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Meet CA Sr. Principal Support Engineer for Service Desk Manager: Jon Israel

By Chris_Stallone posted Jan 12, 2016 12:43 PM

  

How long have you been at CA Jon_Israel ? Jon_Small_Pic.jpg

10 Years!

 

What was the career path that lead you here?

Here is my story:

I graduated from college with a bachelors degree in Mass Communications, with a concentration in Critical Analysis Marketing, where I struggled with whether or not to stay in that field.

Graduating in May of 2002, it was shortly after the September 11th  2001 Events – the first graduating class since the events occurred, and it was not a great time to break into the career world.

After working at a retail job selling auto-parts for just over 6 months, I finally got into the marketing/sales industry for a very small marketing company.  During my time there I had taken on many roles, one of which was being the systems administrator (the resource they had decided to leave and I was asked to take on the role given my technology skills).   I stayed at the company for about three years, but realized there was minimal room for growth in such a small outfit, and it was time for a change.  I also had realized that the marketing/communications world had a great lack of opportunities out there at the time.

At that point I made the switch into the IT world and landed in a position at a large educational hospital/medical center as a "Lead Programmer Analyst" in early 2006.  I stayed there for a little over a year, but I found that things were very “political” within this particular organization, and was very unsatisfied there at the time. The dynamic was not a good match for me, and so I felt the best choice for my own sanity was to move on.

As luck would have it, a CA Recruiter had contacted me only a few days after I had made the decision to start looking…Fast forward to today…

Nearing 10 fantastic years later, I have been at CA since 2007 working in the Support Organization on the CA Service Desk Manager and the CA Service Management family of products.  I started out as a Support Engineer, and was promoted to Sr. Support Engineer, then Principal Support Engineer at my 5th anniversary at CA, and now Sr. Principal Support Engineer in my 10th year.

 

What product do you support?

CA Service Management family of products focusing on CA Service Desk Manager

 

What keeps you at CA?

CA is a very family oriented company, and has treated me well over the years, providing me with a lot of opportunity for growth and career development. What I like about CA is that the company empowers employees to be innovative, and become leaders regardless of your level or role, rather than follow the staus-quo. Not many companies offer that.  Also, I have to give a shout-out to my management team, as they are FANTASTIC!!  Without them, I would not be where I am today.  They are great mentors, and clear the hurdles or roadblocks for us to succeed as engineers!

 

This is me hard at work - possibly on one of your issues

 

What is your passion outside of work? What do you like to do?

Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my family and friends.  We love spending time in New York City (since we live so close) going to shows, shopping, dining, and sometimes just walking the streets to see interesting things.  Both my wife and I have went through a bit of a lifestyle change about six years ago transitioning into living a healthy lifestyle.  I have become a bit of a “fitness nut” as some would say – I go to the gym and do both cardio and weight training four or five days a week.   In my spare time I enjoy doing home improvement type projects in my house, and have been known to play the drums ever now and then.  Of course being an engineer, I enjoy playing around with techie stuff.  I do like watching a few TV shows, but I am not a huge media person.  I am more inclined to listen to music, for which I like many different types, but if I had to pick a favorite I would say Dance/EDM/Lounge would be my choice. I was a DJ for many of my younger years, which explains my love for music!  For vacation I love cruises - cruise ships are my happy place

 

What is your educational background?

I graduated from Miller Place High School in 1998

I attended State University of New York College at Oneonta, where I obtained a bachelor’s degree, graduating in 2002.

Within CA I have my CA University PhD, which I obtained in 2013

 

How has support changed since you started?

Where to begin – WOW, we have come a long way!!  Many things have changed over the years, but the most impacting thing is the culture of the support organization as a whole.  It has become a much more innovative culture, allowing for individuals to bring new ideas to the table, and execute upon them to benefit the team.  Aside from that, we have much more advanced resources and tools needed to effectively and efficiently support our customers.  In support, we are really like one big family.  We pride ourselves on helping each other, which in turn provides our customers with the best customer experience possible.

 

Why should people be involved in the communities?

It’s a great way to stay in touch with the other users of the same product, and learn what our others are doing. It helps you to envision the larger picture of how our users, both internal and external, are using the software, and what some of their biggest pain points, common problems, likes, dislikes, and wishes are for the product.   The collaboration between internal CA folks and external customers, partners, consultants is phenomenal and priceless!

 

Why should customers read Knowledge Articles?

Knowledge articles will allow a customer to resolve their own issue without having to go through the process of opening a case and waiting on an engineer to contact them. Knowledge articles will also provide customers with the steps to follow to accomplish certain things, and many times offer clarification, or a great accompaniment, to documentation provided with the products.

 

Follow the Support Engineer Here: Jon_Israel

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