Friday Feature: Chris Myers
Game on
Chris's story
Your name: Chris Myers
Your role at Volunteers of America Michigan: Director of Information Technology
What brought you to this position? My mother was the CEO’s assistant at the time, and I had just left a company that modified printers to print on CDs. In 2003, Volunteers of America Michigan Auto was looking for people to sell cars on eBay, back before eBay knew how to sell cars, so I hired on to do that. I got to know the IT manager at the time, and when his help desk person left, he offered me the position. I’ve been here ever since.
What is your biggest takeaway from working with Volunteers of America Michigan? I love finding ways to use technology to help people do their jobs better. While I’m not directly assisting our clients, I know that my work goes toward magnifying what others do to help them.
What is your biggest challenge in this position? Volunteers of America Michigan is an amazingly diverse organization, and diverse in many ways. We do a lot of things, in a lot of places, so it can be challenging to keep up with everything. That is one of the reasons I like to get out to the sites and engage with people directly. I like my co-workers across the state to know that I’m here if they need me.
Where is your dream vacation spot? My wife and I are big fans of Disney World, but on shorter trips and smaller budgets we’re happy to hit a few local museums and see some nature.
What is your favorite book? Geez, that’s a lot to ask. “The Hobbit” was the first book that really grabbed me but growing up I’d have to give it to “A Wrinkle in Time” or its sequel “A Wind in the Door” by Madeleine L’Engle.
How do you spend your time outside of the office? Aside from general technological puttering on a handful of projects I do a fair amount of gaming. I’ve been into video games since my cool cousin got a NES back in the day and I wanted to be just like him. I also do a ton of Dungeons and Dragons style tabletop role-playing games. I prefer to play a character, but I’ve been game master plenty of times over the years and recently wrapped a three year long 5th edition game in my own custom setting.