In high school, Kristen Laird experienced terrible burns as a result of a lab experiment explosion. She struggled for years with fear of flames, and decided to turn it around by looking her fear straight in the face and becoming an EMT (emergency medical technician) and a volunteer fire fighter.
Through this experience, she has learned to experiment, explore, and take risks. As a Microsoft Garage intern in Boston, Massachusetts, she found kinship in the Garage philosophy of experimentation and failure as a learning experience.
Read the full story, Kristen Laird: Converting fear to fuel on the Microsoft Jobs Blog.
Written by Candace Whitney-Morris, as told by Kristen Laird