My best pal

16 12 2013
Billy Marbet_Mike Sisco

Billy Marbet and Mike Sisco – 1950’s

Billy Marbet has been my best friend for a long time. I tell people, “We met when he was 4 hours old.”

I don’t know exactly when we met but our parents were close so I’m sure it was within a day or two. We have been close friends ever since.

Growing up was a blast in Hohenwald, Tennessee. Here is a photo taken by Billy’s Mom, Sue, , , “my second Mom”. We played “Army”, “Swamp Fox”, football, baseball, basketball, , , we were active kids and at 10 and 11 rode our bikes all over Hohenwald and Lewis County.

It was a different time, , , a great time to grow up.

 

 

 





Best golf of my career

16 12 2013

1970 was my best golf by far while stationed at Kaneohe Marine Base in Hawaii. Pictured below are Allan Westbrook, Joe Capri and me (driving) in the 1970 Hawaii Marine Golf Tournament. We finished 1, 2, and 4 in the tournament. We were all 19 or 20 years old, , , good times.

Mike Sisco_Allan Westbrook_Joe CapriKBAY Marine News article

I played 18-36 holes of golf every day because I worked midnights as a Computer Operator so I took real advantage of it and improved my handicap to a “1”. That means I shot par or better on most occasions.

I even remember asking a fellow Marine, Jim Rainey, “How can you be a “7” handicap?”

Those days are long gone. Dorine and I got married on December 26, 1970 and priorities changed, , , a good thing :).

Joe Capri became a good friend and we played many rounds together. Two of them are memorable. I was with him when he double-eagled #7, a par-5. We thought his 2nd shot was in a bunker but it finished in the hole, , , double-eagle is the 2nd rarest feat in golf behind “shooting your age”.

The 2nd memorable round was when I beat Joe in the KBAY Men’s Association Tournament, , , primarily because he putted terribly. On the 14th hole, he literally putted a 30-footer off the back of the green and had to chip back onto the green. After that he was so frustrated he broke his wooden shafted Otey Crisman putter and threw it away. I asked if I could save it and still have it.

Joe was one of the best ball strikers I’ve known. When he putted well he was hard to beat and a great teammate on the Hawaii Marine Team of 1970 and 1971.

I can’t play like I once did or hit it nearly as far as I could back then even with the new technology we have today, but I have some very positive memories of “when I could play this great game of golf”.





Time for a career change

15 12 2013

career-3It was September 1, 2000, , , my 51st birthday and a day that changed my life forever.

I walked into my CEO’s office and told him that I planned to leave the company and wanted to transition in a way that would create a win-win for both of us.

We agreed to a 6-month contract that would help us both make the transition a positive one. This contract would get extended twice and run 13 months before we finally parted ways.

I had been considering the idea of creating a company and working for myself for some time. This isn’t something you do haphazardly and without considerable thought, , , or at least I don’t.

So, , , on September 1, 2000, , , MDE Enterprises was born, , , sort of.

I still wasn’t sure what MDE would do, , , i.e., what products or services we would sell. Initially, the company was a consulting company because most of the revenue came from the contract with my former company our first year.

What I did know in the early days of the company was that I did not want to be a traditional consulting company. I didn’t want to have to “work an hour to be paid an hour”, , , plus the travel and the seemingly constant need to be in marketing mode to insure you have contracts lined up was unappealing.

I’ve never looked back even though there have been times when the going was difficult and at least once when I thought I might have to go work for another company again.

In future posts I’ll chronicle some of the key events that have allowed us to run a successful small company for 13 years that “helps IT managers of the world achieve more success”.

The last 13 years have been an amazing ride full of interesting coincidences, travel, and being able to do things that helps many around the world achieve more success.








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