1975 to 2015 Newsletter Article

1975 to 2015 - Bill Schnauffer completes 40 years at HP

Commemorating Service anniversaries are not new in HP. But there’s a difference to Bill Schnauffer’s impending service anniversary – On October 27, Bill will complete 40 successful years in HP. We caught up with Bill to find out how it was like working for the company when he started out in 1975, some of his biggest achievements and many more…  

 When it all began

Bill commenced his HP journey with field service, mostly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – where field engineers would support the customers on site and fix their computers. The team had beepers which allowed customers to locate the team for emergencies - weekends and nights included!  Bill remembers carrying a tool box, an even heavier oscilloscope while he went about fixing computers. Those large computers which used to take a corner of the room were called ‘minicomputers’ only because they were not as big as huge IBMs that took up a whole room. 1975 beeper and oscilloscope

Street headhunters Vs longevity

Bill had his Digital-Compaq stint at a time when IT was growing tremendously. Many people were making lots of money off the stock, Silicon Valley was bursting and so it wasn't hard to ‘stay”. Although it was nice to be approached on the street by the headhunter who tried to lure him with double the salary he was earning, Bill was convinced HP was the place to be.  So his answer was always," No, thank you”. And his approach to staying in the game during the challenging 90s was simple - superior performance and keeping up with the profession and industry. After getting his PMP in as early as 1993 (went on to become one of the 2000 PMPs in the world at the time), Bill then got himself more involved in PMI and started networking within and outside the company.

Bill’s advice to young PMs

When you are given the problem, figure out the solution with the team instead of someone giving it to you. Prove yourself and at one point in time you would not need a manager or a team to watch over you.

Crossing paths with old timers, different roles

 When asked if he came across anyone who joined HP in the late 1970s, Bill could recall one person whom he trained. The employee who joined HP a few years after he did, continues to be with HP. Understandably, the roles and teams that he has changed over the forty year time period would be in the hundreds.

Biggest achievement

Creating a recognition plaque for employees when Digital had its last day before being bought by Compaq Computers. The card titled “End of an era” had a digital logo and a bright colored picture which could be printed after automatically capturing the tenure. It was a huge hit in no time and there were even VPs giving away “End of an Era” plaques to employees.  Years later, when Bill visited the HP office in Sydney, Australia he chanced to see the same old picture sitting pretty on the desk of a proud employee. Bill recalls that it has by far been the biggest achievement of his career – when he filled a void and created something special that brought a smile to many employees’ faces, world over.

 Recognition plaque that Bill created  on Digital's last day