Dan Martin
A traditionalist, Dan Martin entered the world by birth. Following an eventful but not particularly exceptional childhood, he entered Georgia Tech with the objective of becoming a permanent student. He was on course as the longest serving graduate teaching assistant when he met his future wife. Attention focused, he convinced Georgia Tech to award him a Ph.D. and fulfilled a life-long dream by becoming a college professor. He had begun to assemble a suitable collection of grad students when economic reality in the form of a baby girl, caused him to abandon his “calling”. Brownian motion is the best descriptor for this subsequent career path.
Turning down a position at Federal Express (“no one will ever pay $6.95 to deliver a letter overnight.”), he managed a Research Center in Memphis for the Continental Grain Company and was surprised to discover that “you can’t make bread out of research”. The Grain Company shed non-core assets: Dan talked his wife and now larger family into relocating to Vancouver. Unfortunately, the RCMP was very interested in the new owners of “Dan’s” Research Center. Another move was mandated. Dan chose Houston just as world oil prices crashed. (“Ah, those were the days.”) Nimbly adjusting course (think pinball), he located a job in idyllic Hanover, New Hampshire.
However experiences in the Oil Business activated a latent “international” gene. After a short time, Dan located a position in The Netherlands. More impressively, he convinced his family to relocate: “just one more time”. While the family used the opportunity to see Europe and become comfortable expatriates, Dan buckled his swash with business trips through Asia, Australia, Latin America and Africa. Eventually America called. (The signal was amplified by the Dutch tax authorities.)
The family moved back to New England. The “baby girl” (and her siblings) entered colleges in Princeton, Syracuse and Santa Barbara. Dan, cured of any desire for instability, began working with the Digital Equipment Corporate – a respected fixture along Route 128. The fixture floundered when Compaq decided to purchase DEC. Dan quickly decided that a corporate (e.g. “overhead”) position was untenable. Prudence, and the fact that college tuition expenses were growing even faster than the dotcom bubble, dictated a move to the revenue-producing portion of the business.
Having constructed his career on the equivalent of the San Andreas Fault, Dan now knew that job stability was unlikely. He negotiated a return to Europe and convinced his wife that Zürich would be great. They arrived just as Hewlett-Packard acquired Compaq.
While his wife threw herself into the expatriate community, Dan was living in Zürich but working in Amsterdam, London, New York, Hong Kong, Mexico City and Frankfurt. HP didn’t like moving people, so Dan chose to “follow the money” by working with customers in the Financial Services Industry. He can categorically state that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the subprime debacle or the world economic meltdown.
A traditionalist, Dan Martin entered the world by birth. Following an eventful but not particularly exceptional childhood, he entered Georgia Tech with the objective of becoming a permanent student. He was on course as the longest serving graduate teaching assistant when he met his future wife. Attention focused, he convinced Georgia Tech to award him a Ph.D. and fulfilled a life-long dream by becoming a college professor. He had begun to assemble a suitable collection of grad students when economic reality in the form of a baby girl, caused him to abandon his “calling”. Brownian motion is the best descriptor for this subsequent career path.
Turning down a position at Federal Express (“no one will ever pay $6.95 to deliver a letter overnight.”), he managed a Research Center in Memphis for the Continental Grain Company and was surprised to discover that “you can’t make bread out of research”. The Grain Company shed non-core assets: Dan talked his wife and now larger family into relocating to Vancouver. Unfortunately, the RCMP was very interested in the new owners of “Dan’s” Research Center. Another move was mandated. Dan chose Houston just as world oil prices crashed. (“Ah, those were the days.”) Nimbly adjusting course (think pinball), he located a job in idyllic Hanover, New Hampshire.
However experiences in the Oil Business activated a latent “international” gene. After a short time, Dan located a position in The Netherlands. More impressively, he convinced his family to relocate: “just one more time”. While the family used the opportunity to see Europe and become comfortable expatriates, Dan buckled his swash with business trips through Asia, Australia, Latin America and Africa. Eventually America called. (The signal was amplified by the Dutch tax authorities.)
The family moved back to New England. The “baby girl” (and her siblings) entered colleges in Princeton, Syracuse and Santa Barbara. Dan, cured of any desire for instability, began working with the Digital Equipment Corporate – a respected fixture along Route 128. The fixture floundered when Compaq decided to purchase DEC. Dan quickly decided that a corporate (e.g. “overhead”) position was untenable. Prudence, and the fact that college tuition expenses were growing even faster than the dotcom bubble, dictated a move to the revenue-producing portion of the business.
Having constructed his career on the equivalent of the San Andreas Fault, Dan now knew that job stability was unlikely. He negotiated a return to Europe and convinced his wife that Zürich would be great. They arrived just as Hewlett-Packard acquired Compaq.
While his wife threw herself into the expatriate community, Dan was living in Zürich but working in Amsterdam, London, New York, Hong Kong, Mexico City and Frankfurt. HP didn’t like moving people, so Dan chose to “follow the money” by working with customers in the Financial Services Industry. He can categorically state that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the subprime debacle or the world economic meltdown.
No comments:
Post a Comment