Techy? Sometimes. Funny? Often. Relevant? Always.

This has definitely been a year to learn to be thankful all over again. After taking so much for granted for so long, it seems like 2009 has been a year to remind you of what you have, who you are — and that everybody has something in their lives that nobody else does. In some way, some how, you probably found out this year that you had it made.

I discovered how blessed I am this year. And where it really showed was my amazing team here at Worthwhile, and I thought the best thing I could do was share with you how thankful I am for them. They’re smart, they’re witty. They challenge me at every turn, make me laugh when I’m stressed, hold my feet to the fire when they need to be (always!), and are always there to help. There is no “I” in this team:    

Brandon Godwin

Height: 5’10″
Position: Strategy Co-Conspirator
Share-able Fact: Homeboy’s engaged!

Why I’m Thankful: Brandon’s my co-conspirator-in-arms. We play off of each other like a scene right out of House. We hammer out our thoughts about Information Architecture, Usability, Content Strategy and more. The results are grand and we’re the better for it.

Of course, when we’re not talking Web Strategy, we’re up to our necks in a heated table tennis rivalry, both huge Duke fans, and he’s killing me this season in Fantasy Football. Brandon = Awesome.

Louisa ‘Big Lou’ Stephan

Height: 5’2″
Position: Software and Processes Know-It-All
Shareable Fact: She’s closing on her first home Dec. 8th

Why I’m Thankful: Every workplace in the world needs a ‘Big Lou.’ Unfortunately for the rest of you, there’s only one. Zeal and energy — it’s like ying and yang to her. You’re going to get it when she walks into the room. It’s infectious. So’s her determination. Lou probably doesn’t want you to know this — but it took her a good, long while before she landed her first sale. Now? Her pipeline’s as full as anybody’s in Worthwhile’s 15 year history. It’s a testament to her work ethic and spirit.

David Dorothy

Height: 6’2″
Position: Smartest Web Developer Ever
Shareable Fact: He’s passionate about open-source, but he loves his wife’s iPhone.

Why I’m Thankful: He saw the light long before his contemporaries did. He rejected flash when it wasn’t cool to do so. Now that more and more designers are jumping off the flash bandwagon, David’s looking pretty smart. He poured himself into knowing Joomla when others were cowering away because of the steep learning curve; but now the dust has settled and David may very well know Joomla (or anyone other open-source CMS) better than anyone.

He’s become a maestro of Web Development and Web-based Applications. He solves the “unsolvable,” creates the “undoable,” and does it all in speed-of-light time. He’s saved tons of my clients in emergency situations — all without breaking a sweat.

David, thanks for all that you do.

Matt Luard

Height: 6’1″
Position: Applications Overlord
Shareable Fact: His apartment is a Man-Cave that would make Tim Allen proud.

Why I’m Thankful: Well, quite frankly, Matt is the reason I have a job at Worthwhile. He’s spent 90% of his time over the last year handling a handful of my clients’ ongoing projects. He’s a coding genius, an applications specialist, a master problem solver who always has a “can do” attitude. I’ve received, literally, dozens of emails and phone calls over the last year sharing with me how much people appreciate our work. At least half of those were because of work Matt directly dealt with.

Georg Zimmer

Height: 5’10″
Position: Problem Solving Wizard
Shareable Fact: Yes — dude’s name is really spelled “Georg” <– there’s no “e.”

Why I’m Thankful: G, in the most blunt sense, is the greatest web problem solver around. He stares at the screen and sees pretty much what Neo sees. It’s like he can solve anything.

Further, as some of you may or may not know, is a CEH. What this means is that when someone calls and claims their site is being held hostage by some disgruntled developer, or that someone crashed their system out of malice or negligence, or that everything just locked up — I just smile and calmly reply: “It’s okay. I’ve got Georg.”

Mike McCurdy

Height: 6’1″
Position: The Human Router
Shareable Fact: Ask Mike which he likes more — Don Pablos or Happy Pie, and you’ll watch him argue with himself for hours.

Why I’m Thankful: Mike hasn’t been with us quite a year yet; but it’s been quite a year. Mike makes me laugh, makes me think, makes me get better. As his role has evolved here at Worthwhile, he’s taken more and more off of my plate and allowed me to focus more on strategy and not the technical aspects of the development process. The results over the latter half of the year speak for themselves. We’re on a roll now. And I think Mike’s the one pushing us down the hill.

Alex Woehr

Height: 5’6″
Position: Hunter of Code Monkeys
Sharable Facts: I pass Alex in a Seminary hallway exactly once every week.

Why I’m Thankful: Nobody’s as thorough as Alex. He leaves no stone unturned, thinks everything, through, and documents the mess out of every detail. Seriously, they should rename the Wiki the Woehr.

Just to give you an example — kid turned in his first custom built site several months back for First Impressions Team to test. The code validator found only 6 errors. If you know anything about development, then you understand the monster feat that is. Alex has brought a great new dimension to our team.

Leslie Ciesielski

Height: 5’4″
Position: EVERYTHING
Sharable Fact: I got to drive her Mustang once. Yeah — take that, Brandon.

Why I’m Thankful: If I took the time to write all the reasons I have to be thankful for Leslie, the server would crash. She’s been my savior countless times. She’s dedicated, tireless, and all-around awesome. In the last two years, if you asked me to point to a single point in time that was the shift in the “small” Worthwhile to what we are today, I would would put to two occasions: When Leslie joined our team, and when Leslie began training our clients on updating and managing their sites.

Leslie always finds a way. In a sink-or-swim web development world, Leslie’s like a fool-proof life preserver.

Dave Ruse

Height: 5’11″
Position: Creator of Sleekness
Sharable Fact: Homes has a Coach K bobblehead on his desk.

Why I’m Thankful: Dave’s designs have taken us to another level over the last year. It’s so hard to put so much trust in someone else as a web strategist has to with his designer, but Dave comes through in spades. He thinks through the design from the user’s perspective, and the difference in the end-result is astounding. The fact that dude’s a Duke fan certainly helps…

Kirsten Dietz

Height: 5’9″
Position: Creator of Spontaneity
Sharable Fact: Kirsten created, like, 60 potential logos for a gubernatorial candidate … and then made us choose one. UN. FAIR.

Why I’m Thankful: Kirsten’s the newest member of the Worthwhile family, but in her brief time here — she’s made her presence felt. Surprising in both her direction and efficiency, Kirsten helped steer us through the most crowded design season ever experienced by Worthwhile.

Her designs are going into sites that will be live soon. Prepared to be wow’d.

Jared Sutton

Height: 5’9″
Position: Series-of-Tubes Overlord
Sharable Fact: He’s boycotting Modern Warfare 2 because of their lack of dedicated server support.

Why I’m Thankful: If Worthwhile were a car, Jared would be the drivetrain. He keeps us moving. Because of Jared, we’re able to offer our clients a truly premium hosting and email solution. We don’t send some outsourced guy in to run our server maintenance and check our backups. Nope. Jared’s the one who’s there at 2 a.m. on Sunday to make sure everything goes over just shiny.

Jared, thanks for picking up the phone every time I call at 11 p.m. with a client emergency. You’re my Hero Support.

Beth Honshell

Height: I can’t remember. (Beth, are you taller than me?)
Position: Company Engine
Sharable Fact: When I need advice, 8/10 times — Beth’s the first person I call.

Why I’m Thankful: Beth is the glue at Worthwhile. She keeps us together, as a company and as a family. She gives way more of herself to this company than any sane person should — but Beth would just tell you she’s insane, so therefore, she doesn’t qualify. It doesn’t matter how many balls we drop, Beth’s there to pick them up and make us look good. She’s been the key driver in improving our process as a company for 3 years now. She’s done so much for me and for Worthwhile to get us where we are today, 10,000 thank-you’s wouldn’t be enough.

Beth, would you settle for just one?

Christopher Nicholas

Height: 5’7″
Position: Specialty Specialist
Sharable Fact: Chris secretly thinks I’m cool … though he’ll never admit it.

Why I’m Thankful: What doesn’t Chris do? He handles the more than 1,000 domains we have registered for our clients, takes customer support calls, tests sites, manages our online community relations … all part time?! Seriously…

Chris is my sedative. Whenever it seems the ceiling is going to fall, Chris continues to work diligently, with a slight smile on his face — calm as a cucumber. I wish we could have 100 of him … but I’m glad we have the one (and only).

Dan Wooster

Height: 5’7″
Position: The Grand Poobah
Sharable Fact: He has a football in his office autographed by major players on an NFL team. That NFL team just so happens to be the 2008 0–16 Detroit Lions.

Why I’m Thankful: I have no idea why Mr. Wooster hired me, but I’m glad he did. These last 2+ years have been so rich and wonderful, I wouldn’t trade them for the world. He always makes me laugh and I know that I can talk to him about anything.

Oh yeah — and he signs my checks. I’m definitely thankful for that.

Jonathan Pait

Height: 6’3″
Position: The Emperor
Sharable Fact: In his spare time, Mr. Pait cycles. You didn’t know that, did you?

Why I’m Thankful: Mr. Pait is the trusting one. He has a knack for always walking in the room just as we’re discussing or acting on something that might not be his first idea. He always smiles and lets us run with it. Whenever he comes in the office, it’s like a breath of fresh air swoops in. He’s always encouraging and always understanding.

Thanks for having so much faith in us, Mr. Pait.

Dan Rundle

Height: 6’2″
Position: Chief Powarundle
Sharable Fact: His 2 month old daughter has more hair than I do.

Why I’m Thankful: If you walked into a Monday morning strategy meeting, you wouldn’t know Dan was the boss. That’s just not how he rolls. Dan doesn’t drive us … he leads us. His trust in and care for his employees is unmatched. When he laughs at my jokes, it’s like he really genuinely thinks they’re funny.

There’s also a lot to be said about his wisdom. He’s frank when he has to be, reserved when its best to be, and always putting others first. Others notice it, too — which is exactly why Worthwhile is where it is today.

Dan makes every day a great day to come and work for Worthwhile. He is, without a doubt, the best boss to work for.

_________________________

Someone asked me just last week at a GSATC event, “I keep hearing great things about Worthwhile. What makes you so good?”

It was a flattering question. They answer I gave was the most honest one I could think of:

Because when people are hugging their pillows Monday morning, we’re already meeting to plan out our week.

Because when the lights cut off at 6:30 p.m. — the developer rooms are still full with devs putting in extra time to get things done.

Because when someone drops the ball, there’s a dozen other people there to help them pick it back up.

Because we care when one of us is hurting. There’s no measure to the loyalty of a Worthwhile employee.

Because we’re a family. Our turnover rate is — well — 0%?

Because we’ll never think we’re the best. There’s always a way to get better. And we have an entire team devoted to finding what we can improve and implementing that improvement. We’ll never rest on our laurels. We’d rather walk a sweet game than talk it.

And that’s Worthwhile. Not a company, but a group of people. They’re my team and my family away from my family. While others have fallen on hard times this year, Worthwhile has blown its own lid off with growth and quality of work. That’s not luck, kiddos. That’s an awesome team.

And they are who I’m thankful for this year.