Jan Zelezinski - Information Management Specialist

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Information Management Specialist - Jan Zelezinski

How did you get where you are today?

Finding myself still working on a building site at 19 when all my mates had gone to Uni and I hadn't because I'd failed English "O level" for the 5th time !!! I had a place at Loughborough College to do PE with the idea of going into teaching. This was 1970, when IT was called EDP, career masters weren't invented and jobs appeared in the Sunday broadsheets. So I took a one year fast track electro mechanical apprenticeship with Burroughs Machines, and along with a bunch ex BT engineers we went fixing everything from hand cranked adding machines up to mainframes. This took up the first 9 years of my working life. From there it was mini maker DEC and good old VMS, where I did everything from Service Engineer, Service Manager, Sales Account Manager and various Sales Specialist roles and escaped after the Compaq takeover with 21 years of service and loads of experience under my belt. Storage was my speciality and having worked in a team that setup the UK StorageWorks channel, I joined a long-term DEC VAR, Hawke Systems in 2001 and setup and managed their HP Storage Business, Hawke were acquired by Logicalis in 2005 and I had the opportunity to do something different and hence the Strategic Architect role, and hasn't 37 years flown by !!!!

What are you working on right now?

Well as an SA I'm into all sorts and have just finished a "Data Management Feasibility Study" at a well know London Uni, which was a whole new learning experience for me (enough said). I'm also involved in reviewing an NHS clients Data Storage and Management Infrastructure and working on our Virtualisation and Data Management go to market strategies.

Who or what has been the greatest influence on your career to date?

My first boss at Burroughs, Eddie Robinson, who had a lovely turn of phrase and one that I always remember was "Lad, in this industry you have to run to stand still" and how that has stood the test of time !!!

Who in business do you most admire and why?

"Alan Field Shugart" and if you know something about Storage you may know why !!!

What aspect of your job do you find the most satisfying?

Always learning something new, meeting new people and helping them solve their problems.

What has been your most valuable lesson learnt?

If it ain't broke don't try and fix it and driving round the M25 is a waste of time !!!

Which are your favourite websites and blogs?

Not into anything specific as I glean knowledge from all over the web but I do like "Multimap" since that inbuilt GPS thingy in my car gave up the ghost not long after I got it !!!!

How do you spend your downtime? Where? With who?

In summer it's playing golf and in winter it's watching rugby at BSRFC. My wife likes her holidays so we travel the world when ever we can and of course there's spending time with friends, family and a good bottle of red wine in the hot tub at the end of a hard day is a great tonic !!!

What lifetime ambition have you yet to achieve?

It was breaking 90 but done that this year so I guess it's got to be breaking 80 !!!

Tell us one thing that most people don't know about you.......

I clipped Ben Clarke round the ear and lived. Well he was only eight !!!