What path did you take to your current career?
While pursuing a degree in Music at the University of Rochester I realized that my career path would probably not involve playing trombone. My interests and abilities are diverse, so I considered a switch to architecture or something else. I have always been interested and involved in technology, even when I was in primary school. I reviewed computer games for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a middle-schooler and this led to places interviews and panel appearances on both youth and technology and youth and journalism.
Initially I approached Cooper Carry for an internship relating to architecture, but when they discovered my technical bent, they quickly started me helping their beleagured IT department. Honestly, IT is a great place to observe any business. Every member of a company has IT needs, and more often than not if something important is happening, principles just ignore the person fixing their computer.
This up-close view of architecture was enough to show me that the business of architecture can be distant from the art of architecture. Technology and computers however continued to hold my interest and I developed a strong skill set in IT.
After college, I took a contract job in Jacksonville, Florida with Interline Brands, a publically traded company. Around the time they offered me a permanent position a position was offered with a real estate start-up called the Montectio Property Company.
While both offers were financially similar, the excitement of working for a fast growing start-up that would involve extensive travel proved too interesting to pass up.
Working closely with the Partners who owned the company, and VP of Sales allowed me to understand their goals and learn the real estate industry up-close and quickly.
My insights into their sales center designs, customer experience and internal operations quickly convinced them that my skills were better used outside of the IT department. I was promoted to Project Planning and Operations Manager, reporting to the COO and then CIO. This allowed me to use my technological expertise, in conjunction with a firm understanding of business goals and needs, to enable MPC to do things unheard of in the Real Estate industry. Building a sales process to handle 90 million in sales in under 90 minutes while handling crowds of over 2,000 people is never trivial, but we pulled it off with style and grace. My work touched on divisions of MPC as diverse as marketing, call centers, accounting, sales, IT, lending, construction and due diligence. The skills I built prepared me for my latest job, Director of Operations at Brightstar Communities.
My career path has never been obvious, but I am pleased with where it has taken me so far. The key connection has been staying aware of the opportunities around me, and not hesitating to challenge myself with something new.... 
Posted @ 04:04PM, February 15, 2007
by Thomas Paris | Permalink
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