In May of 1993 I moved my family to New Hampshire from Sunnyvale, CA to take a position with the Engineering group of PC Connection. When we moved the owner of the company, Pat Gallup, advised me to look for housing in Keene, NH even though I would be working in Newport, NH. According to her, PC Connection would likely move the Engineering group to Keene in the “near future”. So we moved to Keene with the hope that the 35 minute commute to Newport wouldn’t be forever. I left PC Connection in 1996 never once having been based in Keene, although I did work out of their Bradco St. facility for a few days.
I took a job in Brattleboro, VT, a 25 minute commute, with a company called Modern Age Books. That gig lasted less than a year and earned them the nickname, Modern Age Crooks.
For the last 9+ years I’ve been with NewsBank, inc. in various rolls working out of their Chester, VT location, which is a 45 minute commute from Keene.
In the Fall of 2005 my boss started talking about opening a “development office” south of Chester in order to attract more technical talent from the lower valley area. The effort stalled, but eventually got its legs back in February 2006. By that time he decided to open an office in…. KEENE and asked me to run the place. By the end of April we leased space and the transition began!
Today, June 1 of 2006, was the first full day that I’ve worked in an office in Keene, NH that I’ll be returning to day, after day, after day… My commute is 2 minutes. I live 1 mile from work. I can think about walking and biking to work instead of driving the car. My 5 year old car that has 83,000 miles on it from commuting to Chester will start to get a break. I’ll be fueling up less than once per week. Today I was able to each lunch at home, pick up my son from school, make a bank deposit, and return a library book all during working hours!
Perhaps good things do come to those who wait and preserver.
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