I am so very honored to receive the Women in Cell Biology Sandra K. Masur Senior Leadership Award from the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), particularly because many of the previous awardees have served as mentors and sources of inspiration throughout my own career. I also thank the ASCB for always striving to be maximally inclusive, in terms of both the scientists it supports and its broad vision of what constitutes cell biology. As a graduate student I gave one of my first talks at an ASCB meeting, and I am proud to have been an ASCB member for almost 30 years. In this essay, I describe my own career to illustrate the support that I believe is needed to achieve a career in science.