Uber, the world’s largest taxi company owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media company, creates no content. Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. We recognize technology is changing the way we live and interact with other people, businesses and the world around us. We need to embrace change and recognize new technologies.
New products and services can be our opportunity to differentiate and outperform competitors. We at Identifi have to challenge ourselves everyday to recognize change and create new opportunities for ourselves, our customers and Identifi.
Leadership is changing too. Leadership today is about sharing. One of the ways to share is to challenge those around you. We all know the grind. Sometimes it is all consuming. Pile on to the grind, a customer, boss or coworker presents us with something we don’t agree with for whatever reason, how should we respond?
We need more than company mission statements and vision statements to help us. We need reinforcement. We need core values to guide us.
Who better to define our core values than those of us who are hands-on people we can lean on, guiding you every day to make you successful? Toward that end we asked our Leadership team to craft them. We want to thank Chris Oppenheimer, Christie Russell, Jim Bryant, Matt Ullery, Stacy Paz and Tricia Lolkus for taking on the challenge and through months of meetings of minds produced Identifi’s Core Values. These Core Values also couldn’t have been done without the help of all of Identifi. We did an exercise whereby everyone at Identifi had an opportunity to whiteboard and choose the words that best define us. Our Core Values define our business and the people who are Identifi.
Check out our new Identifi website where you can find our Core Values on our new About Us page!
Identifi enjoys the company and considerable banter from our four Veterans. Billy Hartman, Marines E5, Chris Baston, Air Force E-5, Frank Marcario, Army E6 and Tom Pioli, Navy Chief Petty Officer . They are always trying to best one another, Army Navy, Air Force or Marines!
In Billy's own words. While I was in DC for a running event, my wife and I decided to take a walk through Arlington National Cemetery. I watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, looked at the names and dates on various headstones, visited a special hero from our area, and watched people throw their coins on the JFK burial site while staring at the Eternal Flame. At each of the locations I visited, I noticed handfuls of older veterans.
It wasn't until the Marine Corps War Memorial that I realized that something special was happening, but I wasn't sure what it was. The veterans were all being wheeled up to the memorial and I was approached by one of the people lining these men and women up. She asked if I would mind taking some pictures of her and her friends.
I always want to help out where I can, especially for a group of veterans. I must have taken a few dozen pictures. I was having fun and they seemed to be OK with me taking lots of pictures too. While I was taking their pictures, everyone that was not part of the group was pushed back behind a barrier and my wife snapped the picture of me taking pictures of the group. When I realized another 2 of 3 rows had been formed behind me (in front of the steps), I gave their phones back to them and they asked to take my picture and thanked me for helping them out. I told them it was my pleasure to help out some fellow veterans.
At that point, I showed them my USMC t-shirt and they all lit up smiling, shaking my hand, and became much more talkative. I snuck off to the side and found my wife. I walked back to our hotel and talked about how cool it was to be able to help out the group of veterans. I posted a few pictures of our day. About an hour past when a family member told us what was happening in the picture. These weren't just any random group of veterans. These were Honor Flight Veterans from South Florida. I had never really heard of Honor Flights before that weekend. It is truly an honor to think that I was a very small part of their trip.
Veterans Day is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, which ended the World War I hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918. On this day our Veterans are thanked for their services to the United States. Thanks guys! No doubt there will be plenty of banter over why Billy is getting all the attention. Billy ran the 2018 43rd MCM Marine Corp. Marathon in Arlington, VA. Not bad for a Marine. Identifi is proud of Billy, Chris, Frank and Tom. Thank you for your service!
