Meet Mary Grace Yap

Mary was born on Cebu Island in the Philippines. Her mom was an elementary school teacher. In 2007, she and her family moved to the U.S.— Florida, to be exact. Mary was 13. 

By the time she began high school, she had a job. Worked for Webstop Inc. Made her way up the ladder from data entry, to client service, to web development. Supported herself through college. Graduated Cum laude. You might say, Mary is bound and determined to succeed.

Despite tragedy in her early life, she’s always bounced back. The eternal optimist, Mary’s very close to her family. So close in fact, she and the family live right across the street from one another in Chattanooga, where they all moved in 2017. We might add, her boyfriend’s from here, which was an added incentive

Front-end development is her absolute passion in life. Mary said she’d continue to do it even if she won the lottery. A go-getter, her favorite CMS is Wordpress. She’s built her own templates from scratch. Says the only thing she hasn’t tackled are plug-ins. We’re sure that’s next. She’s also partnered with developers to create optimal mobile applications and knows HTML, CSS, PHP, and Xcode, like the back of her hand.

Speaking of back hand, Mary plays a mean game of tennis. After sitting at the keyboard all day, you gotta’ move around, Mary insists. She also plays acoustic guitar. Her favorite bands? The Beatles and the Eagles, to name a few. As to entertainers, she’s a big fan of Conan O’Brien. “He makes me laugh,” she says. When it comes to actors, Gary Oldman, Tom Hanks, and Daniel Day Lewis top the list.

As to life, career, goals, and her future, Mary likes to compare herself to people who are superior to her. “If I never compared myself to people who are better than me,  there’d be no drive to study harder, become a master coder, or perfect my backhand,” says Mary.

Her ultimate goal in life? “To be content with everything and feel that all the efforts, all the time I’ve invested to improve myself, will soon be enough.” We’d say, more power to you, Mary.