Driving in to work, I remembered thinking we’re going to launch today. I had thought the same thing the day before as well, but that was scrubbed. When I got to the support room, I did a quick hand-off with the people on the previous shift, but I noticed something wrong after they left. I had set things up to monitor all the important telemetry, but someone had changed it while I was off shift. I yelled, likely using a swear word or two, and ran off to get the guys. It’s strange, but that outburst is how I started working at Motorola.

I had been on-site for a few months to prepare for launch and had seen they were looking for an Orbit Services tech lead. I had seen first-hand what hell the orbit analysts had been going through with the existing system and was really excited about the possibility of helping them. But I found out from a senior manager who interviewed me that it was my outburst that day that really convinced him to hire me. I’m pretty even-keeled, not prone to outbursts, but he liked to see that I could get riled up.

So that is how I started my career with Motorola. Now, after over 16 years, I’m moving on.

I typically think of my time at Motorola in thirds, the satellite part, the telecommunications part and the applied research part.

The satellite part was extremely rewarding. I’m very proud to have been able to help the orbit operations team transition from one person per-satellite per-shift to just a handful of people and lights-out on nights and weekends. Everyone at the control facility did a truly amazing job to ramp up from first launch to a fully operational constellation, even when the software deliveries were late or ultimately not the right tool for the job. Most Motorolans look at Iridium as a failure, especially the business and telecommunications aspects. I remember more the successes, the never-been-done-before accomplishments in satellite manufacturing, integration and operation. I didn’t really appreciate it at the time, but am amazed now to look back at the world-class software teams Jim Summers put together on the satellite side and Michael Krutz put together on the control facility side. Hands-down, the best I’ve seen in my whole career.

The telecommunication part was a transition for me. I had no previous telecom experience, and it didn’t help that the first team I joined had their project cancelled before long. But out of those ashes, they divided everybody up between three product groups and it was like I won the lottery. Tony Polentini put together the most enjoyable and balanced team I’ve seen of any engineering group and that is where I landed. The diversity of the team - gender-wise, ethnicity-wise, age-wise - was astounding, but they also were just plain fun to work with. Not that they goofed off at the expense of work. Everyone had a strong commitment to making deliverables and continuing the legacy of quality that Tony started. He created the benchmark I use for team culture - diverse, responsible, fun.

The applied research part has been close to ideal for me. At Lockheed, where I started, and on Iridium, I got a chance to work on never-been-done-before kind of projects. But they were very large systems that took many years to develop. With Motorola Labs, and now the CTO office, I’ve been able to think about new product and service ideas and get initial concepts up and running in months working in small teams with fantastic people. We’ve been fortunate to have a great mix of generalists, deep technical specialists and user experience teams that come together to tackle problems across all our markets. And Motorola Solutions’ customers have no shortage of interesting problems. Public safety, retail, and transportation and logistics are all going through transformations and looking to leverage technology in new ways.

The hardest part of my decision to leave has been all the interesting projects I imagined doing, especially working with all the great people I haven’t had the chance to work with yet. But in the end, Motorola’s severance offer gave me an opportunity to explore that I couldn’t pass up. For those of you leaving or staying, I think you have an equally exciting opportunity ahead for renewal and I wish you the best of luck!