End of the Era at Catalyst

It is with some sadness that my role at Catalyst has been disestablished and I finish here at the end of this month. Covid has been hard on the Training Manager role, our in-person training, and my grand plans of what I could see myself making of it.

Although I am disappointed, I am not bitter. It has been a hard couple of years for everyone and I have been reading my own management reports. I want to say that despite the redundancy, Catalyst is still a great place to work. It is full of smart people working together, and doing great things together. If the chance arises for you to pick up a role at Catalyst, I couldn't recommend it more.

Although there are many people that have made Catalyst the place to be, I want to highlight 3 people that have made a big difference to me at Catalyst:

• Aleisha Amohia for being an example of why the Catalyst Open Source Academy is important to help inspire the next generation,
• Chris Cormack for helping me be less of a jerk, and
• Don Christie for the leadership and sticking to values of open source and community that has made Catalyst what it is.

I have started putting my CV together and reaching out to people, working out where I can fit.

Over the last 25 or so years working with people and technology (almost 17 at Catalyst), I have a broad range of skills and knowledge to bend technology to my will (not always on the first go) and work with people so they can do the same. Although my individual technical skills may not necessarily all be considered 'expert', I can learn, combine, and apply the skills and experiences to make things happen.

I do have to be honest that the range of skills and knowledge I have (and people tell me I have) gives me many options. To me, that makes it hard to describe those experiences in a way that helps me build them into set that will define a direction or role that will keep me inspired and enthused about what I can achieve.

I am looking for a role in an organisation that encourages and looks after it's people as they strive for themselves, their colleagues and their customers. One that has positive quirks that are inclusive and honest. If you use things like #OpenSource #DataSovereignty #OpenHardware #FantasticPeople #Inclusivity #Teamwork #GrowingPeople #Community as part of your general vocabulary, we are likely to have a bunch of things in common and would like to explore how we can make a difference.