“No matter where you are in your career, whether a student or CIO of a Fortune 500 company, there’s always someone better than you. I say this because you can always learn from someone. Everything you do in life is a learning opportunity. Seize it and soak in everything you can.”
Gerard Massey (BS ’13) obviously has a passion for continual improvement, and that drive has taken him from intern to Director of IT at The Zimmerman Agency in the time since he graduated from Florida State University.
As a student in the College of Communication and Information, Massey was interested in how technology is utilized in advertising and social media. The ICT major allowed him to combine these interests, and he credits his internship experience at Zimmerman with making him a well-rounded job candidate.
“Advice? One word: internships,” says Massey, “you can be the best student, academically, but that means nothing to an employer if you don’t have experience to back it up.”
For Massey, his experience with technology got its start watching his father fix computers. From observer to practicing technologist, Massey then started his own business fixing electronics throughout his time in school.
Today, as the Director of IT at The Zimmerman Agency in Tallahassee, Fla. – Massey is responsible for the overall availability of technology systems for the organization.
“I supervise a staff that supports network operations, storage, server administration, backup and recovery, and end-user support. I also oversee expense management, strategic planning, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and policy creation.”
His commitment to continually learn is also a necessary strategy for staying relevant in the fast paced industry of IT.
“With developments like devops, IoT, and an increased need of mobile security, if you don’t keep up you lose your value at an exponential rate. To stay ahead of the curve, I constantly read blogs, papers, and research in both fields.”
By treating every person and situation he meets as a learning opportunity, Massey’s perspective is a useful outlook to adapt for students looking to find their place in the working world after college.
“I think of my life and career like Tarzan, always swinging vine-to-vine – to move on to the next thing, you must let go of your current vine and grab the other.”
Swinging from the vine of college to the professional world can be a scary moment, but embracing the transition as a learning experience has paid off for alums like Gerard Massey.