Finding Belonging: HR Leader Maria Rogers Discovered Her Path

Maria Rogers still remembers the third-grade report card that summed her up: “intelligent, but talks too much.” Now as an HR Business Partner supporting GE Aerospace’s Digital Technology group, she laughs at the memory — and sees those traits as the very strengths she now uses to help others feel seen, supported, and set up for success.

For Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hertitage Month, Rogers reflected on identity and belonging not as abstract concepts, but as the through-line of a life shaped by immigration, loss, and the people who chose her along the way.

Searching for belonging

Rogers, who supports GE Aerospace’s Digital Technology Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Security Officer, and Corporate Functions Chief Information Officer, is a first-generation immigrant from Taiwan. Like many AAPI journeys, hers has included reinvention: learning a new language and customs, navigating unfamiliar expectations, and trying to make her name, her voice, and her presence fit.

“Belonging didn’t come from blending in,” she says. “It came from people who made room for me.”

Her early years were marked by instability and profound change. At age three, after her mother passed away, Rogers became “a stray child no one wanted,” she says. She was nine when she crossed the ocean from Taiwan to the United States with one small bag and “big kid hopes” that she would finally have what she called a “for real” family life.

Wanting to blend in, she chose a new name for herself: Maria, after her favorite character on Sesame Street, a show she watched to learn English. Life in the U.S., however, was far from simple. Home contained both warm memories and sometimes unsafe moments. As a freshman in high school, Rogers left home and moved in with her best friend’s family.

“They didn’t have to take me in, but they did,” she recalls. “For the first time, I experienced what it felt like to be held by a community.” That experience continues to shape her understanding of belonging. “Sometimes belonging isn’t a place you find,” she says. “It’s people who choose you.”

Work, music, and a path to human resources

By 14, Rogers was working multiple jobs to support herself and build a future. One of those jobs, at Huthmaker Violins, was more than a paycheck, it was a turning point.

What began as part-time work in a small violin shop became a lesson in responsibility, service, and trust. Rogers learned to support customers, stay organized, and earn her employers’ confidence in an environment “where you’re known, where your contribution matters.” She also found a passion for music and a welcoming community through her school orchestra.

“At Huthmakers and in orchestra, I found my people,” she says.

After four years of working at the Huthmakers and in her first semester at Georgia-State University as a Music Education & Business major, her path to HR emerged from a seemingly ordinary afternoon in the violin shop. While helping a father and son choose a cello, the father casually mentioned that he worked in HR. Rogers was curious. She asked questions — lots of them.

“At the end of my cross-examination, he looked at me with this mix of amusement and frustration and said, ‘Just try it!’” she recalls. “That conversation changed my career.”

A week later, she changed her major and started as an HR intern for the HR Service Center Director at Georgia-Pacific. The third-grade note that said she “talks too much” suddenly looked different. “Maybe all that talking wasn’t a bad thing,” she says.

Finding community and voice at GE Aerospace

When Rogers started at GE’s energy business in 2011, she joined the Asian Pacific American (APA) women’s network, which accelerated her growth through connection, learning, and mentorship.

“I didn’t fully understand the impact of an affinity community until I experienced one that made room for me — not just as an HR professional, but as a person,” she explains. “My experiences made me empathetic, resourceful, and deeply aware of what it means to feel unseen — and what it means when someone chooses to see you past the noise, assumptions, or biases,” she says.

In her HR role at GE Aerospace, she brings that awareness into every room, focusing on clarity, fairness, and connection whether she is supporting an early-career employee, partnering with a leader through change, or helping a team navigate uncertainty. 

Outside of work, Rogers has built a beautiful circle of family and friends including her husband of 19 years, Josh. Her fantastic kids Sam and Olivia, and her community of friends. She also mentors early-career students through Greenhouse Scholars, a nonprofit that supports underserved and often first-generation students, and channels her empathy and humor into her photography business. 

Rogers says she has found a sense of belonging at GE Aerospace and describes it as coming full circle.

“I’ve found a circle at GE Aerospace where I can be fully myself,” she says. “And I’m committed to doing what others once did for me: pull more people into the circle and pay it forward. Belonging shouldn’t be something you earn. It should be something we create together. It can’t feel like passive tolerance — it has to be active support.”