First Week at the New Job

Man – what a long week, but completely exhilarating and, well . . . fun!

As most of you know, I am now CTO of a small interactive media and IT shop based out of Orlando called Hooah.

What does “Hooah” mean, you ask? If you’re in the military or are closely affiliated with the military you already know what it means. For those of you not in the know, it’s an exclamation of emphasis that means “anything but no.”

• Climb the hill and take out the entriched enemy, sir? HOOAH!
• Clean the latrine, sir? HOOAH!
• Work 60+ hours a week to get the job done? HOOAH!

That’s the name of the company and the driving attitude behind the vision. Anything but no. No is not in the vocabulary. We work hard, and we play hard.

Hooah has been around for six years and, until recently, has focused on government and military print and interactive media contracts. By bringing me onto the team as CTO, the company now has the ability bring in and work more IT projects.

I hit the ground running. I arrived to work at 8:00am on Monday and by 2:00pm I was in the downtown offices of OUC (Orlando Utility Company) playing a key role in pitching our services for a complete website redesign.

On Tuesday I was installing servers from the Army National Guard into our Orlando offices to serve as the development and staging environment for http://www.virtualarmory.com. We flew down our network engineer from DC and we worked to get the servers installed, a VPN established, and connectivity working between DC and Orlando. Admittedly, I mostly watched as Perry did the work, but we were there until 9:00pm on Tuesday working on it.

Wednesday I was meeting with potential clients in the office and fleshing out their technology needs.

Thursday I was up at the crack of dawn and flying to DC to meet my team in DC. I met with high-level military officers in charge of the virtualarmory website, and others, I met my team and got to know them, I rolled up my sleeves and put together desks and helped create our new DC office space.

Thursday night my boss and I hit every bar in Crystal City and paid the price for our extravagance.

Friday morning I met with my team in DC and began formulating a communication and action plan for the tasks and jobs ahead of us.

I flew home this afternoon and immediately kissed my fiance and sent her out the door to her bachelorette party while I took my daughter and her best friend to the movies.

After the movies, I brought them home and took a 2-mile run and showered.

So here I am, mentally drained, physically exhausted, but completely satisfied with my week. Carey is still getting her party on, and I’m taking a few moments of silence to pen this blog.

We got the OUC contract, by the way and among their comments on why we won they stated that the technical expertise we displayed (me) was a significant factor.

Next week I’ll most like spend a say or two in North Carolina on another Army National Guard contract I am managing. The following week it looks like I’ll be back in DC for the entire week.

Am I ready for another week of this? HOOAH!

A couple of pictures of my week for you:

Me in my new office. I really need to get the walls painted.

The view from our DC office. Technically it’s in Crystal City, just outside DC and near the Pentagon, but it sounds cooler to say “DC office.”