As an Implementation Consultant for Maintenance Connection, Steve Gustafson enjoys working with clients from many different industries and learning about their unique business processes. In his year since joining MC, he has already implemented 40 clients from 15 different states. Steve was especially appreciative of a recent opportunity to travel to Australia to provide customer training, partaking in “down under customs” such as driving on the wrong side of the road, mingling with some of the local wildlife (koalas and kangaroos), and eating shrimp on the Barbie with our Maintenance Connection AU Team.

Steve feels fortunate to have been raised in Colorado, where he has taken full advantage of the beautiful environment by mountain biking, skiing, fishing and hiking. Through both high school and college, Steve played football and kept busy with extensive extracurricular activities. While attending the University or Northern Colorado, he became very involved in student government and the Greek community, even serving as the student body president. The highlight of his college experience, however, was meeting his lovely wife Erin. Steve and Erin now reside in Centennial, a suburb of Denver, with their three rather rambunctious sons, Braden (4), Conner (3), and Carson (1).

Steve has a special involvement in Over the Rainbow Association, a non-profit organization founded by his grandparents. Over the Rainbow is dedicated to providing independent living solutions for individuals with physical disabilities, such as cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy. The organization was formed by a group of Chicago area parents, concerned about their children’s future. Steve considers his Uncle Bob, who has cerebral palsy and has been confined to a wheelchair his whole life, to be one of the most influential people in his life. He is inspired by his uncle’s ability to maintain the best disposition and virtually always wear a broad smile, even though he encounters adversity every day.

Steve has always been amazed at the personal growth and satisfaction that comes from helping others and encourages all to get behind a cause of their choosing. If anyone would like to learn more about the Over the Rainbow Association, visit their website at http://www.otrassn.org/about-us .

Paul Chen, who joined our Sales Team in April of last year, enjoys working with prospective customers to determine how Maintenance Connection can best meet their needs. He finds it very rewarding to hear customer success stories and share these with organizations in the decision making process.

Paul and his lovely wife of 8 years, Carol, were born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States in their youth. Paul arrived in the US at the age of thirteen with limited English skills, but worked hard to master the language. Within nine months, he had improved his skills dramatically, allowing him to attend high school without any special ESL instruction. Paul spent his high school and young adult years in Seattle, and now lives in Denver where he and Carol have resided for four years.

Although Paul and Carol have no children, they enjoy hosting international students so their house is always full of young people!  In addition to helping international students adjust to life in the US, Paul is very active in his church, helping to lead the Youth Group and providing Mandarin Chinese translation and interpretive services.

Paul, pictured below visiting his family in Taiwan, relishes every opportunity to travel back. As an AVID sports fan, he actually hopes to someday move back to Taiwan and open a sports bar!

In the meantime, he must settle for cheering on his favorite teams from the Northwest from home. While still recovering from the Stanley Cup loss of his beloved Vancouver Canucks, Paul is looking forward to next fall when he can cheer on the Seattle Seahawks and the University of Washington Huskies!

Although a somewhat recent addition to the MC Team, Drew is a familiar face to many of our customers, over 300 of whom he met while touring the country on the MCRV Tour! Drew started out working for Maintenance Connection part-time while completing his Bachelor’s Degree at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and joined us full-time upon graduation in the summer of 2009.

Drew was quickly recruited onto the MCRV Team, working diligently to help plan the tour and contacting customers to extend an invitation to attend. Little did he know when he joined MC that he would be spending three months touring the country in an RV – 14,000 miles through 32 states with stops in 24 cities! While on the road, Drew and Brian Kincaid, MC Client Services Manager, had the pleasure of training 320 individuals from 120 different companies. Feedback from customers indicates the tour was a great success – in no small part to Drew’s participation and willingness to spend a quarter of the year as a “road warrior.”

On the personal side, Drew grew up as the oldest of seven siblings on a farm in Northern California. His passion is hockey, which he still plays several times a week. On the UCSB Club Hockey Team, Drew served as assistant captain his junior year and captain his senior year, leading his team to regional championships and a good showing at nationals. When he’s not checking opponents into the boards on the ice rink, Drew also enjoys disc golf, snowboarding and surfing. Drew, pictured during an MC Staff Retreat, is known as a pretty fierce competitor, claiming multiple Maintenance Connection Disc Golf Championships!

When sports don’t provide enough adrenaline, Drew turns to his motorcycle. In the summer of 2006, Drew and a group of ten friends embarked on an intense adventure, logging 4000 miles in six days without ever touching a freeway. With “friends of friends” joining the ride along the way, the group boasted over 25 riders through much of the adventure. The highlight of the tour was “The Dragon’s Tail of the West” – a rider’s dream with 147 miles of un-cambered curves stretching from Redding, California to the California Coastal Range.

Given the enthusiasm Drew displayed working with customers on the MCRV Tour, he will be moving into a new role that allows him to continue this outreach – so don’t be surprised to find Drew on the other end of the line calling to touch base and make sure all is going well with Maintenance Connection at your organization.

Cary Yocum, a Senior Account Manager with Maintenance Connection for over 5 years, keeps our whole team busy, adding an impressive number and variety of customers to our client base each month! Cary especially enjoys learning about each prospective customer and then working with them to define a solution that will benefit and improve their organization. And, although he is officially part of our sales team, the “inner nerd” in Cary can’t resist getting his hands dirty on the technical front. It is a bit of a running joke at MC that when Brian Kincaid, Client Services Manager, has an annoying problem with his computer, Cary sneaks in as “Tech Support” for the day and finds a solutionJ.

As busy as Cary is with his MC role, a quick peek at his personal life makes it clear that the real work begins at the end of the day, when he shifts to “dad” mode. Cary and his lovely wife Melissa have three children under the age of 5, with another one on the way! They live in Colorado with their three active boys, Carson (4), Caden (3) and Carter (1).

Cary and Melissa met in college, where they both pursued their love for music. While at school, he studied both vocal and piano performance and even recorded a live music album with Melissa for their college. Cary continues to enjoy teaching music to young people, including a youth band from his church.

Cary’s involvement in his church extends beyond music, serving as a Youth Pastor. His most memorable experience occurred last summer, when he led a group of 25 individuals on a trip to Germany to remodel a teen center. To provide local youth with a safe place to “hang out,” they remodeled an old building housed in a troubled area of Berlin. The new “teen center” includes a lounge, as well as apartments. Cary recruited Scott Lasher from MC to join him on this rewarding endeavor. Cary and Scott are marked in the following picture of the group.

For those of you who might find Cary in your neck in the woods – he wants to be sure you know that he enjoys any excuse to take customers out to dinner…. any takers???