For anyone who knows me well, they know that I tend to frown upon over-the-top cheesiness and status quo sentiments. “In these unprecedented times” is not something I’ve willingly said, nor do I plan to.

This company I founded is coming up on its 20th Birthday. And with Thanksgiving looming in what was easily the strangest year of my career (and life) – I can’t help but share the gratitude I have for the team I’m surrounded by every day and the blessings I’ve been given.

Back at the start of this century, just after college I was working in the big corporate IT world. I hated it. Not because of what you might assume – yes, the bureaucracy was challenging, and yes the politics weren’t fun. My biggest gripe, though, was pretty simple – I just wanted to do good and create things, and I couldn’t really figure out how to do that there. I spent two years on a huge project, and weeks after it was complete, a merger caused it to become completely thrown out. I asked myself, “Why am I doing this?”

So against a lot of people’s advice, I decided to go out on my own, along with my friend Matt. We founded CM Tech to provide IT services and support. Not very catchy. In 2006, we rebranded to BlueModus. Like a lot of things here, it wasn’t about some deeper meaning, although on paper it had something to do with the intersection of passion and technology. It had a ring to it and the domain was available – so we called ourselves BlueModus.

Those first few years were tough. We took on just about anything we could – and lucked into a few big, long-term accounts. But over time, the percent that luck played into our success lessened and lessened. Lots of hard work, a consistent and persistent commitment to transparency and integrity started to have impact. We earned more business than we lucked into. And we grew.

And then March of 2020 rolls around. And everything changes. Politics aside, the impact of the pandemic on small service-based businesses like BlueModus was felt almost immediately. And somehow, this team we put together over all the years shined even more.

They were gracious. They were understanding of the tough decisions we made – and those we feared making but never had to face. We committed to 100% honesty, so they heard our fears, they heard our opinions and they heard ‘We really don’t know’ more times than I can count. Uneasiness like that is hard, and somehow this team took it in stride. They accepted the ambiguity the Pandemic has put us into and just kept asking “How Do We Help?”.

They were funny. This may not seem a top priority you’d look for in colleagues when faced with a huge economic downturn. But I can say personally, it got me through. We laughed about a lot. We kept things in perspective and we gave each other the space we needed.

They worked so incredibly hard. We always put service to our customers as our top priority. And we always urge the team to have empathy for what our customers are facing – both personally and professionally. But, while each of our team members were facing lockdowns and kids at home and sickness and more – they kept delivering. They kept helping. They kept their patience and they made sure our customers got what they needed.

For nearly 20 years BlueModus has been delivering value and being honest. And 2020 showed it more than any year yet. So thanks, everyone at BlueModus! Thanks for reminding me about who we are and why we do this.