Yes, I have some news!

I feel the need to set the record straight. If you haven’t heard yet, I’ve been offered a promotion at work. My wife has been telling people I was offered the “Head of Technology” position. In reality, I have been offered the Manager, Technical Services position for our Publishing Operations Division. Which I have tentatively accepted, I most likely will officially accept after we talk money when I return from my business trip to Minnesota.

You may or may not know that we recently purchased one of our biggest competitors and have been going through integration activities since January. Part of this activity is to determine how we will integrate staff between the two companies. Obviously, this has caused plenty of stress and sleepless nights. I don’t think I have had a good night sleep since Feb! The hardest part is that I kept everything a secret from Jaime because A.) I didn’t want her to worry and B.) I didn’t want her to get too excited and harass me daily for updates. ;-) Things just don’t happen fast in a big company.

I am very thankful to finally know what my role will be. The down side is that I will no longer be managing our online testing team. I developed our online testing team from 2 assessments and 1 employee (me), to around 14 assessments, 6 Project Managers and 9 designers located in Iowa City and Austin, TX. It’s been my baby for the past 3 years. However, I feel confident that I built the team on a solid foundation and will look forward to seeing how they grow moving forward.

I’m excited with my new role, and once again I will be asked to grow a division from infancy. I will start with 11 employees, several in San Antonio, and it is the group that has been tagged to experience the most growth over the next few years. It will be a huge challenge to develop this group and determine its role over the next few years. I can’t wait to get started!

But anyway... I just wanted to set the record straight. I am not the “Head of Technology” (yet), or the CTO, or CEO, or King. The title is “Manager, Technical Services.

Oh! And the other question people seem to ask. This does not require relocation. I will continue to work in Iowa City and have no plans to move away from Center Point. Even with the frickin gas prices! (Side note, a guy from our meeting today just returned from France. After you figure in the exchange rate, gas is about $9/gallon in France!!!)

Hope all is well with everyone else. Nice to see my wife still is not blogging after she begged me to set this up!!!

I better get some sleep, I have an exciting day of value stream mapping tomorrow morning. They better have some coffee this time!!!