Editor’s Note: Between the interviewer and the interviewee, this post contains higher levels of sarcasm than our typical post. As well, according to them, mild use of correct English…

Tell us about yourself.

Tall, grey of hair, expanding would all be adjectives that could currently apply. After being asked politely to leave a village in central England many years prior, I started as an IT helpdesk operator for an oilfield services company, then deployed a new helpdesk system for them and got thoroughly hooked on project management. The company was so impressed that they immediately asked to me go away to another country and do the same there, so I spent periods in Northern Ireland, Azerbaijan, Canada and Scotland before shifting over to Houston for a few years to get married and have child #1. We then moved to the Middle East for a decade, to produce child #2 and manage projects in Dubai, Saudi, Qatar, Iraq, Kuwait and China, doing pretty much everything IT related apart from pure software development. All back to the US in 2017, settling in Colorado to be as far from open water as is geographically possible, plus it’s one of the best states for the noble sport of rugby. I managed to pick up an MBA from Manchester Business School and some PM qualifications along the way, though my colleague Brann Greager’s degree in brewing is looking like the next qualification of interest. I volunteer for the Red Cross as an emergency government liaison as well as other local organizations in a general support and planning capacity.

Why SSP?

A little research soon unearthed SSP’s standing within the GIS community and the high regard in which they are held, so the chance to be involved with a leader in the sector was fairly irresistible. Hands down, it was the most intensive interview and onboarding process that I’ve been through; they really understand the culture that they are building on and take the time to make sure that you are the right person for the role. Everyone I met during the process was passionate, engaged, and friendly – even as it readies for some explosive growth, the company keeps a clear understanding of what makes them unique in this field, so there’s lots of opportunities to learn and grow and help out at all levels of the company.  Plus it only takes me 12 minutes to get to the office.

What specific experience, skill set, etc. do you have that will bring value to SSP?

At a previous employer, I was engaged during their business process engineering as the “designated lunatic,” whose brief was to think at right angles to the process. I have a lot of years in project management across a number of countries, regions, and cultures, and that helps me to look at projects from different perspectives to provide optimal solutions. My main strengths are communication, organization, and strategy – my PM style is to make sure that the customer and the vendor very clearly understand what is being undertaken (and how it undergoes controlled changes throughout the lifecycle), ensure that we have the right people and tools to deliver the solution and how we measure success, then stand back and support the team as they deliver. IT and systems can be an challenging environment to understand and I always try to underscore the business benefits and workflow improvements, rather than how many blinky lights a new and improved system has. I’ve gained an awareness of GIS as a technology from past projects that and I try to understand the practical applications of any technology as a whole, how it can benefit the operations and strategy of a business. I’m not a GIS expert, but I do work with a lot of GIS experts. Plus an opportunity to learn about a whole new field, which is fast becoming a fundamental underpinning of all next generation systems, is a huge opportunity.

How has your first couple of months gone?

There’s a scary amount of technical and process knowledge for GIS and utilities exuding from the pores of everyone in the company, so it’s been a complete immersion into the industry and a great learning experience. I hope that my continued questions to my co-workers are becoming slowly less basic and that I can maybe answer one or two myself for newcomers over the next few years.

What kind of work will you be working on here?

I have been exiled to the wilds of central New York to head up a systems integration project for a major utility in the area, leading the delivery of a new GIS platform and applications to their enterprise and significantly upgrading their location intelligence capabilities. It’s phase one of a multi-phase program, so it’s a good job my family is used to (prefers) me being away and that I like to stay in interesting places and drink their coffee.

What are your hobbies / interests outside of work?

I’m not saying publicly that the density of breweries in Colorado was the primary factor in moving to Denver, but it definitely helped. Also a long-term caffeine addict and possessed of a serious addiction to the last true American artform, that of cinema – most of the arthouse films I see don’t have many other people in the auditorium, though that may also be due to me always trying to catch early showings to avoid people with cellphones. I’ve developed into a news junkie and read graphic novel and fiction when I remember to – the local library system is truly great. I enjoy inflicting my cooking on my long-suffering family and talking absolute rubbish with friends over quality single malt. Sports are mainly a foreign concept to me, though I seem to have become inextricably ensnared with managing Cherry Creek Rugby Club (high school) and organizing junior referees for Rugby Colorado. I have owned a variety of cheap guitars and still can’t play any recognizable songs on them.

Tell us about the person you report to. How amazing is he?

Modesty forbids me from revealing the true extent of his awesomeness. Suffice it to say that he is a true icon and leader in the project management world, standing head and shoulders above the group and freely providing insight and inspiration on an hourly basis. It’s my long-term hope that sometime in the future I might be able to achieve a small fraction of his wisdom and thoughtfulness. Also, I deeply covet his office.