If you’ve never seen the movie “A Knights Tale” I recommend that you do. In the movie, the character William played by the late Heath Ledger mentions about the ability of one to change his stars. The movie is set in the olden days (think Knights of the Round Table old) and William made the decision to assume the life of a knight to effectively change his stars. And he did just that. No real spoilers here though, watch the movie to find out how he did it.
Over the course of the past several months (maybe years?), I’ve been evaluating “my stars” and where I wanted to go with my career. All in all, I had been in the Farm Credit “system” for about 10 years or so. I had been working for Farm Credit Mid-America for a couple of years now and before that Farm Credit Services of America in Omaha, Nebraska. I was very comfortable with its ecosystem, processes, technology, leadership, and culture. I was solidly in my “bubble” so to speak. There, I had the chance to help architect and deliver several solutions that (I hope) put their respective SQL Server environments in a better spot for success. I was also very fortunate that both organizations also gave me some leeway to travel, speak, teach as well as support the local SQL Server user groups.
But it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more in my career.
I needed to change my stars.
So when an opportunity presented itself to allow me to change my stars, I decided to take a leap of faith and pursue a new a path that would allow me to do that.
Changing My Stars
I’m happy to announce that I’m joining Denny Cherry & Associates as of November 1, 2017. As a matter of fact, when this post is published, I’ll be on a flight to the annual PASS Summit on my first day as a consultant for DCAC. I’ve even arranged it so that my badge at the conference reflects my new employer. Shameless Plug: Come see me at the DCAC booth in the vendor area!!
While nervous (it’s a tremendous change for me), I’m really excited to experience new things, work with some bleeding edge technology and learn from some of the best. Let’s be honest, Denny’s group is probably one of the top 5 premier SQL Server consulting shops in the world and I’m honored to be given opportunity to join them.
In short, after 10 years, I’m going to go back to consulting. Before starting with Farm Credit Services of America, I used to be a consultant with Sogeti in Omaha. During my time there I got to experience a wide variety of technical issues & solutions. So, I’ll be back at it doing the same thing again. I’ll be helping clients improve their SQL Server environment to the best of my ability and learning new things as I go. I’m also going to expand my speaking/blogging reach so watch for future engagements from me!
I’ll be working from home full time just like the rest of the crew and very much looking forward to it. See you in a few hours at Summit!
About Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting
The vetted and certified experts at Denny Cherry and Associates Consulting assist companies with attaining IT goals such as HA, scalability, SQL Server virtualization, migration, and acceleration reliably while finding ways to save on costs. With clients ranging from Fortune 50 corporations to small businesses, their commitment to each is the same: to provide a deft, high-speed IT environment that leverages every aspect of their platform: from architecture, infrastructure, to network.
© 2017, John Morehouse. All rights reserved.
