First of all, let me just say this:

*whew.*

That palpable sigh of relief is because, as anyone who has possibly stumbled across this site from my other blog might know, I’ve been looking for a new job since earlier this year when it became clear that my old position had been put in jeopardy by the state of the U.S. economy. With my saint-like wife and three ever-growing little boys looking on like orphans in a Dickens novel, I knew that securing a new job quickly and decidedly was not just a high priority, but a literal necessity – and I usually don’t like to use the word “literally” literally.

So I’m very proud to reintroduce myself to you as the new Director of Marketing at Alps Controls and their rather impressive e-commerce website alpscontrols.com. Based in Homestead, Pennsylvania (roughly 15 minutes east of downtown Pittsburgh), Alps Controls sells thousands of HVAC and building controls products to commercial contractors around the world. We have over 100 manufacturers of a wide variety of sensors, temperature control equipment, security access controls, leak detection systems, and a whole host of high-tech wizardry that I need to learn a lot more about.

I’ll be handling all of the marketing content on the Alps Controls website, including the creation and management of online video, sales and promotional content, advertising, posting to the company’s blog site (which, in short order, will be migrated to WordPress because I’m a WordPress snob) and development of other social media tools to increase interaction and communication with our audience.

It’s a terrific new opportunity for me, and after joining Alps a week ago, I know I’ve made a great choice. The company’s management has created an extremely employee-centric community with the entire team dedicated to success, cooperation, service and meeting our customers’ needs. I’m extremely excited to get working with all of them, and to discover new online tactics to help get the word out about our products, manufacturers, and terrific value of our e-commerce site.

Personally, I’d like to send out a warm thanks to everyone in my circle of family, friends and others who provided help, tips, leads, recommendations and all manner of assistance while I was searching for a job. It was a stressful handful of months that I wouldn’t much want to revisit, but – like tough times tend to do – I feel like I was able to learn not just a lot about myself, but about the people in my life who I love and value. Again, thanks.

Coming up next time: some plans for this blog, thoughts about my other one, and other future musings. Come back soon and we’ll figure it out together.