Another Year has come and gone...

On December 14^th I celebrate 22 years at Schlumberger – NPTest – Credence – DCG Systems – FEI – Thermo Fisher Scientific. It’s been quite a ride.  During these 22 years my company has been divested, had an IPO, been sent out on our own and been purchased (3 times). You should stop reading now if you don’t want to hear about my 22 year odyssey.

It all started in 1995 when I took a job as a field engineer for Schlumberger’s semiconductor division (Automated Systems group). SLB had a presence at Intel in Arizona and they were ramping up big time. I spent the next 5 years supporting over 150 automated systems in various stages of the back-end process of Intel’s Pentium ramp. This was a fun time and very busy.

In 1998 or 1999 Intel decided to move its Assembly and Test operations in Chandler to Costa Rica. After figuring out where the hell Costa Rica was, my job then was to support that ramp and training of our new counterparts down there.

Sometime after 9/11 Schlumberger decided it wanted to concentrate on its core business (oilfield services) and divested the Semiconductor Group into its own public company. We had a IPO on the NASDAQ and NpTest was born.

Around the same time Intel decided it did not want to use our automated systems anymore – my job was ramping down. After the local service manager took another job in NpTest, I took a chance and went for a manager position in our test group. Although I had no technical experience with our tester products, my boss took a chance on me and gave me the job.

As you may imagine, the post 9/11 world in the Semiconductor industry was tough. A year after becoming NpTest we were bought by Credence. As it turns out if you read the public filings, this was in the works when we went public. There was a lot of money made by our investors that took us public. Us employees... not so much.

So here is where I sat from around 2002 -2006. The economy was in turmoil and so was our business. My responsibilities increased however as I was put in charge of our Costa Rica team. Quarterly visits to CR weren’t too shabby.

Sometime around 2006, the test business was winding down with Intel and again I say my job diminishing. At that point, I started to look at our diagnostics systems group and became the North America Field Service Manager. By the way – I had the best boss in the world now.

In 2008, Credence decided to sell their business to LTX. Before this happened, they decided to sell off the diagnostic group. In 2008 DCG Systems was born. A very small company at first.  I was tasked with setting up our service CRM from scratch ... what a fun project.  Over the next 7 years I grew my service business in NAM (As the NAM Service Manager) over 200%. Over the 7 years as DCG we grew to $100 million dollars in annual sales. It was good run.

Nothing lasts forever. In late 2015 DCG was bought by FEI. Change is funny and boy did we change.  I spent the next year and a half leading the integration of DCG’s service business into the FEI model.

If I’ve learned anything it’s that change is unpredictable and such was the case with FEI. I thought we were big enough to stay FEI for a while …. What a foolish thought …. sometime in 2016 FEI was bought by Thermo Fisher Scientific.  We are now a small (500 million) part of a 17-billion-dollar company.  Thermo Fisher is as big as Schlumberger.   A big company means big changes and my job has changed significantly.  Once the service business was fully integrated into the new management structure we had one manager too many and I was moved into the technical support group.  For the first time in 17 years I no longer manage any people.  While this will make my end of year duties a lot easier, I really miss being a manager. To tell you how global of a company We are, my current boss is an Irish dude working in our Brno office in the Czech Republic.  Who knows what this new roll will bring and what adventures await!

With all the changes, I have tried to stay focused on my job.  Not to be outdone I hit the big 50 this year.  As I am older and wiser now, I have realized the best thing about change has been to work with so many wonderful people.  I cherish the memories I have with the people I have worked with, worked for and had as a customer.  I have been lucky enough to work with so many very smart, dedicated and hardworking people. You have taught me how to be a field service engineer, a manager, a supplier and a friend.  To my colleagues, bosses, customers and subordinates, thank you for the lessons on how to do my job well. I cherish all you have taught me. The adventure never stops.  As the great Danny Elfman said …   I like my stupid life just the way it is, and the chaos that surrounds me like a flock of screaming pigs. And it hurts my brain to think of all the stupid things I've said, if I could change the future I would change the past instead.   And I'm dreaming again . . .