A New Beginning

We all experience change in our lives, change in where we live or how we do things. Change in careers and employers. For me the next chapter of my professional life starts today when I start working as an Engineer for AECOM.

AECOM has been named by Fortune Magazine as the most admired company for the third year in a row last year, so it is going to be an honor to work for them. SAIC was the largest company that I had previously worked for, and they had 45,000 employees around the world. That honor is now officially bestowed ton AECOM who employs 85,000 people around this globe.

My job title is going to be Engineer 2, but I will be doing all of the NETL site specific geospatial work. Everything for years had been in AutoCAD and they want to convert everything over to an ESRI ArcGIS environment and that is my specialty. I have some great ideas to implement and I feel like I am about to be challenged once again to break barriers and raise the bar for others to follow. I'm excited about this new opportunity to work for a great company.

Have yourselves a great day today.

Hi ho hi ho let's go!!!!!

Saturday Morning Rambling

Here I sit in a quiet household, I'm, up early watching who knows what on the TV behind me and collecting my thoughts for the day and surfing the internet. \

I officially changed my LinkedIn Page to officially reflect my change in employment to AECOM. I did get to meet one or two of the guys I will be working with yesterday, so it's not going to be like I will be going into a strange environment. A few of them I once worked with at Sterling Faucet and there is one who I am kind of sort of related to on Jean's side of the family and I used to work with his Dad at Sterling, so within my company there will be familiar faces. I am moving from a nice big office to a cubicle, but I'm OK with that as I actually get to interact with people again. The last few years the Geospatial group from Sextant whittled down to just me and not even full time.

It has been a while since I worked full time in an office environment, so I'm going to need to update my work wardrobe just a little bit. I might actually have to get a dress shirt and tie to leave at the office full time in case any VIP visitors come in, I can be prepared.

Today I am going to be out in the field working for RTI (what else is new) trying to catch some of the returning students who have been selected. The last month has been a challenge to say the least, we actually put my section on hold for a while as I traveled to the southern part of the state to work for an extended weekend. They are starting to dwindle back into town and I'm going to try to get them as I can so as to I'm not overwhelmed when they fully return.

Michelle is up in Elwood City with the rest of the family to celebrate little Jonny's fourth birthday party today. Hopefully my wonderful wife takes some pictures of today's festivities since I will be unable to attend.

Have yourselves a great day today, live it to the fullest and make the best of it and be thankful you have are still here.

Hi ho hi ho

Changing Jobs

Well I have the pleasure of making a nice announcement today, but first let me discuss what has happened the past few months.

Since November of 2009 I have worked for a Company called Sextant Technical Services, Sextant for short. We are a small company that today has a total of 7 people working for it. It's owned by one of the best bosses that anyone could ever ask for, I can't emphasize how well Dale treated each and every one of his employees. He was not only our employer, he was our friend and it has been an absolute honor working for the man.

Earlier this year due to budget cuts,my employment and coverage was put in real jeopardy. I have worked on the Research Contract, which was the largest of the ten NETL contracts but it expired a couple of years and they have still not awarded the new solicitation as of yet. All of my work was specifically working specifically on the Carbon Storage Task which we have won a few major awards including a Blue Pencil award for the 2012 effort. However since March I have had a grand total of 16 billable hours a month or two days a month worth of work due to significant cuts in funding.

Since March I have been in the job market, I have been contacted about employment or have had interviews with Rice Energy, Crown Castle and NiSource for jobs in Pennsylvania. In West Virginia there was EQT and there were other jobs outside of the state with assorted companies. The big one was going to be in Atlanta where they were going to fly me down for the interview. Also in the mix were jobs in Virginia, North Carolina, Columbus Ohio, Kentucky and Washington DC and those are just the jobs that I was contacted about and took interest in. There were numerous others around the country that I just didn't feel were in my interest. About a Month ago I turned down an opportunity to work in Washington DC, but at a significant reduction in Salary. There have been days that I have gotten as many as 17 phone calls from head hunters about about jobs that they were interested in representing me in. It got to the point where I was just getting frustrated every time the phone rang as nothing turned into an offer.

At NETL I was actually preparing to open up my own small business to address another project that was not Research related and more our specific site related. I had the needed skillset and the work was coming, so it was a potential opportunity. I have tons of paperwork filled out and ready to submit and was actually contemplating becoming an LLC and even put the infancy stages of the website up as I had purchased the domain HallGeospatialServices.com.

To say that I was getting frustrated, especially in the past few weeks was an understatement.

Well that is the back story as to what has been happening since March. Now for the big Announcement.

After a few weeks of interviewing and applying, I was formally offered a position with the company that is three years running voted as Fortune Magazines most admired Company and I have informally accepted the offer of employment with AECOM. My official start date will be August 7th as it takes time for the hiring process. Background checks, HSPD-12 badge and the general drug screen and everything that goes with new employment as well as closing things out and transferring equipment with my current employer. Of all of the companies that I interviewed with, this was the most idea situation as far as location, and the oh so important issue of terms of financial compensation (Money and Benefits).

I'm excited about not only this offer, but the work I will be doing on the Site Operations Services Contract. My job title I think is going to be Engineer (I have not seen the official offer letter yet) as I will be brought in to do all the Geospatial Work (my background) for the site. 

This was the most ideal situation for me, I get to stay here, I'm making the same type of money and compensation that I previously made and I get to work with some people on the other side that have always had my back. I light even be working with a number of people from my old Sterling Faucet Days, but more of an administrative role.

I'm very grateful for all who have helped make this ideal situation happen and to my current employer for being the best boss anyone would ever want to have worked for.

I have not said much or anything about it in my blog, I'm sure if I would have given my daily thoughts that everyone would have thought I was crazy. There were a lot of highs, lows and frustration, but it's now over.

I'll start updating all my professional information including my resume in the next few weeks to reflect everything.