There are no blog posts this month.

Mike Baum

Civilian Title: Business Development Executive, Netezza Federal Netezza

Military Title: Navy Chief (deploying with an Army unit)

Netezza Tenure: 8 years

Some of you may know Mike Baum, who has been with Netezza for eight years, in various roles. He is now being deployed to Afghanistan for the next 15 months and has offered to blog about his experience there. A bit more about his background in his own words...

I joined Netezza in 2002, working in customer support for Tricia Cotter as an installer for our first appliances; a great job where I had the opportunity to learn the inner workings of our appliance, interact with all facets of our small company and contribute to that initial positive impression for the customer. Those early installs were often quite a challenge, but they always ended well and proved to the customer that Netezza was a responsive, effective vendor.

I moved on to the Federal Sales team in 2006 because I felt sales was the right place for me to be. It's another very cool job where a passionate and sometimes overly enthusiastic person like me can evangelize to anyone who'll listen. And I get paid to do it! Woot!

On the military side of the house, I am a Navy Chief, serving with Mobile Expeditionary Security Squadron 8 in Newport RI as a Reservist. I've served in the military in some capacity or other since I was 18. I was recently mobilized, which is another way of saying I've been recalled to Active Duty and will be deployed overseas in support of the Global War on Terror. In my role as a Chief, I serve as the bridge between senior officers and the enlisted ranks, ensuring that mission goals are executed, that junior personnel are properly trained and led, and that everyone within ear-shot knows that I'm the best thing to happen to them since the invention of fire.

I've been asked to blog about my upcoming mission and share my experiences with my teammates here at NZ as well as the whole community of enzees. And since I miss no opportunity to talk about myself and inflate my own perceived value, I readily accepted!

The Home Base Program

Netezza is proud to support Mike and is fellow troops. If you too would like to support them, please join us in contributing to The Home Base Program. The Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital have joined forces to create the Home Base Program, a partnership designed to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their families. Working in cooperation with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Home Base Program supports and serves veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who are experiencing emotional and psychological difficulties readjusting to civilian life following deployment. To find out more, or to support the program, please go to http://homebaseprogram.org/index.html