By Julie Linn
For the Auburn Reporter

One recent afternoon, Braylynn Palmer was diligently cleaning crusty pizza sauce off the laminated cardboard pages of a Disney Princess book.

Her boisterous personality and sharp replies to questions would never suggest that at four years of age, she had already had four open-heart surgeries. But the pale, pink line peeking out of her “Frozen” T-shirt was the flesh-and-blood attestation to the trials that have already tested her young life.

Braylynn was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, a life-threatening condition in which one side of a heart fails to develop.

Doctors informed Crystal Palmer, Braylynn’s mother, about the condition during her pregnancy and suggested an abortion. For religious reasons, and because of the difficulty she’d had conceiving, Palmer said no, and carried Braylynn to term.

Later, aware of the risks it might pose to her heart condition, doctors referred the little girl to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which helps make dreams come true for children with serious medical conditions.

With help from mom and influenced by television advertisements, Braylynn made up her mind — she wanted to go to Disney World.

As she and her family moved from Arizona to Oklahoma and finally to Washington, where her father, Rick Wielebski, got a job in the Seattle area, her wish followed her.

Soon after the move, Make-a-Wish Alaska and Washington contacted the family, telling them that a local business – Auburn-based Zones, Inc. – was interested in adopting Braylynn’s wish.

Zones, founded in 1986, is a national provider of IT products, solutions and services that self-reports $1 billion in annual revenue. The company employs about 1,000 people, 600 of them in Auburn. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Zones ranked No. 10 in employers of Auburn in 2014.

Few Auburn residents know much about Zones. But by investing in the community in a number of ways, the company is determined to change that.

Cathie Fowler, Zones vice president of marketing, recently disclosed a number of the company’s charitable contributions, the most popular of which are to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. With Zones employees’ donations from its offices in the U.S., the company has been able to raise about $10,000, doubling the amount needed to make Braylynn’s wish come true. Money raised beyond that sum allows for a second wish to be adopted.

In addition to its Make-A-Wish contributions, Zones donates to the American Cancer Society, Wounded Warrior, the Auburn Food Bank, and Auburn Youth Resources.

“Our employees have embraced a lot of excitement over giving back to the community,” Fowler said.

Despite its success as a business and its contributions to several charities, Zones’ reputation as a feasible local employer is only now starting to spread.

Doug Lein, manager of the City of Auburn’s Office of Economic Development, attributes the company’s heightened interest in the community to its new president and CEO, Murray Wright, who joined Zones in 2013.

“Companies in strong growth patterns, like Zones, tend to forget about the rest of the world and focus on themselves,” Lein said. “I think that’s what happened with the original president and owner; he was a very private man. (Wright is) the first outsider. He’s more aggressive and sees value in connectivity (with the community).”

Lein noted that until recently, Zones had a history of importing labor to meet its needs in Auburn. Now the company wants to cultivate local talent to fill those positions. Not only would that create jobs locally but it would also supply the company with employees having stakes in the community, who are therefore invested in long-term commitments.

Lori Stewart, Zones vice president of human resources, said the company wants to hire people who are interested in sales. Degrees are still valued, but the emphasis now is on finding people combining interpersonal relationship and customer support skills.

The City’s Office of Economic Development recently started collaborating with Green River College to create a short-term sales certificate program, helping locals get a foot in Zones’ door.

According to Josh Clearman, dean of the Technology and Trades Division at Green River, the program prepares students to work for an Auburn business in general even as it provides specialized training favorable for employment at Zones.

“We want to be responsive to industry,” Clearman said. “It’s clear (potential Zones employees) need customized training, and we want to try to deliver that.”

Lein said local labor sourcing will also reinvest in the local economy.

Simply having more locals earning competitive wages “make(s) a big impact on the local retail economy,” Lein said.

The bigger picture is that Zones, as a business, reinvests in Auburn’s local workforce and economy. The company, however, has already shown how much it values people.

When Zones adopted her daughter’s wish, Crystal Palmer said, she felt the community embrace her.

“Crystal’s exposure to Seattle has been a stressful move and a stressful situation with Braylynn,” Wielebski said. “And only a few months after that (was) Braylynn’s surgery. With stress at its highest level, this company reaches out to us and does so much.”

On Oct. 12, 2014, Braylynn had her fourth, and hopefully last, procedure. Her doctors say it usually takes at least a month to recover. Braylynn only needed two weeks. The probability of surviving the procedures is not high, but she has beaten those odds, too.

“She’s insanely strong and stubborn as heck,” Palmer said.

Braylynn recently started dance classes and can now keep up with her older brother, Isaiah. In April, it’s on to Disney World.

And when she returns, Zones is going to throw her a party.