Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin- A tall, lanky kid of small town southern US roots, I've always found my fulfillment in team.   Some of my earliest influences came from listening to Al Hirt playing that ‘Nawlins’-style of Danny Boy on television as a wee youngster.  This led me to discovering music as a new found passion by learning and playing trumpet in high school and college bands.  Later, a 13-year Air Force career came a callin’ which gave me an even greater sense of fraternity which reinforced that sense of team.  

In a reinvented career in tech, my manager singlehandly changed my work life (I think likely forever) by asking the team to just meet face to face for 15 mins a day to exchange updates on the work we were doing - and then she left us on our own.  In 3 weeks time, we were spending more time collaborating as a team and HAVING FUN delivering great results.  I've worked as a systems engineer, tester and analyst on agile teams.  At one point, our agile team was selected as the  IT role-model for company-wide shift to agile practices.  That transformation led me to keep pushing  to learn and take on the Scrum Master role at the next vacancy.   I've experienced self-organized, high performing teams and LOVE helping teams and business deliver iterative value for 3 different companies at this point.    THANK YOU manager (and agile) for purpose and fulfilment for others!

By the way,  I still am trying to play that trumpet!!!