2017 was a bit of a tough year for me mainly due to the major surgery that my daughter Sophia had and the subsequent very painful recovery from it. I’d have to say that was one of the most difficult and stressful things that I have been through in my life and I am very glad that it is behind me. I’ve very happy to say that Sophia is 100% recovered and is so much better off with her spine straightened, she was a trooper throughout it and was probably stronger than I was. I want to give a very big thanks to everyone that helped out with her trip to NASA that we took right before her surgery so she could have some fun before the surgery ruined most of her summer.
Once that was past it was great seeing old friends and making new ones at VMworld, as usual that was an enjoyable break from the normal work and home life experience. Shortly after VMworld I was approached by someone within HPE to fill in for someone who was leaving to go work for Zerto. She was the Product Manager for the HPE storage integration’s portfolio for VMware and with my background and experience that wanted me to fulfill that role on an interim basis why they searched for candidates to fill it permanently. This was all in addition to my existing job as Solutions Manager for VMware so essentially I was doing two jobs simultaneously.
I said I’d be happy to help out for a few months why they searched for candidates, I wasn’t really interested in taking the role permanently. It was definitely a change from my other job role in solutions were I was mostly a one man team, in the new role I managed the engineering teams that develop all of our VMware plug-ins which was a new and interesting job experience for me. As I waited for that position to be filled they came back to me a few weeks ago and expressed that they really wanted me to consider taking the job permanently. So after some consideration I decided to take it, they offered it in a way that I could keep some of my existing responsibilities around VMware solutions as well, so essentially I have dual job roles.
So effective Feb. 1 I’ll be the official WW Product Manager for our VMware storage plug-ins, which includes our plugins for vCenter (OneView), vRealize Ops Mgr, Log Insight & Orchestrator and SRM. I’ll also be continuing my existing role as WW Solutions Manager for VMware. So I’ll have plenty to keep me busy in 2018, if that wasn’t enough I’m also planning to move to the Houston area this summer. If you want to buy my house in Colorado, I’m sure Scott Lowe’s wife Crystal who is my realtor will love to sell it to you.
So that’s my update, I took most of December off and un-plugged from the virtual world for a while but I’m back and will be cranking out a bunch of posts here and also kicking off Top vBlog 2018 very soon.
1 comment
Congratulations, Eric! Hoping that your daughter is on the permanent upswing with recovery and that your move goes smoothly. They are lucky to have you in the new role.