~~~ Guest Post by Gavin H~~~
My name is Gavin Heneghan and I joined EMC in Cork, Ireland
in May 2000. Back then EMC was primarily a storage company and I had
the pleasure of working in Symmetrix Technical Support. I didn’t know at the
time that I would spend the next 11 years in that group.
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EMC colleagues in Cork - 2009 |
In early summer of 2011 I was at a Customer Service town hall
meeting in Cork where it was announced that EMC was opening a Technical Support
Center in Utah. This immediately
caught my interest as I had previously spent a very enjoyable 6 months in
Arizona in the 1990’s while working at Intel, and I knew that Utah was pretty close
by. By the way did I also mention
that I also have a strange fascination with snow . . . something we don’t get a huge
amount of in Ireland. So after
some serious discussion with my wife Eithne, I reached out to my senior
leadership inquiring about opportunities at the new center. This put the wheels in motion and after
some conversations I found myself in Utah on the 1st of August to
help Vance, Stephanie and Jessica welcome and onboard the first 30 Technical
Support Engineers into the center. A pivotal moment over the next 2 weeks was a lunch at Sundance with
Vance, on the way there Vance had pointed out Bridal Veil Falls in Provo
Canyon, and later that evening I returned there to take a closer look. I was so taken with the beauty of falls
and remember thinking what shame it would be if my family didn’t get to
experience them. It was at this
time that I decided that I would like to move to Utah. Luckily for me Vance & Co also
agreed. Over the next 3 months I would end up sharing my time between
Utah and Cork, eventually relocating with my wife and two kids, Eabha and Jack
(aged 6 and 4 at the time) in November 2011.
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Bridal Veil Falls - August 2011 |
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Flying to Utah - November 2011 |
This was the start of not just a new career opportunity but
also the start of a new chapter in our lives and new adventure. It sure didn’t take long for us to
start enjoying some great things Utah has to offer. We learned to ski pretty quickly and when the weather got
better I took up mountain biking.
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Jack's 1st ski lesson |
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Eabha's 1st ski lesson |
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My 1st MTB adventure in Moab with EMC colleagues |
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Subsequent MTB trip to Gooseberry Mesa |
We are now in our fifth year in Utah and it has been a
blast. EMC has grown to over 1,200
employees and has been voted the best technology company to work for in Utah. In 2015 after, 15 great years
in customer service, I joined the IT 3rd Platform team, helping build
the team from the ground up in Utah. I currently lead this team as well as being part of the Mobile
Experience Leadership team. I am super grateful to EMC for the last 16 years and for giving me the
opportunity to not only experience this wonderful adventure, but also for all
the career opportunities they provide for their employees.
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IT 3rd Platform Team - 2015 |
2016 will be a year of change for EMC with the exciting
merger with Dell, and I look forward to what this new adventure brings!
Gavin, we are lucky to have your expertise and leadership at the Utah Center of Excellence! Thanks for demonstrating with your life decisions that you are an influencer for positive change.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jason, it was fun writing this :)
ReplyDelete