Starting to Create Ed K’s Personal Brand by Looking at My Work Career
So I was reading the other day that all bloggers should have their own personal brand. Thinking about my brand I can only come up with one thing and that’s DULL. Yep, I’m DULL and maybe a little boring too.
My wife and I have been married for 41 years. We have never cheated on each other. Nor have we have ever battled alcoholism or drug addiction. Together we have raised four children, none of whom have had major problems or caused us any grief. But you know, I don’t know how much different my life has been from millions of other people.
You get up in the morning and you go to work, you come home, you eat, sit down, relax. watch some TV, read to the kids, you go to bed and then you get up and do it again, and again and again! So what characteristics due set me apart from others, What aspects of my life can be part of my personal brand. Let’s start with, what over the course of your life consumes a big part of your life – your job!
My Work Career
I guess I am slightly out of the ordinary because from the time I started working in 1975 to my retirement in 2014, I had a total of 3 full-time jobs.My first job after I graduated from the University of Florida with a BA in Political Science was at Keuffel and Esser Company (K&E) in Trenton, NJ. I worked for K&E for a little over a year, starting soon after finishing school and leaving a little before I got married in August of 1975. At K&E, I started working in the stock room, then moved to inventory control. When I left K&E, I was being groomed to be a salesman.
at United Freight Sales
My next job was wit\h United Freight Sales in Athens, Gerogia. I started there shortly after we moved to Athens in 1975. I worked for them part-time while I was in school working on a second bachelor’s degree. This one was in Secondary Social Science Education I was going to teach.. After graduating in 1977, the teaching jobs in Athens were scarce and managers with United Freight Sales (UFS) were making a boatload of money so I switched to full-time at UFS. I became the manager of their store in Gainesville, Georgia in January of 1979. In July of 1979, I was relieved of my duties because the store was losing money. I sucked at being a furniture store manager! But making my own radio commercials was pretty cool!!
When I was released from United Freight Sales, we were broke! We had been living on merger commissions and didn’t have two nickels to rub together. So rather than move back to Athens, (not that we had enough money to pay first and last months rent and security deposits, etc), we decided to move back home. Oh, did I mention that my wife was seven months pregnant at the time!
at Lippincott Engineering Associates
After leaving UFS, we moved in with my in-laws. I began working at Lippincott Engineering Associates (LEA)in August of 1979. LEA would later become Lippincott, Jacobs and Gouda during its best years.. The company would have two more name changes, as well as, a change in ownership before I left in 2014.
Anyway you get the picture, I was not adventurous, when it came to work. Of course, the fact that I had four children between 1980 and 1990 may have had something to do with staying at one job for so long. Another factor was that my office was only 5 minutes from my house. That fact meant that I could come home everyday for lunch almost every day. My wife handed me a baby soon after arriving home on many of those days!
Being so close to my workplace also allowed me to attend conferences, plays and other events held during the school day. I was also able to go see baseball games, track and cross country meets when my son competed.
….A Constantly Evolving Career
Another aspect of my work that allowed me to stay with one company for so many years was that my job constantly evolved. I began working at Lippincott as a draftsman. I was familiar with drafting, because I had taken basic drafting as an architecture major at the University of Florida. In addition, I had taken technical drafting in high school.
….First Soil Evaluation and Septic Design
A short time after hiring me, the company asked me to design a septic system. My first response was “what’s a septic system?”. We had a cesspool at my chiildhood home before we connected to the sewer line, but it wasn’t hard to design that hole in the ground. To design septics, I needed to know something about soils, so I studied the soil surveys of the various counties and became familiar with soil classification and permeability.
I soon realized that the information I was getting back from the drilling crew was not sufficient for the design of septic systems that were actually going to work!, As a result, I was soon performing my own soil borings So over the years based upon hours of field work coupled with short-courses at Rutgers I became an expert soils evaluator.
…. then Wetlands Delineations and Permitting
A few years after I started designing septics New Jersey passed new wetland regulations that were tougher than those outlined in the Federal Clean Water Act. As Civil Engineers many of our site plans required wetlands delineations and permitting. Because wetlands delineations are based on the three parameter approach requiring analysis of soils, vegetation and hydrology and I knew something about soils, I became the wetlands person. Once again I had to learn about something on the job.So as I went out and delineated wetlands I did it with various books so that I could learn about trees, shrubs, and weeds! Again it was back to Cook College, taking various wetlands short courses!
Also during the course of my career at Lippincott I taught myself to use AutoCad, along with Microsoft office. I used Word, Access and Excel in the preparation of reports, applications and soil logs.
For many years I located wetlands flags in the field using a Trimble GPS. I also learned to use various GIS programs to create maps and analyze field conditions.
What Kind of Personal Brand has My Work Career Created?
Ok so how does all of this help in creating my own brand. I guess loyalty would be an attribute that I am proud of LEA gave me a job when I needed it the most. Through the years LEA treated me well, always giving me nice raises and always giving me new things to learn and new responsibilities. So I never really thought about leaving.
I also did a lot of hard work through the years so I guess I was a loyal hard-working man.
You can also see I have been a life-long learner. I have two college degrees one in Political Science and the other in Social Science Education. While I have never used either of these degrees in a work situation, they did open the doors to Lippinciott. They have also certainly helped me in life in general.
I was constantly learning through the years at Lippincott. Often I was teaching myself on my off-hours, bringing books home to study at night. Other times, it was via short -courses at Rutger’s Cook College. Over the years I read a lot about the technical aspects of my job. I also read several books about time and personnel management. (I suck at time management, too!) For many years, I had two or three people working under my supervision.
So based upon my working career I am a loyal, hard-working, life-long learner. Hmm, and maybe I’m not as dull and boring as I first thought!
