Back Where I Belong

Tomorrow, May 4th I begin a fresh adventure with a new employer. That brings with it the usual nervousness about learning new names, faces, policies, products and politics, but this also has a lot of familiarity because I’m returning to the industry that I spent so much of my adult life working in. 

In 2002 I met Ed Neumueller and Ray Riddle of Standard Imaging and learned what their company did. My mom had already fought cancer three times at that point and I remember thinking how great it would be to make a difference in an industry that works so hard to make sure that people dealing with that awful disease get accurate treatments that will hopefully save their lives. Thanks to them I got my start in radiation therapy QA and for the next 14 years I helped develop and get the word out about tools that assisted medical physicists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists and radiation oncologists do their jobs more accurately and more efficiently...or to put it simply, better. I also met many, many awesome people and made scores of friends in what by default is a fairly small, tight knit community. 

I left that amazing industry to chase a title, an office and yes, a salary that I thought would make me happy. I became the VP of Marketing at a startup that is creating some amazing tech and worked with some really great people. After 3 1/2 years though, at the beginning of February, I received what at the time didn’t feel like it, but in the end was a huge favor being let go by the new CEO who had just come on board in January. 

The funny thing is that the weekend before this I had a conversation with several friends, including Ben Nelms about not really being happy in what I was doing. I had come to the realization that being in the executive suite just didn’t fit my personality. I wasn’t good at navigating the politics, I didn’t enjoy the inordinate amount of time I spent working with the rest of the executive team figuring out how to run a startup company, and I missed what I enjoyed most...creating and executing marketing programs that educated my customers about products that I also helped develop. 

That same weekend, unbeknownst to me, Ben reached out on my behalf to the right people and started a process that got derailed a little bit by COVID-19, but culminated in my accepting a position as a Product Marketing Manager at Sun Nuclear Corporation. I will be managing the RT Measurements side of the business so there will be plenty to learn and I look forward to that challenge. 

SNC is a leader in patient safety solutions and interestingly enough at the age of 52, will be the largest and most stable company I’ve ever worked for. It was amazing when I started thinking about how many friends and acquaintances I have that work there and it was fun to see many of them and others from the industry when I interviewed at the Melbourne, FL offices right in the middle of their QADS and international training sessions. 

I am really looking forward to reconnecting with so many of you that I have had the pleasure of working with over the years. I have missed this incredible industry, the amazing people who work in it, and the satisfaction of knowing I’m making a difference in so many people’s lives.