Danny Thomas Celebrating 25 Years with Handel
By Even Brande
I will never forget that day in the summer of 1998. A year earlier I had left my job as a Marketing Director for Aspen Tree Software and made the “it’s now or never” decision to start my own tech company. During my four years with Aspen Tree I had the pleasure of working with some very talented people. One of those people was Danny Thomas. Danny was the office manager, but sometimes it felt like she could, and did, manage the entire business. She was one of the most competent, responsible, and trusting people I had ever worked with. A year later I learned that the new owners of Aspen Tree were moving the company headquarters to Boulder, CO. Knowing Danny and her family situation, I was pretty certain she would not leave her hometown of Laramie and follow the company to Boulder. While we had pioneered remote work at Aspen Tree, it was just not in the cards for Danny to work remotely. I faced a dilemma: Handel was still a new business and I was pretty much chief, cook, and bottlewasher (or software engineer, customer support, and accountant). I was not quite at a point where I thought I could afford to hire a full-time employee, nor was our office management needs quite there where I felt I needed a full-time person. Yet, I also knew if I did not try to hire Danny, it would be the regret of a lifetime.
So, I made up my mind, called Danny, and offered her a job on the spot. Danny had, not surprisingly, one other job opportunity she was evaluating. Fortunately for us, she chose Handel. Danny started full-time at Handel in August 1998. At the time, Handel was still a fledgling tech start-up, and I did not know if we would last another year. This was right before the big dot.com bust of the late 1990s, so perhaps there was some legitimacy to my concern. Taking her chance on an unproven start-up did not seem to bother Danny even if the future was uncertain. Not in my wildest dreams would I have predicted back then that Handel would be around in 2024 and that Danny would celebrate her 25th anniversary as an employee.
We have been very lucky to have Danny as part of our team here at Handel for all these years. Once she started, she immediately became indispensable to our business, no job too big or too small. Sometimes I think she can read minds because she gets things done even before you ask for help. While Danny’s official title is Operations Manager, she goes above and beyond that title, always lending a hand when people need help. She runs our accounting, including billing customers and collecting payments. She is a genius wordsmith always helping proof and re-write important documents (if this blog isn’t quite up to our usual standard, it is likely because I didn’t ask Danny to help with proofing because in her modesty, she would have asked me not to put this in print).
Thank you Danny for all you have contributed to Handel over these past 25 years. We hope we can keep you for many more years to come.
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