Matthew Walters Celebrates 20 Years at OGL

A huge congratulations to Matthew Walters who is the latest member of staff to join the Long Service Club having recently celebrated his 20th anniversary at OGL. Matthew was presented with an Amazon eVoucher, engraved glass trophy and meal for two from Neil Morris on behalf of all the Directors.

Matthew looks back on the last 20 years:

"My first interview was at Aggborough Stadium, followed by another interview and presentation to Debbie Barton, Sharon Moreno, and Jan Walsh. I'd been at my previous employer for 13 years at the time and had just been through replacing various IT systems so was able to call on that experience along with my customer service background and manufacturing/warehousing history. I secured the position as Software Trainer for Prof.IT and Finisher.

"My first ‘solo' Prof.IT customer is still with us as a software customer having recently moved to prof.ITplus. During my time as a trainer I think I was the first member of the team to carry out a training session outside the UK, for a bearing supplier in Neuchatel (Switzerland).

"As with most members of the Software division I've spent some time on the support desk and also helped with the nascent Neptune (prof.ITplus) project. During those early years the Prof.IT go-lives would often be in the company of developers to ensure everything went smoothly.

"I was naturally curious about development and Sculptor, taking the time to create a small CRM package in Sculptor 2 and helping with minor programming changes on site. I think this helped steer me towards a more technical role after navigating my way through account management, system sales, and running the Delivery team. This first involved a brief stint with the Contracts team as we investigated Sharepoint, followed by maintaining and evolving the Technical system (OTIS) until its replacement, before working with the Development team on Business Intelligence, prof.ITplus, and more recently the Profit4 knowledge base.

"During my time with OGL I've had the pleasure of working with Kevin Crowe, Phil Hawkes, Sue Bullock and Andrew Davies, as well as many others in the various teams that I've been a member of or worked alongside to make a success of projects such as CCF, FSW, WMS, Making Tax Digital, Brexit, and the various other challenges that come from maintaining and improving such a complex business system as prof.ITplus. I'm lucky to be in a position where every day can bring new challenges but also learning opportunities.

"The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have forced us to adapt how we work and I'm grateful that OGL have allowed us to work from home. It's a new way of working for everyone and it shows the pace of technology and who could have dreamt of this 20 years ago when even remote access to servers was a bonus and remote support often meant talking a user through which keys to press (and March meant manically preparing update disks for our Payroll customers)."

Charlie Grant, Matthew's former manager, congratulates him on his 20 years at OGL:

"I first started working with Matthew back in 2008 when he was managing the Delivery team which I was part of. Fast forward several years and a few different roles along the way, Matthew was handed the project of transforming OTIS into our call logging system. Not only did he manage that with ease he also managed to pick up a base understanding of the Sculptor programming language. I'm sure there were other factors that contributed to Matthew's understanding of Sculptor, one of those being his methodical thought process and his ability to analyse. Over time, Matthew has transitioned into the prof.ITplus Development team and has worked very closely with Sue & Phil (amongst others), no doubt learning the tricks of the trades from the masters. With his commitment and desire Matthew is now steadily becoming the prof.ITplus master of all, although he will be modest and tell me he still has a lot to learn.

"A true asset to this business and I thank Matthew for his dedication over the past 20 years. I have no doubt Matthew will give his all for the next 20 years!"