As CEO, I play a critical role in four major areas:Robust strategic thinking and planning: While some view strategic planning as rather narrowly focused on business alone, I believe it encompass aspects like culture and leadership as well. And with the longstanding goal of making FARRAGUT a living company lasting 100-years, I am currently working on a Shared Vision for FARRAGUT 2030. With a team of 5 executives and other high-level managers, I'm spearheading a transparent information-gathering process to obtain a 360-degee view that will inform our employee-, customer-, and company-focused strategy and tactics for the coming decade.Considered and considerate customer service: I spend a significant amount of my time thinking carefully about what Farragut's customers want — and what they may need. I meet with every Farragut customer to get to know them personally. It's essential that we understand each customer's vision so we can determine how best to help them achieve that vision.High-level leadership coaching and mentoring: I have six direct reports who look to me for advice and guidance when they get "stuck." This provides me with an opportunity to model humble inquiry — to coach and mentor by asking thoughtful questions about problems that may provoke unthought-of answers. Simply put, I don't always have the answer. But even when I do, there may be other, better answers. It's the collaborative interplay that brings us to the best solutions.Overall financial and operational oversight: While perhaps not the flashiest of my responsibilities, this is nonetheless a major part of every CEO's job, including mine.In all that I do, I'm mindful of what drives me — the desire to see Farragut's employees and customers, and the company, itself, reach their full potential. Though we get closer all the time, that goal remains ahead of us. When we finally get there (and I know we will), I believe that I, too, will have reached my full potential.

Hired by what was then Data General Corporation, I started as section manager, supervising a team of six people providing software quality assurance (SQA).Subsequently, I was promoted to program manager for a corporate-wide system that provided high-end transaction processing. In that capacity, I built and worked with cross-functional teams and had responsibility for both the hardware and software components of the system.Ultimately, I became senior department manager, supervising and managing more than 60 software engineers in developing critical database and compiler software for Data General.A key through line of my tenure with the company was the observation that employees need more than good technical training and skills to do their best — to be their best. They need to come with curiosity and an entrepreneurial spirit and be provided with an environment that frees them — and trusts them — to innovate. It is this empowerment that I saw to be absolutely essential in producing positive results across many dimensions.

A corporate-wide program including hardware, firmware, and software to design systems intended to compete against IBM mainframes.

In the early 1980s, Eastman Kodak was a (if not the) worldwide leader in factory automation. As a software engineer for the company, I wrote custom system software to direct and control factory manufacturing lines and to provide connection and integration between and among mainframe computers, mini-computers, and micro-computers.While I gained foundational knowledge about enterprise software architecture while part of the Eastman Kodak family, I (perhaps more importantly) gained key insights into what I believe to be healthy American capitalism. At the time, longstanding companies like Eastman Kodak, IBM, General Electric, and Corning were all immense presences in the upstate New York region, but they were humble actors. They were also actors that appeared to commit in nearly equal measure to contributing to their local communities and pursing customers globally — and they seemed to be successful at doing both, while simultaneously treating employees as valued team members. It is their example of how to both do good and do well that became a touchstone in my professional life moving forward.

Central Processing Unit (CPU) DesignerSperry Univac (Creator of the first electronic computer)In this position, I worked with a team of engineers designing the largest, most sophisticated computers of the time. I envisioned and produced technical drawings and flowcharts that became the basis for the circuit boards that would control a new generation of super computers.Critical to my growth as a professional during this time were both the diversity of my colleagues and their willingness to serve as mentors to me. I came to understand how invaluable different backgrounds and perspectives are to solving complex problems. I also came to appreciate just how much we can learn from others in an environment where we all believe we have something to teach — and something to learn.