LSCT recognizes Chris Russell for this month’s Employee Highlight.
Chris Russell has been a game changer for us since day one. His character and attitude have always exemplified our core values. He has grown into his position as Director of Service easily over the years by hard work and perseverance. He organized our Service sector of the company and made it a true department. He developed a dispatching system using technologies in place at the time. We are very proud to have Chris as part of our family. Below, Chris has allowed us to get a view from his perspective.
1st some Quotes from Chris’ coworkers.
“Chris is amazing. Seems he has things done or had already been working on them before I ask him to! The guy is unreal. So happy to have him as a part of our Lone Star Fam.” – Chris Andrus
“Russ has been a go getter from the beginning; we didn’t have a true central service department before he came and he has made the department run very smooth. He handles nearly all the calls that come into the office. He is always pleasant to work with in the office, and never complains when he has so many calls with both phones going at once.”- Kathryn Marshall
“Russ is a very reliable coworker. He continues to maintain a great work performance with new and added responsibilities through the years. He is an excellent communicator with our customers and makes the Accounting Department billing very complete. He is funny and brings lots of laughter. Makes it nice to work with him and be in the office.” – Kristin Best
“He is always willing to tackle new tasks that are thrown his way with no hesitation. Since Russ has been with us, he has helped the service department grow tremendously. Russ is always putting the customer first.” – Steven Spangler
Chris Russell:
I began my career with the company September 2012, and it has been a blessing to be a part of this team for almost nine years. The relationships we have developed are beyond the work environment, and I am proud to be a part of such an amazing family. One of the first things I noticed, was the focus on employee wellbeing and development. If you want to learn, sky is the limit and if you need a shoulder to lean on, you will find more than enough backing. The support and encouragement to learn, advance, and succeed are unmatched.
My prior work experience has been in service management and office occupations. In 1988 I began working on a BAAS-Office Management and tinkering with computers while working on Data Processing courses (COBOL, Fortran, BASIC). I eventually graduated with BBA in Management with a minor in Marketing. Continuing to expand my formal education at 53 is still a goal and perhaps an achievable goal now that my girls are fully independent. However, and most importantly, I am fortunate to learn from the staff that surrounds me. Practical knowledge, experience, and expertise in this environment is a never-ending fountain of education and information.
For the first few months, we concentrated on getting me familiarized with Rauland systems and various integrations. This was truly a birds-eye view, as I quickly realized the amazing capacity of the system as a whole! Shortly after, Mike Nations instituted the development of our Service Department. Using my background in Service Management and Office Occupations, we quickly began transitioning. The initial focus was capturing service activity and within a year detailed processes began to shape and lead us to a formal Service Department. We would not be where we are at had it not been for the support of Administrative Staff, Accounting, Sales, Project Managers, and of course, some of the greatest technicians I have had the pleasure to work with.
As Lone Star Communications continues to grow, I see an opportunity to continue developing service and be a part of the expansion of the mostly software driven environment Rauland systems are evolving into. We are seeing remote services increase and I believe these will eventually encompass a large majority of services required.
Outside of work, my focus is to spend as much time as possible with our 3 daughters. Although Sally and I are now empty nesters (not including our Corgi/Beagle son and King of the House - Russy), dinner dates, Saturday morning hikes, and movie nights with our daughters are the highlights of our free time. Sally and I are also currently transitioning from our church in Killeen where we were involved with several ministries and where I played lead guitar for many years. We are hoping to find a home at a church nearby soon. This leads to another activity I enjoy occasionally: Let my hair down, put on an old bandana, grab one of my guitars, and rock to some contemporary Christian music or Santana backing tracks, and perhaps some 80’s hair band as I feel the ceiling fan blowing my long-gone hair back...
Thank you, Chris, for all that you do. We are lucky to have you. You emit our core values.
One Team, One Family, One Purpose.
-Victor Gonzalez, Chief Operating Officer, Central Texas