How it All Began

 It was simple really, not even something I thought about. As a matter of fact, someone else pointed it out to me.

Prior to becoming a PM, I was what you might call an IT Specialist. I did desktop support, network administration, and even some desktop publishing. When I first got started in the IT world I was a Desktop Publisher at a small engineering firm that worked on a lot of Superfund cleanups. They decided to put in a wide-area-network (WAN). I asked the Network Admin if I could help and he said yes. So, between assignments, I ran cable, created cable, loaded network cards into machines, and helped set up the Novell Network. After completion he said, "Oh, you helped me build it, now you can run it." I was thrilled, I was now the new Network Admin for the Atlanta Office. He then left to wire other offices around the country. 

As time went on, I moved on to other companies, including BellSouth, where I did a lot more network and desktop work, and Equifax, where I was the Data Center Coordinator, or "Floor Boss" as my boss liked to call it. There, I inventoried servers and coordinated all move, adds, and changes in the data center. I ordered servers, set them up, worked with the cabling teams to get the cabling done, coordinated with the Techs to let them know when they could load their software. I put servers into racks and powered them up. I also powered down servers and removed them. 

I enjoyed the work and was explaining to a friend of mine, who was a project manager, and he said to me, "Jeez Jerry, you're pretty much a project manager in everything but the name." I looked at him curiously and asked him to expand on that thought. He explained how my coordinating, setting dates, and completing something, I was doing a project. Yeah, it was repeatable but each time was something different and unique. That got my interested and I had to explore it further.

Now, I had heard of project managers before, they were heavily used in BellSouth and I worked with them all the time thru my IT duties, but had never really thought of myself as one at this job until he pointed it out. However, there was this one time where I to move a department, but that's a story for another blog post. I had tried to get into it earlier at BellSouth, after they sold their IT Services unit to EDS. Unfortunately, due to them not able to work out the budget, me and about 10 others weren't able to join the PM team. Now, here I was doing it without even realizing it.

From that day forward, I began to look heavily into the PM world. After a long journey of discovery, reading, studying, and overcoming some obstacles, I passed the PM exam on February 9, 2015.

The journey of how I passed it, what I did, and what I'm doing now will be chronicled in this ongoing blog.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.