President’s Piece
Staffing Updates
I’m pleased to introduce you to Michael Brown – First American Business’ new NOC Team Leader. First American Business continues to grow and it is important that we bring in top talent as we continue to refine our customer focused operational support model.
Michael (who resides in Allen TX) will lead and manage:
- Our Tier III engineering team and will be the escalation point for outages and trouble
- Staffing needs and training development for technical skill requirements in Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, Ribbon and other key technologies
- The 24×7 Alarm monitoring and trouble ticket management production systems
- Development of our formal NOC and support center process including the new First American on-line ticketing system – www.FABHelpDesk.com
- RFP responses to new opportunities
I am also pleased to announce a new addition to our team focused on our government line of business under First American Business Solutions. Tim Delong has joined our team effective last month as a Government Consultant. Tim has over 30 years of experience in various government support roles including Avaya Government Solutions before retiring from AT&T.
At First American Business Solutions Tim will be focused on new business solution including formal RFP and bid development. First ABS has seen greater activity in the government space this year and wants to continue to capture our share. These government bids require particular focus on compliance – both technical and price – and Tim’s background adds complementary skills to our existing team. Tim resides in Northwood OH.
Won Projects
On a final note we had some exciting new contract wins over the past few months working with and supporting our valued Partners. Some of these include contracts through ConvergeOne and Alliance-IT. We also renewed several direct longstanding agreements with Georgia Pacific, Mears Transportation and Hello Destination Management.
Giving Back
Hurricane Michael was the strongest storm in terms of maximum sustained wind speed to strike the contiguous United States since Andrew in 1992. In addition, it was the strongest storm on record in the Florida Panhandle. October 9, 2018 the storm peaked as a high-end Category 4 hurricane. Approaching the Florida Panhandle, Michael attained winds of 155 mph as it made landfall near Mexico Beach Florida, becoming the first to do so in the region as a Category 4 hurricane. By October 28, at least 60 deaths had been attributed to the storm. Hurricane Michael caused over $11 billion in damages.
First American Business is Florida headquartered. Our priority is to give back to communities where we operate and Hurricane Michael clearly impacted so many of our Florida neighbors. As a result we contributed to several relief efforts including food and shelter drives in the aftermath.
Firefighters sacrifice a tremendous amount for our country and communities. Monroe County is home to one of our largest clients and we wanted to show our appreciation to the men and women who have given the greatest sacrifice – the fallen firefighters. We feel honored to be a sponsor to the annual dinner and fundraiser held each year in Rochester in honor of these firefighters. This is our 3rd year in a row supporting this very worthwhile cause.
In closing I would like to thank our customers – we continue to be successful as a business because of you. And we are very proud to have Michael and Tim join our team as we continue to provide telecom services to our Channel Partners and our end customers.
Sincerely,
Mark
Mark Morningstar
markm@firstabs.com
Owner, Managing Partner
