Editor's Note: Genesis10 is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and as part of that year-long celebration, we are interviewing current and former Genesis10 consultants about their experiences.
Tom Turpin was one of the first consultants Genesis10 hired soon after it was founded in 1999.
From that first contract IT staffing opportunity at Sprint in Texas, he remained tied to Genesis10 and its broader network for decades. Over seven years, he worked with Genesis10 first as a consultant and later as a hiring manager. Now retired, Turpin was glad to reflect on both his consultant career and his relationship with Wayne Sueltz, who helped found Genesis10 and still manages the company's Dallas operations.
Tom Turpin traces a long relationship with Genesis10 that began with an early consulting opportunity at Sprint in 1999, and he emphasizes the trust, reliability, and integrity he experienced with Wayne Sueltz and Genesis10 as both a consultant and a hiring manager. He also explains how working as an IT consultant helped him move from teaching into technology, and he says he would recommend Genesis10 without hesitation.
In April or May of 1999, my contract had ended, and I decided to take some time off and do nothing for a while. So my wife and I went to Hawaii.
I had my cell phone with me, and one late morning I got a call from a man who said, "This is Wayne Sueltz with Genesis10. We are recruiting for Sprint, and I thought you might be interested in coming on board with us."
We met in person about a week later, and when I raised Sprint's awful reputation, Wayne said that was no longer true and that it was a really good place to work; in the end, it proved to be a fabulous place to work.
I knew Wayne was going to be able to get me a job, so if I reached out and said, "The bottom fell out over here, I need you to find me a spot," Wayne would do it. And the reverse was true as well: when I was a full-time hiring manager, I could call Wayne and say, "Listen, I need some help and I need these specific skill sets—can you fill them for me?"
I used to teach English at Texas State University, but after I got married I knew I could not make any money teaching, so I decided to change careers.
I moved from teaching into IT, and because there were not many people with IT degrees back then, I was able to work my way up from the bottom. After several years, someone came out of the woodwork and said, "Hey, how would you like to be a consultant?" I said, "What does that mean?" and he said it meant they would pay me by the hour instead of giving me a salary.
The hourly rate was twice what I was making, so I thought, man, you can't beat this. I went to work for an oil company in Fort Worth, and the rest was history.
Oh my God, yes. I always knew what I was going to get with Genesis10, which was a good solid offer, honesty, and integrity.