The first time I met Neal..

Tomorrow is kind of a bittersweet day.?Tomorrow is the last day that Cerner will be it’s own legal entity.?October 1st, we meet LEC and legally are Oracle Cerner.?Almost 26 years ago this January, I was in Medtech school and I found out about Cerner during my clinical rotation at Truman Medical Center in the Microbiology lab.?I would soon apply to Cerner and eventually get hired.?I never saw myself as the corporate type but what I saw in Cerner made me really excited about a future in science and business which is what made me go back to KU.?Cerner had bet the farm so to speak on Millennium.?They had a successful solution in Classic that was everywhere.?When I walked in the door at Cerner there was one Millennium client live.?Not much of a proof point yet.?I learned about early adopters in technology.?I actually learned about Oracle within my first few weeks at Cerner.?In those early days, I would go on project sites with the CD in hand many times and locally install the software on a desktop and then create an order, place the order, collect it, result it to prove we are connected and writing to the Oracle database.?That was one of the early milestones on our projects that meant we had the software on the site and we were connected to the hardware.?I remember working my tail off those first few years.?My apartment back in a KC pretty much had ketchup and mustard in it.?I would never see it.?I was away from Kansas City more than I was here.?I was damn determined to put a Millennium footprint in place.?We did that at Lester Cox with the first Big Bang conversion.?This was also the first time we had connected two hospital facilities on Millennium.?It was not easy.?Lots of growing pains.?Lots of failures.?This is where I learned a business lesson that I tend to never forget.?That is Fail Fast.?You are going to make countless mistakes in early days of software when nothing is really established.?You want to learn those lessons as fast as can be, pocket them in your knowledge and move on to the next.?If you don’t try and take risks, you are not going to know outcomes.?Outcomes are what helps you build your experiences.?Within a few months after that Big Bang conversion, I met Neal Patterson for the first time at the company Christmas party.?He actually seeked me out which made me a nervous wreck.?My project manager at the time told me Neal wants to talk with you.?So, I finally find Neal at the Christmas party and start to introduce myself.?Neal looks at me and says, “so, you are the kid who keeps getting me the great press!”?I was kind of in shock.?He then asked me, “what was different there?” I then began to explain how I felt we just outworked other projects.?I also stayed in my parents condominium near Lake of the Ozarks which was a close drive to Springfield, Missouri so that allowed me to be onsite 5 days a week.?We also had a great team.?We had great client counterparts working with us.?We had a lot of trial and error.?We also had great support from KC.?We figured out how to make Millennium work.?Neal then asked me, “it’s going to work isn’t it?”?Folks have to remember that at that time, Neal had pretty much bet the future of Cerner on Millennium and we were struggling to show proof points for the large investment in time and development that had been put forward the previous 7 years getting Millennium developed.?I told him, “Yes, this is very much going to work!”?Neal then got me a drink.?I was pretty much floating in air then.?We all pretty much knew the rocket ship was getting ready to take off.?For the rest of that night at the Christmas party, I met just about everyone on our sales team and they kept me out all night drinking and celebrating what had just happened and what was about to happen.?It was awesome.?I remember not long after this we were growing just crazy.?I had 29 direct reports at one point and we had 5 years of combined experience on my team and 4 1/2 of that was mine!?I just remember thinking this is going to get 5 times bigger than we are at the time.?This has the potential to get really big.?Healthcare is just big.?So, tomorrow closes one chapter for Cerner and then Saturday, our next big chapter begins.?Millennium at times feels like my baby.?When you were around in those early days, you remember the struggles we had, the concerns to grow Millennium, the overwhelming growth.?I used to say - better than an MBA.?It has been such a privilege to do what we do.?That saying about love what you do is so true.?Saturday, Cerner becomes really big time.?I can’t wait.?Reality really hit this week.?Wish Neal could see this.?This is our next round.?Let’s do this!?#cerner #oracle