From Senior Customer Engineer Level 5 to Novice Yacht Broker

From Senior Customer Engineer Level 5 to Novice Yacht Broker

This, the third entry of my new blog is the one that has taken the longest to produce and is also the one loaded with all sorts of deep and soul heavy emotions.
My college education ended on a Friday, the next Monday I started my new job in the field of computers and systems support. Besscorp was the name of my first job in electronics. A papa-mama shop who tore away from Burroughs some 15 years before. Great little shop, component level repairs on desktop calculators, photocopy machines and mini-computers. I was a bench monkey. To this day I can recite from memory the color codes on resistors, I can even do some bolean math in my head. At Besscorp I learned my first lessons on direct person to person customer support. It has always made me feel good to be the facilitator, the guy who confronts problems and finds solutions. Little problems or highly complex problems spanning across two or more companies, applications, and systems. At Tandem Computers (and through all the corporate logo changes) I always wore my Senior Customer Support Engineer Level 5 certification proudly. Always happy to see the face of my customers when I show up at their computer rooms, the look of relieve on their brows, in the knowledge that I was on their case and somehow, one way or the other, things were going to work out fine.
Well, that is what I did for years on end. Besscorp, my own Electronic Programming Services venture, Burroughs, Tandem and with Tandem the disaster of Compaq/Digital/hp. It was with hp where my systems support career ended. Never a bad performance review, always a met or exceeded goals grades, tons of attaboys for jobs well done, exemplary Y2K (remember the madness?) conversions, huge appreciations from my direct customers and system managers. Alas, it seems none of that mattered when I turned 50 and was about to enter my 20th year of service at hp. A phone call from my non-manager manager within a month of the death of my mother to announce the news of my promotion to the “work force reduction program” and an exit interview in a parking area next to a McDonald’s. Class all the way. Bastards.
There are plenty of good stories from the years of servicing big companies and their computer systems but…we will explore those latter, for now, we will go to the middle of the center of the convergence of that proverbial fork in the road.
Unemployed. Never since I was 17 years old had I been unemployed.
What to do? Back to computers seem the logical choice but there had to be more to life than that. Certainly the steady money, 401k plans, medical coverage, etc. was appealing but unappealing was…the long hours, the on-call nights and weekends, the burden of being ON all the time. Come on, carrying a cell phone while racing a laser because I was on a systems alert or duty manager for the State…I needed to breathe.
Good to have friends though..ever so good to have friends! Over coffee at the club, my dear Herman points out that I love sailing, boating, fishing, talking to people, being nice, helping folks, safety first; you ought to be a yacht broker he spurts. Yeah, yeah a yacht broker. Three years earlier I almost become one but being gainfully employed at the time and not knowing that the greedy bastards were aiming at me, I shied away from pulling the trigger. This time it was different. I needed a job and the means to make a living.
Again; funny how things work out. I was at the yard with my beloved SHIPAJOY on the hard having a lot of work being performed on the running gear, cutlass bearings, engine mounts, new shaft…you get the idea. A guy is having his catamaran surveyed for sale and he is looking at my Lippincott. I am looking at his catamaran. We start a conversation. Turns out he is a yacht broker, the boat is being surveyed to be sold to fresh new owners. We spoke some more and he suggests, “we are looking to hire a new guy”. I am giddily surprised at this “coincidence”. Furthermore, his manager shows up unexpectedly at the yard to check on the cat’s survey. We get introduced and I get interviewed right then and there. The details from here on are boring. Until we get to the part where hands are shaken in agreement and I become the newest yacht broker at Yacht Sales Florida, part of the Florida yacht Group. I have a desk overlooking the Harborage Marina, my fellow co-workers at the office are very knowledgeable, experience, helpful and fun. My new manager is awesome, such an experienced businessman but so light and jovial all the time. My mentor has cradled me from day one and continues to give me all sorts of advise and insights into the selling world. Just two weeks ago, we closed the office at 1600 and took a new Jeanneau 33i for a short spin on Tampa Bay! The five of us on a sailing trip. Nice.
I am getting in at the right time, the market is ticking up, my company is growing, the Miami Boat Show 2010 was a blast, we just opened an office in Miami, the Florida Yacht Group branding is in full ahead mode, my mentor has sold 4 boats since January 2010 (including that catamaran), we represent used and new boats. We are dealers for new Jeanneau, Hanse, Fountaine Pajot, Carver, Moody and on the East Coast we also represent Beneteau. Exciting times indeed.
Licensed, bonded and ready to serve you with the same enthusiasm and pride as when I was the Senior Customer Support Engineer Level 5 and Duty Manager for the State of Florida.

some pottery for the weekend

Hola.

Thanks for visiting again.

As pottery is the second topic on the blog's title, I figured an article on pottery should follow the sailing the sunfish for the first time.

Pottery or the liking of it started way back when I was in 8th grade back home in Puerto Rico. We had "art" class one full semester and I was hooked....alas, just for that semester. But I liked it. The feeling of the soft clay squishing through wet fingers and the little items taking shape by my hands. The neural index card got filled in and stored.

Fast forward to about 4 years ago.

And, I am thinking about the need to have some "hobby" to ease my mind (see, sailing is not a hobby, it is a lifestyle). The mental rolodex spun and that old index card popped up. Pottery it said. Sensual, artsy, earth connection, creation. A quick search on the internet produced Tampa Parks and Recreation with their many parks and art studios. I called the three or four that offered pottery and put my name on all the waiting lists. Soon enough, Rosie, the angel that runs Taylor Art Studio gave me a call saying my name was up!

The format was simple enough, one class each week lasting 3 hours between 1800 and 2100. At Taylor's I met Rosie who to this day remains my friend and dear buddy. Rosie is the heart of Taylor's for sure. There is so much to write about my first lessons and the obstacles centering clay presented, etc. Those articles will come later. For today I'll just report on the epiphany moment.

After centering your clay and pulling your form up from the clump, you have to leave it alone to dry to a hardness that will be firm enough to "carve" or "turn" the piece so that you can trim the foot, attach dreaded handles (more on that later too), style the bottom, etc. One tuesday evening I sat down to turn a piece and soon after I stood up to get a hot tea like everybody else. I came back to my wheel tea mug in hand ready to trim. The first sip of the tea was scolding hot so I sat the tea mug next to me and started turning the piece to trim the bottom. My second sip of the tea mug found the contents almost cold; I had spent 40 minutes totally absorbed in the trimming process. Alienated from the world, just fixed on cutting clay away from my piece and shaping it as I better saw fit. And that folks was the moment in which I knew that pottery was going to be a life long craft for me to pursue.

first lesson: how it all began...almost

THE FIRST LESSON
by Antolin Rivera
October, 1997

A dedicated sailor introduced me to the sport, but a magic elfin helped me tune my senses to the wind.

Milan.

She was European, beautiful and well tanned, right to the edge of her tiny bikini. Milan gave sailing lessons on a small lagoon that splashes a hotel and tourist section in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

I had formed a passion for sailing with Clara, but the romanticism was there for Milan to develop.

I would have followed her anywhere, and I did, to a long rack of Sunfish along the water.

The wonders of sailing may have cost me $20, but to hear Milan mispronounce my name in her melodious accent added to the enchantment.

Perhaps all it was for her was a seasonal job between semesters, but it changed my life.

Through the years I have proven that to myself time and again by the same contented grin when I look back on it.

Clara Diez had talked about the wonders of sailing during coffee breaks. Our offices were next door to each other, and even though we had never sailed together, Clara always had a sailing story to share with me.

Her weekends were full of canvas and sunsets, wind puffs and waves. The camaraderie of sailing buddies and dreams of getting away from it all, in easy installments, a weekend at a time, if not forever.

Clara's tales intrigued me.

Then Clara did something that just blew me away! She burned the savings for her new car on a trip to Australia to see the America's Cup defense!

That's what I call passion, bordering on abandonment. I had to experience it. I had to learn to sail.

Milan pointed to the first available Sunfish and we pulled it to the water's edge. She began gathering implements, calling each by name: centerboard, mainsheet, tiller, rudder, on and on the terms flew my way.

She handled herself like an old salt. Her youth disguised by the graveness of her demure.

Part by part the Sunfish came together as a wind-propelled vessel. Each article mentioned by name again. We did it a second time and some parts were becoming familiar to my ear. Like a mantra she recited the use and name of every piece of equipment for the third time. Adjusting her tiny bikini, she asked if I had any questions.

"No," was my response.

"Wind," she said. "Wind is the basic element here. Feel the wind. Look around and see the wind acting up. Tune your senses to the wind."

"No wind, no sail. No wind, no life, simple as that."

Once on board, Milan took the tiller and mainsheet in hand, motioning me to sit between her and the mast on the same side of the boat. Gently pulling on the mainsheet translated a gentle breeze into forward motion.

We were sailing. Just like that, amazing!

The Sunfish came to life at her command. Pushing through little waves, bouncing off bigger ones. A tug on the tiller, a little more mainsail trim and we sped away.

Absorbed in contemplation, Milan narrated the moment. Her technical explanation lost in my wandering mind. Milan was vaguely describing the effect on the sail, dry words that could not paint the mind picture I was living.

A wind vehicle, capable of swift travel across the expanse of my imaginings. Way before the first tack, my inner child was already changing directions in life; rediscovering the womb and the myriad of emotions I felt every time Dad swam beyond the buoys, bound for deep blue water, carrying me on his back.

Back on the dock, Milan said her work was done. But she said I still had half an hour to go, sailing on my own. The first capsize, the first wild jibe, resulting in yet another capsize. Sailing back to the dock in one very wet piece.

They were secondary chords to the symphony my soul played to the tune of the wind.

The neural connection had been made. The Great Spirit breathed in my mind the wind of life.

Funny how life works. Clara and Milan led me to open a long-forgotten door where all the emotions that could be had lay awaiting my dare.

The lesson continues to this day. Years after the enlightenment, I eagerly anticipate the next sail. Every outing I listen to the wind reverberating across my soul.

Wind: a grand pipe organ in the cathedral of creation.