Do you ever wonder if you were in a particular place at a certain time for a very specific reason? Learn what brought our Software Development Manager/QA Manager, Michael Witherspoon, to our team!
How long have you been with Vault Solutions?
I have been here just under a year. I started on June 1st, 2015 as the Software Development Manager and now I’m the QA Manager, too. Given my extensive design and development experience, I also contribute to application design and architecture, I do pre-QA testing on most of our code, I write documentation, and even do support calls as needed.
What brought you to Vault Solutions?
Serendipity brought me to Vault Solutions. One early Saturday evening over Memorial Day weekend last year, a strong gut feeling told me to go into a local bar and music venue in Portsmouth. It was very unusual for me to go into this particular establishment but I went anyway. There I met the founder and CEO of Vault Solutions. Through that discussion we moved to a job interview two days later. I was hired a few days after that and began work within a week. Fate, luck, divine intervention? I don’t know but I’m here and am very happy about it.
What do you love about what you do every day? Favorite part of your work? Why?
Making and executing plans that come together. Motivating, organizing, and inspiring a group of people to reach a common goal has always been my favorite part of any job. At this job I get to do all of that with an interesting mix of smart, good-hearted people with varied technical backgrounds.
What do you do when you’re not at the office?
When I’m not working I enjoy my acoustic guitar, building things out of wood, hanging out with my friends and my newest pursuit: yoga. I also enjoy sailing, crossword puzzles and competing in Scrabble tournaments.
What’s a fun fact that most people don’t know about you?
A few years back I took a year-long sabbatical during which I lived in a 19-foot Class-B motorhome I call The Dodge Mahal and I earned my living counting cards playing blackjack in casinos all over the country. It was mentally challenging and fun, like when I was an Apache helicopter pilot in the Army, but it wasn’t a sustainable, long-term lifestyle for me.
What else would you want people to know about you and what your unique contributions to the team are?
Whenever issues come up involving Lotus Notes / Domino, web application development, or Java / J2EE, I’m the ‘go-to’ guy. Other than that, I try to pick the best people for the job and I try to stay out of their way while they do their work.
