Not fluent in English but needing a job, Selma Mlikota had been a Bosnian refugee in Utah for less than a year when O.C. Tanner hired her in August 1998 to make commemorative rings.
That initial break launched a career. She climbed through the ranks to a position where she developed training programs for people who sell O.C. Tanner’s employee-recognition products worldwide.
Now she will put her experience to work helping other refugees find meaningful careers through O.C. Tanner’s intensified support for the Refugee Education Initiative. Mlikota will work full-time to advance the career ambitions of nearly 200 refugee students whose college educations are being subsidized by the initiative, underwritten for the past four years by Salt Lake City real-estate developer Roger Boyer.