MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:
Tom Braun rose from janitor to IT manager

Tom Braun started out at SD1 as a janitor at the Bromley Treatment Plant in 1973, expecting to work here only a few months as a fill-in while he attended college. Forty-eight years later, he jokes that he's leaving before they make him a janitor again.

Tom's official last day is tomorrow, December 21. During his tenure at SD1, he rose from part-time to full-time janitor to lab technician to IT manager, a position he officially retired from in 2010.

One illustration of Tom's work ethic dates back to 1978. A big blizzard struck Northern Kentucky, and Tom was low man on the totem poll at Bromley. Left with few options, he had to walk most of the three miles to work. After a frigid shift (they had run out of heating oil), Tom turned around and walked home. 

For the last 11 years, he has worked part-time on special projects in accounting, focusing mostly on the billing system. "Even before I retired and back in 2011, they had been talking about a new billing system," Tom says, "and the plan was always that I'd leave when that new system came on board."

Next month, SD1 will launch the first phase of the rollout of a new RosTech Utility Management Billing System, which will eventually mean a new user interface and new customer portal, among other enhancements.

"I figure once my purpose is gone - managing the back-end of the current billing system - if I stick around they're going to make me become a janitor again," Tom jokes.

He has seen a lot of changes over the years, but one thing that hasn't changed, he says, is that he's always had very good managers. "They let me fail, and sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success."

He says that when he retired in 2010, things were different. He'd just lost two friends, and was pondering his own mortality. "You don't know if you've got 30 years left or 30 minutes," he said. "So the first time I left, it was more like I don't want to drop dead three days after I retire.

"This time," Tom says, "the goal I was hired for has been accomplished."

What advice would Tom give to someone starting their career today?

"First, I'd tell them to sign up for deferred compensation, even if it's just $25 a month," Tom says. "But I'd also tell them - and this isn't so much advice - but opportunities always presented themselves to me. Every time I'd start to get restless, another opportunity came up where my interests were, and that's where my career path went."

Tom quotes Professor Joseph Campbell: "'Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.' It's so important that you like what you're doing, and not just because you like the people...because people come and go."

When asked what he'll miss most, Tom gives what is a pretty common answer here at SD1: the people. "There was never a time I dreaded coming to work. There has always been a great bunch of people to work with."