According to George Mellott, he has the perfect career. He gets paid for playing. That’s how much he loves working with computers. He discovered his passion quite by accident. When the person that he hired to create the computer system for the HVAC company he owned never got around to finishing it, George went to night school to learn how to do it himself.
“What I learned was that I really, really like working on computers and I thought if somebody paid me to do this, they’d be paying me to play all day, and that’s what they do,” recalled George who has been working at Accent Computer Solutions for nearly two decades.
Centralized Services Work in the Background
What George considers play in his role as Systems Automation Engineer actually consists of some very complex work in the area of Centralized Services to improve operations. These are IT services that touch the networks of the entire Accent client base and consist of tasks such as monitoring, cyber security applications, and patching to name a few.
George writes and manages programs that automate activities that take place in the background on the servers that manage client networks. The result of his work is that Accent can be more efficient in how they provide services to their clients which is good for the clients and good for Accent.
“What I do is take care of the server that monitors over 13,000 devices for Accent. I do scripting and write programs so that our engineers don’t have to do repetitive tasks,” George explained. “I’m actually doing so much in the background that it would amaze most people. They don’t think their computer can do what it can do!”
List of Certifications is a Testimony to His Hunger for Learning
George has been adding to his knowledge and expertise non-stop since he first started at Accent as a Systems Engineer. He has earned a list full of certifications throughout the years, motivated by his desire to keep learning but also to keep up with his increasing responsibilities in his changing roles at the company.
“For George, it was like – Hey if my guys are going to come to me with questions, I had better know the answers,” said Derek Woolf, Chief Operating Officer. “He owned the need to grow his knowledge and be the authority.”
Charted His Own Career Path Through Two Decades
George’s first position at Accent was Systems Engineer. His roles have changed through the years and his responsibilities grew as the company grew, and he was able to chart out a career path to meet his hunger for learning and challenge.
“Accent is really, really good at letting you follow the path that you want to take,” said George. “They actually built the first remote engineer position for me. They never had this role so they built it, and asked me how I wanted to do it.”
Even though his work is mainly done during the off-hours, George interacts daily with the Centralized Services team to continually improve the services that Accent provides to clients. He’s never stopped loving a challenge and feels that it’s the highest complement when his coworkers come to him with yet another request to streamline their work and improve clients’ technology experience.
“They tell me, ‘Hey, you think you can do this?’ and they tell me what they’d like to do. We build it and send it back and forth until it comes out the way they want it,” George explained. “The coolest part is that it’s a challenge to make different operating systems and different applications all talk to each other and then come out with the end result they envisioned, plus you learn all along the way.”
Accent Core Values Inspired by George
Learning has been a common thread throughout George’s career. In fact, Marty Kaufman the President and Founder of Accent says that George with “figure IT out.” Marty also relays that George cares deeply about clients and works tirelessly to help no matter what it takes.
Have a look at Accent’s Core Values and you’re going to find a lot of “George” there. In fact, when management drafted their values, they had George in mind.
“Be extraordinary; always go above and beyond; that was always George,” said Derek. “One of the main values was just keeping our promises and if George says that he’s going to do something, he does it and will not let go until it’s done.”
At the end of the day, George doesn’t need a lot of accolades to know that he’s done a good job. In fact, he says that it’s when he doesn’t hear anything that he knows all is well.
“At Accent, we believe in the customer,” said George. “We get to help people every single day whether they know it or not. A lot of my work is done in the background and if they don’t notice what I did then I know I did a good job.”
