seamróg – n. Pronounced ‘SHAM-ROCK’; a plant that that is symbolic of independence and good fortune
rockstar – n. One who excels, or is renowned in his or her field of accomplishment
Hey there! I’m Steve, and I’m an Information Technology professional, with 20 years of consistent growth, achievement, and industry agnostic success. Like most people in IT, I grew up wanting to work in Law Enforcement.
Wait, what?? You mean to tell me that the fact that I have a degree in Criminal Justice, and started my life as a contributing member of society working as a Corrections Officer is an atypical career path to get to where I am now?? Well, in that case, you can consider me a unicorn of sorts. I’m not saying I have a horn sticking out of my forehead, or that I gallop to and fro via rainbow trails, but I’m unique, and I’ve been told that I don’t fit the mold of what most would consider “an IT guy”. Whether or not that’s a good thing is entirely up to you.
As you may have already surmised, my sense of humor, and my general personality often tends to be slanted towards sarcasm tinged self-deprecation. I try not to take myself too seriously, and I believe that’s been a determining factor in shaping the way that not only my career has progressed to this point, but my personal life as well. That being said, I pride myself on working as hard as humanly possible to achieve the goals I set for myself, while simultaneously trying to find creative ways to recognize the contributions of others, whether they be friends, family, peers, supervisors, subordinates, or my dogs, Walnut and Piggy. I firmly believe that the best kind of success is the kind that you can share with those around you, especially those you’re close to.
Career wise, my first “real job” was as a Corrections Officer for the Hillsborough County Department of Corrections in New Hampshire in 1998. I graduated with distinction from the 54th NH County Corrections Academy, which is an achievement I’m very proud of to this day, primarily due to the fact that it was peer selected, and based upon the strength of some of the personality traits I mentioned above. Nonetheless, in early 2000, I was approached with a potential opportunity to “work with Computers” for a company in the healthcare industry. After a lot of consideration, I made the difficult decision to walk a completely different path, and joined a startup company, where my first official title was “Computer Operator”. In this role, I was given the latitude to develop methods to creatively solving both abstract, and concrete challenges in a data-centric technological setting, while relying upon the foundational organization and structure building tactics I learned while pursuing a career in law enforcement. Over the course of 11+ years, as the company grew, I also grew. I was quickly promoted from Computer Operator, to Operations Team Leader. From there, as the department grew, it was rebranded as “Data Production”, and I was named Sr. Manager. During this time, I also assumed responsibility of Database Administration within our production environment, and it was through this experience that I was promoted to the role of “Senior Director, Operations Management”. This opportunity was a far cry from where I had started, and was extremely rewarding, as it offered me the opportunity to obtain a better, more comprehensive view of our business as a whole, among many other things. Unfortunately, like most good things, this situation eventually came to an end