Vinny Martin
Synergent’s mission is to ‘help credit unions succeed and improve the financial lives of their members.’ In our monthly Employee Spotlight series, we feature one of our dedicated staff members to help you get to know the people who are working as an extension of your credit union team.
Humble, hard-working, and friendly are just a few ways to describe Vinny Martin, Senior Information Systems Operator at Synergent. For over 14 years, he has been an integral part of the Synergent team, but as a seasoned computer operator with over 36 years of experience, he has seen great change in the technology space over the course of his career.
“My original degree in Recreation and Leisure Services was not working for me so well at the time,” shared Martin. “The only way to move up was to move to a new location and town. I knew I wanted to set down roots and was looking for a field where I could do that. I got into computers while working for my cousin’s cleaning company in Portland as a day porter at City Hall. I was able to explore different careers as I had access to all departments. The IT department was one I had to clean daily, and I got to know most of the programmers and the computer operator they had. From there, I began to attend Andover College for computer science.”
While at Andover College, Martin was approached by a recruiter who asked if he would be interested in a technology position at a nearby insurance company.
“This was back in March of 1988,” said Martin “I started out as forms person basically printing all the forms produced each night from their batch processing. I then moved up to operator trainee, then on to full-time operator. Back then, everything was a manual process.”
As Martin progressed in his career, he began to see automation slowly becoming a significant part of day-to-day data processing. In 2010, Martin joined the Synergent team as a temp and was quickly made a full-time employee. He was entrusted with essential tasks that kept the department running that required collaborating with many teams.
“Six months after I started, I was asked to take over inventory and billing,” shared Martin. “I was appreciative to be given this responsibility. It gave me opportunities to work with other departments more closely and I was able to negotiate with vendors to get the best price for our paper supplies.”
In the time he has been with Synergent, he has continued to see dramatic changes in technology. But these changes have provided him with new opportunities to focus on and new ways to support other areas operationally.
“My role has changed drastically with automation,” stressed Martin. “We used to have to execute each job at certain times. Now, automation takes care of the timing. We are able to focus more on being a printer operator and system monitor. Additionally, I have always considered being an operator to include providing top-notch customer service both internally and externally. For example, we work with programmers, analysts, and IT admins on printing test samples for a new credit union or on testing a new form soon to go into production. We work with Customer Service when we have rejected ACH files and system fatal errors with in Syms. I always come in a little early each day. You never know what you could be walking into. I was told once, ‘hope for the best, expect the worst, and be prepared.’”
It is impossible to imagine Synergent without Vinny. But, after so many dedicated years of hard work, retirement is on the horizon for him. While he has enjoyed the work and all that he has learned and experienced along his journey, the thing he has enjoyed the most are the people.
“Synergent is by and far the best place I have worked,” reflected Martin. “As I am approaching retirement, the one thing I appreciate the most are the people. Really, in all my past experiences, the one thing I come away with are the people I had the opportunity to work with. I will always be especially thankful for having the support from and opportunity to work with my current department, Information Systems – Operations. Tim Gilman and Shelly Richard are the best bosses I have ever had the opportunity to work with. Knowing they are watching out for us all makes me want to go the extra mile. As Synergent has grown, the management team hasn’t lost sight of the employees. We are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. Synergent has found the balance between putting the customer first, but also taking care of their employees. I will always be grateful for that.”
Outside of work, Martin enjoys golf, woodworking, carpentry, working around the house, and spending time with his wife of 37 years and their three grown children. He especially enjoys spending time with his two granddaughters, the youngest of whom he shares a birthday with.
“It’s no longer about me,” laughed Martin. “I gladly give up my birthday!”