Today is a special day; new challenges make me a better chance of settling. In a week I won’t be more your immediate boss and one of you will be the new one, so that things don’t stop and also to acquire the freshness that changes require. Although I’ll be around, surely I’ll have less time to see you at field as often I had before.
So, for not doing so when you’re no longer my direct collaborators, I take advantage of the night’s youth to write a few lines that surely I have released in pills before. Aware that some will read it late, it’s also understood that some might not know this are for them because of my stubborn anonymity.
First, thank you for being responsible for a lot of my success. Thanks for heeding sometimes crazy thoughts, sometimes delusional, sometimes as common as obvious common sense. Also thank you for ignoring me when you considered that my initiatives could be refuted, for having innovated against my will just for the security of knowing that you were doing it more properly.
It was said by others, rarely in these development processes many results are obtained with so little resources. This shows the talent that represents a team that was born with over 300 technicians hired on a temporary basis for less than $ 150 per month, from which came initially 32, then only 16 and, to the extent that the sustainability transfer demands, became only 8. Polish they were not my responsibility, I just had the idea, and the rest was reached by their persistence, discipline and the charisma of three mentors who were part of their character, warmth and expertise. I admit it; some have brought much of this and there were those who in the way didn’t allow helping or became difficult to continue. Thanks to the guys for not letting pregnant women on the road, to the girls for not leaving many broken hearts in the municipalities.
I am honored to see that the potential one day I saw in their eyes now has become in tools to make things bigger than ours, especially with less pain. Now they know what they wouldn’t repeat from their mentors, but also what they would reply again and again because it’s success guarantee, whether or not exists technology’s last tip.
Despite that not everything has been easy; we agree that the knowledge and the experience gained are invaluable. We must exploit it because there are very few shortcuts to achieve it more than the natural time of testing & error and, the sense for the opportunity that often does not recur in the same way.
So my final messages:
Make effort to not lose the inspiration in what you do.
As the first time you had a land card in your hand, with printing ink’s smell yet. As when you saw the compass moving got upside down, as when you played the GPS and realized there was not a MP3, when you made your first bearing in AutoCAD and a good topological cleanness in Microstation Geographics. Just as the day you faced for the first time to a group of new students, a tough Mayor, an AK47 in the jungle of the cadastre opponents. Print this passion in everything you do, with the rudeness of leveling the total station tripod, with the gently of grasping the cable – which you didn’t damaged, of course-.
Do not forget to aspire to be a little larger than the one who’s training you.
Know how to valuate who inspires you, praise the others capabilities to be large. Get excited to learn something new every day, even those simple things that bring good results in this life; as spelling, writing, good calligraphy, the order, the family closeness, reading, good coffee. Especially good mood in UTM format, authentic as we do in the 16 northern zone.
Suck up enough to strive to meet the requirements of this life.
Know how to valuate what you have at home, children grow up only once.
Stress and time pressure are not an excuse to make a call. A head’s pat will never return a lost laugh in a movie night with the family… even if we fall sleep in the middle of the film. Feed your spirit, tell people how much they are worth, if it is necessary to dip into the tacky, do it because in the day of your death that will be what will be remembered about you.
Be inspired, aspire, value.
And if one day we meet in a cafe, will be good laugh from this life that goes very fast. The coffee will always taste good, a securities concert at New Frontier, with Mary helping to serve the food.
With affection, Mr. G!