NonStop Trends and Wins

NonStop Dallas Reunion

On Friday, September 6, at the Dallas/Plano Marriott at Legacy Town Center in Plano, Texas, we had a NonStop reunion.  There have been many Tandem reunions over the years, usually held in Cupertino, California, but this year, it was celebrated in Texas.  Being the 50th anniversary of the founding of Tandem made it special, and Diane Funkhouser did an excellent job coordinating the event.  There were many people I had not seen in a while – Jerry Peterson, Carl Neihaus, Mark Hopkins, Paul Seabring, Steve Saltwick, Debbie Dietrick, Eric Segal, and, and…  Of course, Joel and Wendy Bartlett were on hand, and Joel Sigman (my career colleague who retired five years ago), and the very special guest stars Jimmy and Drew Treybig.

There was a Tandem Museum, which was filled with items attendees brought along.  Many shirts, two-handled mugs, manuals, Swiss army knives, clocks, patents, Tandem Journals, Atomix Comics, and much more.  It demonstrated how beloved Tandem was as a company and how loyal the employees were to the culture. As an attendee, I give a special thanks to the event partner, Odyssey Information Systems, for curating the museum and helping Diane coordinate this event.  Additional thanks to the other event sponsors, Comforte and Gravic, and an extra special thank you to the Platinum Sponsor, Yash Kapadia and OmniPayments.

A highlight was hearing from Jimmy Treybig, whose vision and dedication made Tandem the place we loved enough to trek to Plano to celebrate.  Jimmy gave a short speech with two standing ovations.  During the speech, Jimmy mentioned five things that he felt were unique to Tandem.  First, Jimmy said you need a good business plan. He joked that many startups didn’t realize that.  He was proud of his business plan and even predicted that Tandem would become a billion-dollar company.  What was unique was that Jimmy shared the business plan with all employees. Secondly, you needed to have a good design team, and the 13 developers that created Tandem created an awesome product that continues to this day.

His third point was about communication.  All Tandem employees knew the business plans and goals because Tandem had a first-class television network that broadcast the executives ‘live’ from Cupertino. We all remember the First Friday skits and also the serious announcements.  Additionally, Tandem was one of the first companies to provide email to all employees, and I know many of us remember first, second, and especially third-class mail.  Communication was very important.  Jimmy highlighted his People Philosophy department, which went beyond HR and helped develop the Tandem culture.

This People Philosophy blended into his fifth point about the special Tandem programs offered to the employees.  Everyone knew about Tandem sabbaticals, which were implemented to keep developers at Tandem for at least four years, but Tandem provided it to all employees.  He ended with a discussion of TOPS – Tandem Outstanding Performers.  As he mentioned, almost every company has a sales trip for the best sales reps, but why wouldn’t a company want to know who the best employees were in general?  TOPS was created to recognize outstanding employees from any and every department.  Jimmy also shared something I didn’t know: he had a rule that no manager attending TOPS could go to bed while there were attendees up.  Given the late-night debaucheries of TOPS, many did not get to bed.

Those were the five things Jimmy discussed, but we learned something new during the speech.  It has long been a joke with Jimmy that Steve Jobs, who liked the Tandem system, said the cabinets were ugly because of the sloping roof on the rack.  I also knew Jimmy explained to Jobs that it was there for fault tolerance so that if a sprinkler system went off or a roof collapsed, it would direct it away from the processor.  We learned at the reunion that Jimmy had just made that up on the spot to tell Jobs and had no idea why it was sloped! After 50 years, we finally learned it was there to enhance airflow through the cabinet.

Many may not be aware that Diane Funkhouser was one of the very first college new hires that Tandem started in 1987.  They hired several graduates and trained them over eight weeks.  Many from that original class showed up to celebrate with Diane, and the main instructors, Rick Sherbert and Debbie Jolly of the ACT class were there to celebrate with them.  I remembered that group because I gave them a few of the classes.  It was one of many great programs at Tandem.

I know I’ve missed naming some special people, so please forgive me.  It was great seeing everyone and going through the museum, and it was nice to know the technology continues.  I’m greatly looking forward to the NonStop TBC in Monterey.