#tbt: The Day TSP Received its First Service Ticket

Omar Gonzalez and Tinh Nguyen, TSP’s third and fourth employees (after co-founders Rick Skaggs and Frank Gonzalez) have been with TSP from the very start. When Omar and Tinh reflect on their career path over the years, both #TSProckstars describe their experiences as a blessing in disguise and view TSP as a second family.

TSP co-founders Rick and Frank have a special relationship with Omar and Tinh that spans back to their years working together at Honeywell. They all worked together to build a solid computer support branch, which was shut down in 2002.

Rick and Frank were asked to let go of their talented team of engineers, which included Omar and Tinh’s positions. Instead of letting their talented employees move in different directions, Rick and Frank took a risk of starting a venture of their own, developing TSP and getting Omar and Tinh their jobs back.

Both Omar and Tinh recall this time as a daunting moment in their careers.

“It was a little scary. For those that know me, I am also a huge risk-taker. I love to gamble and play craps! I explained to Rick and Frank how it was going to be dicey for me to not take a paycheck for a couple months while the company was getting its feet on the ground, but I couldn’t turn down this opportunity of starting something new,” said Omar.

For the first few months of TSP’s founding, Omar and Tinh didn’t have many work assignments.

“Rick would come in every morning and ask us – ‘Do we have a call? Do we have a call?’ For one week, Omar and I did nothing but clean and complete inventory and organized all the spare parts. We had never spent so much time together! Omar and I kept waiting for something to happen so we could work,” said Tinh.

After much (maybe too much!) cleaning, organizing, and bonding, Omar and Tinh received their first CSC ticket. Tinh remembers that the call came in after lunch, while Omar had briefly slipped out of the office (Omar remembers the call a tad differently, as they often like to joke around about who was in the room to field the call first).

Regardless, they both clearly remember that the call was from Raytheon, and it was for a 4GB hard drive for a Sun Sparc 20 system. Both Omar and Tinh will never forget their first work order and knew it was the start of something special.

"We certainly remember that it was the beginning of something special. The week after that one call, we received another call from TI for a bid, and that is where the (work) flood started,” said Omar. “From there, we continued to grow and were able to hire other engineers who had worked with us at Honeywell! Today, TSP has grown to over 600 employees.”

Omar and Tinh have continued to develop both personally and professionally with this company, and each truly value every opportunity they have been given by Rick and Frank. The two are proud to be TSP’s first non-owner employees, and even more proud of where the company is today.

"There is a lot of pressure in our day-to-day job activities, but the one objective Rick and Frank have always maintained is to take care of our customers. That has always been instilled within us both at Honeywell and now at TSP. If I had to go back to the last 14 years, I wouldn’t change a thing," said Tinh.