My Trip to Europe

I will always be fascinated by people.

This is probably the key to my curiosity about what makes them tick. When I began supporting the folks at FCG in Philadelphia by providing resources for our projects this was done out of necessity, not because it was my responsibility. The staffing of our projects became more important than what I was originally hired to do, but also more interesting. So began one of the most unexpected career journeys of my life. After being in IT since the early 1970s I had always thought I would remain an IT resource working for a large company as a manager or director. Little did I know that the decision to take the bull by the horns and make sure that my employer had the assets needed for projects around the US, would lead to my current position working globally in support of CCIEs and future CCIEs’ careers. Before that change in career my time working for Bell Atlantic made me very much aware of CCIEs and their needs, so when I was faced with the need to locate network engineers, I knew what I was doing. That funny cocktail we mix of our lives sometimes has ingredients we had no intention of including and mine has been shaken (not stirred) several times.

On the plane ride back from London’s Heathrow Airport this past Saturday I was left with hours for reflection on a very successful European trip. It had begun with a flight to Zurich, which was a very good visit. I had written in the November issues of CCIE Flyer about a picture my Girl Friday, M had sent me when she started looking for booking information for this trip. She sent me a photograph of Zurich which was brilliant and her email proclaimed that she could not believe I was headed there. I used the photo in my “Work Work Work” section of the CCIE Flyer and depicted a daydream around where I would go and live if I was actually living in Zurich. I was so amused then, when I actually found myself in some of the places I had depicted in my writing from that picture. I met with the COO of Cisco Gold Partner for dinner and just to be safe I had my CFO Toby Grey in tow. My first trip to Switzerland had me sacred of the language challenges I might be faced with and since Toby speaks several languages I felt good about bringing him with me to Zurich but I soon discovered that all of the people I had meetings with spoke English. That first evening with Georg from NetCloud was one of my most memorable business meetings. He could not make the next day’s Cisco Summit and asked if we could meet the evening before so he could have an opportunity to meet with the CCIE Agent™. Thanks to M, my very capable Girl Friday working virtually we had dinner reservations and we traveled to Haus zum Ruden (House of the Hound), a venue first constructed in 1348 to house the tavern used by the noblemen who met in the floor below.

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