In 1999, I answered an ad to stuff envelopes for 3 days. Weirdly, the job was a new kind. It was a start-up internet company centered around one of those new website things. By the end of the month, I was coding html for the website and had signed on to be an office manager for the company.

The next year, 2000, after the sweetest gap year ever, I’d attempt college. Because I already knew what to expect, I found a job as the ‘web chick’ for the college paper, which was the most fun way I could find to amuse myself as I tried to support myself through Engineering School. However, by the next year, I’d switch jobs and start down the road that lit a fire that set me on my current path.

The new role was as an IT helpdesk tech/systems admin for  the University’s Main Library. I was on a team of crack Computer Science and Systems Engineering students who got to run our own lab as long as we kept the internal library systems and archive network chugging along smoothly.

Lucky for us, right after the internet boom crashed, another was on its heels and we were well prepared to meet it. This next ‘thing’ was, of course, ‘wifi’. More importantly, as network infrastructure tech was gaining traction, so too was ERP technology and some of the emergent ideas would give rise to the server technology that has turned into today’s cloud computing. Needless to say, I and the other folks on our team felt like kids in a candy store and we were lucky that we got to be supervised by the Library’s Head of Technology, who was just as excited about these new frontiers as we were.

Ultimately, we got caught up in the race to be the first University system to install wifi in all of it’s libraries, which made our team popular. But, also, due to those advances in hardware/software network infrastructure tech, we undertook another massive implementation and were responsible for turning the university’s library system to the pay-for-print model, which had the opposite effect on our collective reputations and, also, taught us some much needed new lessons. 

Life would go on in Information Technology until 2006, when I, out of the blue, took a role at Ralph Lauren Children’s Wear as a Product Development Associate. Sure, that would be the actual lowest rung on the large totem pole that is America’s premiere Fashion House, but, it was a foothold. Within a year, I learned my role, which was nothing like my old job. However, I realized that no one in my department understood the effect that simple database technology and simple analytical tools would make, so, I made those tools myself. I coded (what I later would understand to be) a mini-PLM in Microsoft Access and made a simple costing sheet upgrade that would change the face of our department and get me promoted out of my brand and to the Corporate team. 

Years later, I’ve come a long way from being an assistant at a start-up or a hands-on hardware technician or even as an associate in the bowels of a brand, but, ultimately, everything I do ties back to the seeds planted in those first few years of my career. Between Systems Engineering, dabbling in web-based app development, or capturing, analyzing and transmitting data to a global team daily, the broad strokes haven’t changed much. Nor has my ability to keep up with the latest innovations in Systems, Network, ERP or Web technology. Most importantly, I’ve added business operations, process and management skills along the way. From being a pioneer in decrying the importance of the fashion ‘calendar’ as an operational tool to the last 15 years of my participation on SAP implementation teams to my newest forays in wholesale operations and the world of Automated Intelligence, I’m excited to keep adding to the toolbox and thrilled to see what frontiers are next as I advance my own horizons and put these skills to work as a management consultant.

Always,