Short Run - Wins for November

It's been a while since we've had a short run, with personal short stories, but all our staff have been busy with their work and home lives and there's lots of wins to report.

Manufacturing Wins

Patrick (Production) has been in these posts before, what with his 3D printer and all. This time, he’s here because he and his housemate created a really cool working computer case and entered it in the PDXLAN Fall 2019 case modification contest.

PDXLAN is a big gamer’s meet-up, held twice a year, where they all bring their own computers, mice, keyboards, etc. and play video games together. Each event also has a charity component; this time their goal was to raise $30,000 for Night Strike, a Portland humanitarian relief fund.

The event has a lot of contest entries, but our local heroes took first place in the “Case Mod” one. And I can see why. When they brought it in to show us, we were all wowed by it. Looks like the judges were, too! It was built completely from scratch, including authentic bullet holes.

Patrick is already planning for next time; he’s thinking maybe a “Futurama” theme. Can’t wait to see it.

Life Win

Connie (Customer Care) has also been busy, getting her Life Coach certification through JRNI (co-founded by “The Angry Therapist,” John Kim). The course is accredited by the International Coach Foundation (ICF) . Their basic tenets are to put people first, dare to be different, and no B.S.

We think these fit in well with Connie’s overall approach to problem-solving and planning. She loves to provide a second perspective, and is good at managing both goals and projects. She plans to continue in her customer care role, managing label accounts, troubleshooting problems, and offering advice, but now she’s certified to coach you through your label issues so you can move to the next level.

Tech Challenge Wins

Jen (IT) coaches robotics teams. Her team, the Cyber Dragons, are members of the FIRST Tech Challenge group, for grades 7-12. This year, her team is volunteering at the Big Bird Bridge Bonanza FIRST LEGO League event. FIRST LEGO League is for ages 9-14.

FLL teams build robots from LEGOs to complete challenges on a tabletop field, present a team research project, and demonstrate core values. This year's challenge is City Shaper, in which students are challenged to think about how to cities of the future will be designed and built. The Cyber Dragons will be assisting in the competition process.

Jen will be a team project judge as well as helping her team keep things running. The Cyber Dragons' next competition is the FIRST Tech Challenge - Skystone - this coming January and we will definitely post pictures of that!

Adorability Win

We usually try to close these short run posts with a picture or two of the scenic beauty that surrounds us here, but this time we’re going with someone much cuter. Here’s August, dressed up in his Halloween dragon wings, in his witches cauldron. Can’t top that!