With that in mind, and without further ado, I give you:  Ryan Walker!

Tell us about what you do at Rackspace.

I’m an Account Manager for the Cloud.

Describe your team.

Oh, the powerhouses I sit near? They are amazingly diverse, compassionate and honest.

Define Fanatical Support®.

Doing everything you can to provide the best possible solution to our customers.

What things do all Rackers have in common?

A desire to help those in need.

Talk about a typical day at Rackspace.

I show up to this amazing office in an old mall that I grew up shopping at since I was a little fella. I make my way to the coffee bar and purchase my regular large iced soy sugar free caramel coffee. Forty steps or so away I make it to my desk. Check my email and voicemail and go through my notes I made the day before. I assess the situations of the day (since my shift starts at noon) then hit the ground running. Tickets/phone calls/reaching out to the client and meeting with any department I need to to get answers and sort out my client’s issue. Lunch is here before I know it so I typically try to go down the street and get some sashimi.  Come back to work and get the queues cleaned up and organized as well as I can for my team to come into the next day.

Why did you join Rackspace (be honest)?

The thought of working for an employer who valued me as much as I valued them was always a dream. It’s the closest thing to having a “cradle to grave” job for my generation. Rackspace provides this as I do for it.

Tell us a story about you and a customer.

I talked to a client for close to an hour one night ( I was on 3rd shift at the time). He was in his late 70′s and he told me to keep being passionate about my work and always make time for myself and my family/friends and I’ll always be in a good place. That old dude was pretty rad.

Since my last post, our company has continued to grow like Lo Pan’s henchman Thunder when he discovers Lo Pan has been killed in the cult classic movie, “Big Trouble In Little China” (but without the messy and gross exploding into pieces bit).

The reason for our growth is that Rackspace has set itself on a path to build a company that creates and provides the most in-demand technologies, at world scale, backed up by a USP (unique selling proposition) of Fanatic support. That’s the business end of it. But I’ve come to know that the life blood of our company is really that we have a purpose that goes far beyond that.

We have attracted so many to our cause because of the chance to do their best work and help to create cool things and provide value through our products and services. That’s the work need. But there’s also the culture attraction. The call that beckons to them is that life at Rackspace has a different meaning than an ordinary job.  A chance to make a positive difference in a world that sorely needs some good energy.

These days, working at Rackspace is being immersed in good energy. It’s really contagious, because our culture is full of people who truly care about our others. We all know that we have to work to provide for ourselves and our families, but we also want that work to mean something. I see or hear almost daily about Rackers who go out of their way to make sure that it does. Here’s an example of some of their current and past work:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2011/08/09/rackspace-team-tops-in-fundraising.html

http://grahamweston.com/2009/12/14/katrina-shelter/

To me, our purpose and our passion really boils down to helping others. As our Chairman and Co-founder Graham Weston once said:

“What we all want is to be valued members of a winning team on an inspiring mission.”

That’s good energy. If you like what we are about and have your own good energy to contribute, you are encouraged to apply. The world needs you!

There were over 3,000 Girl Scouts roaming around the parking lot of Sea World pre-earning their badges by participating in games and activities provided by several of the sponsors. Rackers volunteered to represent Rackspace and help the girls earn our badge.

We had three activities that had to be completed by each Girl Scout in order for them to get their badge: write their name in Morse code, complete a technology time line, and attend a “Meet the Racker” session. We provided the Girl Scouts with take-away cards of our Rackspace Core Values and strengths. The girls were allowed to receive their badges at the event, and are committed to finishing the curriculum throughout the following years as a Girl Scout. We love the opportunity to show young girls that technology is COOL and full of possibilities!

Spartans, by Josh Thielbar

“The Spartans started off from an idea from Chris Pierce I believe. I forgot who else contributed, but the reasoning behind them is because of the corporate sales segments relentlessly driving towards our sales goals.

“For example: in the last few days in November, we were only at 70% of our goal. There was little hope, but we had alot of Rackers put in some serious hours, and crazy work efforts to get us to our goal literally in the last several minutes of the day before midnight.

“We never give up an inch of ground, and we fight until the end to hit our sales goals.

“We’ve got some cool gear too. People compliment our flag and our wicked awesome shirts all the time.”

Blue Team, by Annalisa Rodriguez

“ We are a part of the “Sales Spartans.” We wanted a name that coincided with the Spartans theme, but was outside the box – “Blue Team” was made famous and renowned because it was the designation for a prestigious Spartan-oriented squad from the popular game, Halo.

“Much like the Halo characters, members of our Blue Team are heroes, masters of battle, strong, persistent, achievers but more importantly, we work together.  It’s key in Victory.  We have our Master Chief (aka Manager) and the rest of us are respected Officers/Lieutenants.”

A1, by Mark Melin

“Our team, A1, was chosen for a special mission when CCM launched.  The charter of the team was to not only provide Fanatical Support, but also to identify, consult with and migrate customers that were considered to be cloud ready.  A1 ran as a support team and a migration team until September of 2011.  Starting in October of 2011 we became a migrations only team called Cloud Ready.  A1 still lives as a support team within SMB.

“A1 was composed of passionate Rackers that were chosen to take on a new mission for Rackspace.  A mission that was somewhat difficult being that migrations were, at that time, not advertised or offered to our customer base.  The mission required a team of Account Managers as well as Technicians that could think outside of the box in order to accomplish our goal.

The Account Managers made sure to set the right business expectations and coordinated both our traditional support requests in addition to the migrations we were responsible for.  They also helped build the support model for how migrations would be handled.

The Technicians took on the task of figuring out how to logically move our customers from physical to virtual devices.  This was an interesting challenge that was met with many obstacles, but they figured it out.  They created a process known as the “rescue mode migration” which has been used to move hundreds of servers.

The team worked hard and embraced the spirit of treating fellow teammates like Friends and Family.  It was a privilege to be part of it.”

Ozone, by Paul Voccio

“The team name came about as we were trying to find something Cloud related since that was our product. Ozone was chosen because it abbreviated easily (o3) and wasn’t already taken.

“Most of the developers on the Ozone team are strong python developers with a background in systems engineering or networking. We’re a distributed team with concentrations in Blacksburg, San Antonio and San Francisco but have developers scattered across the US and even one in Canada. “

Thunderchats, by Chris Stapivic

“Email and Apps chat support started January 19th, 2009. After a very successful Pirate day at Datapoint, one of our guys decided our team name (at that time we were merged with the phone team) should be called “Jolly Rogers”. Once the Support Specialists were added to our team, we changed our name to “Auxed 9ers” which is the code used on phones when you were logged out to take chats.  About a year later, we moved to the Castle and started thinking about team names for this wickedly awesome team. While Kris Workman, one of our veteran chatters, was in a heated conversation about the ThunderCats, Scott Chandler stood and goes, “Woah, did you just say ThunderChats?!” to which Kris replied, “No, but that’s a great name” and the rest is chat history!

“Just like the ThunderCats, we’re all totally different but have a deep passion for what we do. We have Lady Gaga lovers and video game enthusiasts as well as the best meme creators in town. A “typical” ThunderChatter isn’t typical at all outside of our fierce ability to multitask and rock out to 90′s music. We’re all quirky in our own way, and super dedicated to Email with an ability to adapt to change in a snap with a drop of “weird”. THUNDERCHATS ARE GO!”

Ott-ermen Empire, by Matthew Teehee

“The Ottoman Empire was one the the longest lasting empires in history, much like our team we will last just as long.  At the height of its power it was known for its multinational and multilingual culture. Our team is composed of different likeness as well and we are here to ensure not only our success but the success of our peers and co-workers as a whole regardless of team title or support.  The empire matured to a level that once it was official defect in the 1920′s much of the knowledge it had obtained through its rein was adopted in to the different nations it was broke in to. Much like our lead Ken Ott, we are not here to keep people in one spot, we want our people to mature and grow whether it be with us or with another teams and spread the knowledge that was gained in the time they were on our team. “

Pretty rad, right?

Now go explore some jobs and apply to join our team!

Now, this in and of itself is cause for celebration.  We made the flippin’ list, again, and even rose in our position.  Taken in tandem with Glassdoor’s recent survey, Rackspace has never been more able to say we work at one Fanatical place.

One more thing: an interesting piece of information may get lost in the shuffle if you don’t look carefully.  While Rackspace ranks #74 out of Best Companies to Work For, it actually ranks #3 in terms of % of job growth, at 37%.  That means that not only are we one of the best companies in the universe to work for, but we’re hiring.  Feel free to skip over to the Careers section up top if you want to join the team!

Personal reflections aside, San Antonio has recently made the news as it topped the list of the “Cities With The Best Economies in America” according to Forbes.com.

If you’re on the bubble and not sure if San Antonio is right for you, I encourage you to explore the web and learn more.  Here are some resources to get you started:

• San Antonio – Relocation Synergy Group
• San Antonio Chamber of Commerce
• San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau
• The Art of The Future

Choosing the best place to live for you (and your family) is an important decision.  Feel free to comment if you have questions that we can help answer!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last Friday, Rackers spent the morning packing up 1,000 boxes with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, corn, cake mix and cranberry sauce.  It was an incredible effort that ran like a well-oiled machine.  This prepared us for Saturday’s big distribution day with 505 families passing through the Rackspace parking lot to pick up their Thanksgiving meals, which included the box of trimmings, a turkey, and drinks.

Partnering with our local schools in the Castle Community, the San Antonio Housing Authority, and the San Antonio Food Bank, vouchers were distributed to families in need within our neighborhood and San Antonio at large.  The families who came by were truly grateful to the Rackers who moved into this community and have done so much to give back to this neighborhood.  Not only were we able to feed so many people this holiday season, but we were able to give them a greater gift – to be able to cook a Thanksgiving meal together in their own homes and celebrate the holidays with loved ones.  Through various partner organizations and the San Antonio Food Bank’s outreach program, the remaining 495 boxes have been allocated to other families in need throughout San Antonio.

You can check out the additional highlights on the KSAT news coverage here.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families!