Employee Spotlight: Selah Konur

Selah is the Technical Specialist at the Innovation Lab. He has taken amazing initiative by leading the development of our new Makpar Tech Portal AND our monthly Makpar Tech Portal, working under the mentorship of Lab Director Tariq Islam. His go-getter attitude and passion for constant learning is an inspiration to us all. Management is very proud to spotlight him this month. Congratulations, Selah! 

Get to know him better with this Q&A: 

🖇 How did you come to join Makpar? 🖇

My friend, Justin Torlone (IT Manager), referred me to Makpar. He had been telling me for a long time how awesome Makpar is. He really enjoys working here!

Before joining, I was designing & installing audio, visual, & IT systems for enterprise companies. I was ready for a change. I knew I wanted to grow more. I started getting IT certifications before I joined Makpar. I was especially interested in the cloud. 

I saw an opening at Makpar that was a really good fit, utilizing cloud and AWS and other tools I was interested in. So I applied to work at the Innovation Lab and it turned out to be a great fit! 

🚀  What parts of the Makpar mission & culture do you connect with most? 🚀 

Overall, I love that in the culture at the Innovation Lab there's always a learning process. I really appreciate how Makpar spends a lot of resources to invest in people. 

Being supported top down in an organization is not a common thing. I've worked in several different industries, it just doesn't exist. This is the first company I've worked for that does that. The $3K stipend just to take certifications is so generous.

🏅 What's your biggest accomplishment at Makpar to date? 🏅

The Tech Portal is awesome, but I am most proud of working with Tariq and making the Monthly Tech Forum a working thing. That's the most important thing as a team I've been a part of.

It opens the floor up to everybody at Makpar to converse about technology and projects we're working on. It helps us communicate across departments better. I look forward to learning from other projects and departments.

We're not so silo'd. Inter-department communication inspires me to help solve business issues. I'm a big fan of business systems and I'm driven to constantly find ways to make processes work better.

🔬 What is it like working with your team at the Lab? 🔬

When I first joined the team, I was intimidated. I wasn't sure how I'd fit in culturally & technically! There was a big learning curve, but it was exciting and I really wanted that. 

Now I feel great. Communication helped. Questions are key. I'd ping Peter or Tariq to get my questions answered, and catch up, get on the same page, become a contributing factor to the team. 

I've seen Peter become the technical expert at the Innovation Lab. He's really stepped into that role. Now I'm seeing others like Phung and Thomas grow. It's so great to see all of us grow together! It's a friendly competition to help us reach our highest potential.

☄️ Biggest inspiration at the company? ☄️

Working with the team at the Innovation Lab and especially Tariq. Tariq has supported me a lot as a mentor. He is the go-to for me for questions. He's a great leader. He knows what he wants and, more importantly, what he doesn't want.

🗣 Advice to new employees? 🗣

Mindset is everything! Have a good attitude. An overall positive outlook and being inquisitive helps. Be willing to ask questions and you'll always learn.