Living and working in New York City was an amazing experience for this country girl. Several years later, my monthly trips to the greatest city in the world are still a big part of what fuels me. The energizing and culturally stimulating nature of New York City are a necessary and invigorating boost to both my personal and professional lives. After a trip to New York, I get the feeling I have been injected by a giant shot of caffeine. Its effects last at least a week. Stable, constant energy, clarity, and inspiration that has a minimal, gradual crash.
This is the beauty of the place that we live and run our business. Hawley is close enough to New York to take monthly, or even weekly trips for business and or pleasure, located just 90 miles from the Lincoln Tunnel. This proximity allows us to run our business at a lower cost compared to New York City and enjoy our beautiful surroundings of open space, wildlife, and all things outdoors.
Hawley’s proximity to New York is precisely what spawned my decision to move back. Although I sometimes wonder what was being slipped into my drinks prior to making that decision, fortunately my positon within a expansive, potentially global technology company still affords me the opportunity to collaborate with the same level of worldly intellects as if I was still living there.
LockData is part of the New York City community, which is in fact vital to our professional success. We leverage our inherent big city pace, commitment to success, and thinking to entice big city clients to spend less money and receive the same level of service as they would from a big city firm. Creating evolutionary technology requires worldly, intellectual thought leaders. Therefore, I am lucky enough to be surrounded by them every single day at the office!
Hawley can be a pretty sleepy place. Therefore, it is the perfect place for retirees, folks burnt out from city life, and a very safe place to raise a family. Then there is the smaller population of entrepreneurs; such as, myself and my colleagues who’s business progression comes only second to our deep rooted love for nature and everything outdoors. As a result of said passion, we have chosen to settle down in this seemingly sleepy town.
A percentage of this sect of the population, even have 9-5’s in New York City and commute 5 days a week via the Shortline Bus Company. Others of us travel there as frequently as possible to network, meet with clients, and build relationships. We are the high energy black sheep of this small, sleepy community. We require weekly doses of the peace of the woods but also require weekly doses of global, progressive, thinking. We have an overwhelming work ethic. Albeit this work ethic draws us to constant progression, every weekend we are induced by this same passion to the slopes, the trails, and the mountains.
Passion is what drew me to live in New York City in the first place. Growing up in Hawley, New York City was the only place imaginable to live after college. As Baz Luhrmann poetically states in his inspirational speech to the class of 99′, “Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard”. This feeling of hardness set in for me after about 2 years in New York. After all, you can take the girl out of the country, but apparently you can’t take the country out of the girl.
My first boss right out of college at the W Times Square nicknamed me, Laura Ingles Wilder. During my college internship at the Borgota in Atlantic City, my fellow managers would ask me if people in my home town wore shoes or if they wore animal skins on their feet. It was only after a plethora of these types of experiences, I realized it was possible to have the best of both worlds.
The same opportunities and challenges that I was experiencing in New York City are available right here in Hawley, and then some. Developing and running a big city business, in a small town, now that is a challenge. Luckily, the foundation has already been
laid by an extremely motivated, talented group of individuals with this same energy and passion that I possess. Now we rock out.
