans film, television, music, and philanthropy, earning awards in sound design, composition, and storytelling. Through her Women with a Spark series, Angie highlights women who follow their instincts, take action, and build meaningful work in their communities. Contact Angie at Angie@AngieThompsonConsulting.com.