When I graduated from the University of Texas in May 1987 with a degree in Computer Science, the city of Austin was an emerging technology hub. Ironically though, I had never heard of the company I had just accepted an offer from:
Tandem Computers
That decision has led me to a career filled with remarkable experiences, enduring friendships, and lessons to last a lifetime.
I officially started on June 29, 1987 and was sent to Cupertino, California, for eight weeks of incredibly formidable new-hire training. Along with fourteen other recent college graduates from across the company, I was immersed in Tandem’s culture, technology, and vision. One of the highlights was meeting Tandem’s founder and CEO, Jimmy Treybig. His passion for innovation and commitment to creating a world-class organization helped shape my understanding of great leadership. Equally influential were our instructors, Debbie Jolly and Rick Sherbert. They set the foundation and showed us a path, and many of us from that original group have kept in touch along the trail!
I began in a small support center, and as I gained experience, discovered I was particularly drawn to communications technologies. I began specializing in that area, especially SNAX, a product that required understanding numerous code branches and software threads. To keep everything straight, I covered one wall of my cubicle with a large flowchart to map where each thread of the code began and what functionality it contained. That expertise led to a position in a L2 support organization, known as SSG, working with engineering to assist customers with more complex issues.
The next role brought me closer to our customers when I became a Customer Advocate. My primary account for many years was America Online—AOL.
At a time when millions of people were hearing the iconic phrase, “You’ve got mail!”, it was fascinating to watch the internet become part of everyday life, while supporting one of its pioneers.
Eventually, my career took a different direction as I moved from technical roles into management. Managing people brought a completely new set of challenges, but the hardest adjustment wasn’t learning how to lead—it was stepping away from being the technical expert. Sitting on customer calls and resisting the urge to jump in and solve the problem required a different mindset: my responsibility had shifted from providing the answer, to creating an environment where my team could succeed and develop their own expertise.
The final chapter of my career is currently being written, as the small support center where I began has transformed into the Global Nonstop Solution Center (GNSC). This group started as a hardware dispatch team, moved into remote hardware support and then added remote software support. Ultimately, the decision was made to merge the entire team into one customer-facing organization, handling all levels and aspects of Nonstop support. Serving as the Global Leader for the GNSC has been a highlight of my career, continuing my passion for finding ways to improve the support experience for our customers.
When a mission-critical system goes down, the clock is the enemy. The GNSC was built around that single truth. The GNSC runs 24x7x365, with more than 90 personnel worldwide and experienced engineers always on shift. Critical support doesn’t pause at the end of a business day — it continues around the clock until a resolution is reached. Each regional solution center is led by its own operations manager, all reporting into a single global manager, so handoffs across time zones are structured rather than improvised.
The technical bench is also deep: our HPE engineers have more than 15 years of Nonstop experience on average. What distinguishes the model, is that this expertise is treated as a shared asset – creating a knowledge-sharing culture and driving real-time collaboration with customers and partners.
Additionally, a GNSC Duty Manager is available 24×7, acting as a standing escalation contact for immediate interface and support. Formal escalation programs are integrated directly into the GNSC to raise the visibility of customer issues inside the Nonstop organization, marshal the right resources, and drive resolution.
Support doesn’t stop there; the GNSC works directly with Nonstop product developers to identify and remedy defects: initiating escalations to development, creating and proposing Requests for Enhancements (RFEs), and expediting Time Critical Fixes & software product releases. Today’s incident soon becomes tomorrow’s fix.
I am approaching 40 years of working with Nonstop; during those four decades, I have witnessed tremendous changes in technology—from proprietary systems and enterprise networking to the explosive growth of the internet, cloud computing, AI & beyond.
Yet, when I reflect back, it isn’t the products or the technologies that stand out the most.
It is the people.
The colleagues who became lifelong friends. The mentors who invested in my growth.
The customers who trusted us during their most challenging moments. The teams who worked together to solve problems that had seemed impossible.
Nonstop provided the opportunity, but people made it all worthwhile. And I wouldn’t change a thing. I am grateful for the challenges, the friendships, and the privilege of spending four decades working with one of the most reliable and innovative technology platforms in the industry. It has truly been an extraordinary journey.
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