Neither rain, nor hail, nor dark of night, nor even erupting Icelandic volcanoes, will keep our intrepid leader off a flight when there’s business to be done overseas. Despite that big ash hanging overhead, Kevin recently flew to the UK to install his daughter (Kelly Hardy) as Director of Global Sales and Marketing. As it turned out, Kevin’s flights were uneventful – but the changes he left in his wake are not.
“Kelly is a mover and a shaker and she is probably causing consternation and even creating some mayhem. But that’s what was expected and it’s welcome, it’s one of the reasons she’s there,” Kevin said. “Good things are already coming out of it.”
While in the Old Country, Kevin and Kelly had a strategies meeting with Gary Sheard, Kevin’s executive chairman. They met at McDonalds, their usual place as Gary always picks up the tab and, being from Yorkshire, he’s capable of teaching any Scot a thing or two about pinching pennies.
Gary was late arriving and Kevin thought it was because he knew he’d have to pony up for an additional breakfast for Kelly as her first day at the new job treat, but as it turned out there was a bad wreck just ahead of him on the M62 that held up traffic all over the region.
During his visit overseas Kevin talked with his senior executives and staff about their mission statement and kicked around new ideas, all goals being kept in accord with Gary’s primary interests of keeping the company legal and fiscally solid. QiSOFT is presently experiencing areas of positive renewal in many areas, including the UK’s office growth inside the food industry.
“Gary’s the man who knows what should be done, and is there to support and energize the CEO,” Kevin said (which, by the way, is staggeringly tremendous praise from a Brit).
Kevin returned home energized and clearly pleased with his new broom sent in to sweep things clean. (Stay tuned, more will be revealed.) He left Kelly to her housecleaning and returned home happily to America all topped up with curry, good English ale fresh from the cask, and with his accent refreshed to the point where few here can now understand him. Tiz ever thus.
Despite his newly thickened accent, Kevin and Kris were headed to Charleston, SC upon his return to begin the process toward him becoming an American citizen. He took Kris along to interpret in case the bureaucrats couldn’t figure out why he was there.
Kevin and QiSOFT got some terrific local press this month in Savannah’s BiS newspaper of “business news for the creative coast.” Check it out at businessinsavannah.com.
Things around the home office are humming along as usual, despite some missing pieces with Melody in Peru and Michael in Florida. Melody’s sister was married here in the states, but - in keeping with our QiSOFT internationalness – a “re-wedding” was held for family members in Peru and Melody flew south for the event. Meanwhile, Michael took a vacation break from his own aquarium (see blog entitled: Weight Loss, Translations, and Fish Faces) to go FISHING with his father in Florida.
Kris was hard at work though, ditto Vincent. Down the hall Franklin and Al were busy, too. They were busily working anyway - Franklin on more installations and Al on his update project - but they were talking of other things, like the upcoming Beach Bum Parade at Savannah’s nearby Tybee Island. Franklin was considering going to see the parade (later note – I did, he didn’t, his loss) while Al was complaining they wouldn’t let him sell “snowballs” at the Tybee event.
That’s how I learned Al and his wife are frustrated carnie workers who sell the flavored icy confections at parades and festivals and the like, and had just finished one such gig at the Glennville Sweet Onion Festival. They sell “snowballs” not “snow cones” – “snow cones use crushed ice, snowballs are shaved ice,” Al explained.
From such things I have come to understand our programmers are all odd little duckies, but they’re very, very good at their high tech jobs and we have the emails from our happy customers to prove it.
Kevin and Kris host a Beach Bum Parade party at their beach house every year, where all the guests gets soaking wet and then come inside to dry off and eat incredibly good food. The annual parade is an insane wet T-shirt water fest where parade participants and parade watchers hurl water at one another non-stop for several hours, stopping only after the streets are ankle deep with puddles. Most use buckets and water guns, but the QiSOFT crowd attack with giant PVC water pipe “guns” designed by our engineers for maximum water volume. There’s even some talk of a QiSOFT float next year! I’ll let you know if it happens.
Sam, never one to miss a party (I’m stunned that he missed the water parade), is flying in from the West Coast on June 6, because on June 9, from 5:30 till 7:30, QiSOFT will host an event to celebrate our new office space. Others incoming for the event include Dixie (from Texas) and Kelly (from the UK).
Sadly, with most of our customers being scattered across several continents, only a few will actually be on hand for the Open House. But we expect lots of “oooooohs and awwwwws” over our spectacular views from those who do attend. With any luck at all a flashy afternoon thunderstorm will arrive around that time for our special entertainment. Fingers crossed!
Which brings to mind the evening of July 4th. I wonder if we can coax Kevin into opening up the office that evening for us all to enjoy downtown Savannah’s annual fireworks display? I’ll let you know what he says in the next blog.