The events industry attracts people from a wide variety of backgrounds. The projects aren’t always straight forward quarterly meetings or annual conferences, sometimes they present challenging questions with unique scopes of work that require a team that can think outside of the box. The teams at Hargrove and Encore possess diverse backgrounds including military veterans like Encore’s Director of Network Engineering, Internet Services, Tim Kurzynski.
On the verge of graduating from high school, Kurzynski was drawn to the military and the idea of making his own way through his future. He saw joining the armed forces as an opportunity to travel, build a career, and pursue job skills training in the technology fields that had garnered his interest. After connecting with recruiters, Tim enlisted with the United States Marine Corps. With the Marines, he developed his network engineering skills and learned to build networks in remote locations across the globe. During his 4 years of active-duty service, he traveled across Asia and the Middle East, and spent 6 months on a ship throughout the Pacific Ocean learning about the US military’s impact abroad.
After his time in the military, Kurzynski continued to pursue a career in network engineering, consulting with small businesses, and connecting with a recruiter for Encore. Drawn to the people and company culture, Tim joined our team in 2006 and helped to pioneer the evolution of wireless internet services throughout hotels and conference centers. Something that now seems so commonplace with ubiquitous WIFI networks anywhere within a venue location, the service was just taking off along with Tim’s career. He helped to launch our Internet Services line of business, incorporating his military experience to help shape this new division of the organization, defining the policies and processes to make these projects and teams work.
Tim welcomes a challenge and values the connections he’s able to foster with his team. He’s a bit of an expert at setting up networks in remote locations. If you’re hosting a secret music festival in the middle of the desert or launching a pop-up brand event in Central Park, Kurzynski is the one to call to help you bring the whole experience online. His problem-solving skills and technical expertise help to elevate the unique projects he works on. As a member of leadership, Tim focuses on developing his team and encouraging their passions. His mission is to create a culture that focuses on employee retention. He works to connect with employees, plug them into career paths they’re eager to explore, and invest in their skill sets.
In a recent client meeting, not your typical event planner, he collaborated with PhD’s, engineers and other scientific and technical experts in their respective fields. The challenge was to formulate a highly complex, technical solution for their extremely specific requirements. The discussion went into thorough details, his military experience once again coming to the front of how the approach might work, and the customer team listened with great interest and engagement as the recommendation came together. The outcome: we won the project and Tim is now a key part of the team producing this unique experience.
As a member of the Encore team for 15 years, Kurzynski continuously employs the leadership, adaptability, teamwork, and collaboration skills he developed in the Marines. His innovation and tenacity are what inspire and lead the events industry forward. Hargrove and Encore are driven by our people, the talented professionals with diverse perspectives and abilities that create events that transform. Tim and all other veteran members of our team, we thank you for your service and appreciate you every day!
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