Meet Josh Hicks: The Ultimate Champion for Success in the Field at Work and at Home

Welcome to Jumpmind Reveal, a blog series showcasing some of the talented folks we have here at Jumpmind.

In today’s installment, we bring you a profile on Josh Hicks, Jumpmind’s Senior Sales Engineer. Josh believes in being a “good sport” – no matter whether that’s championing Jumpmind client success or his kid’s sports endeavors.

Tell us about your relationship with Jumpmind?
I first met Chris Henson and Eric Long (Jumpmind’s founders) in 1998. And in 2008 I was working again with Chris Henson at Abercrombie and later Joe Corbin joined the company. Years later in 2014, I was one of the first senior-level developers to join Jumpmind, back when the company consisted of the four owners and Brad (Jumpmind’s Director of Sales Brad Wilmer), and a ping-pong table. We used to have all our team meetings around that ping-pong table.

What is your role at the company?
I’m a developer and software architect by trade, but soon found myself also helping out in the sales engineering role for our SymmetricDS and Metl offerings, and also in the marketing role helping out with events and conferences. Today I still write software, especially in the R&D area, focusing on new features. But my main role is customer success – helping support customers in the first six months of their deployments.

What do you do in your spare time?
I’ve got three kids aged 14, 16 and 19, so a lot of my time is spent with them and helping out with their youth sports teams. I’ve coached or cheered from the sidelines at baseball, football, basketball and fast-pitch softball games over the years. It’s very rewarding to see my kids play sports, as I too was an athlete as a kid.

There’s so much benefit in being involved with sports, but these days, there’s a lot of pressure and negativity from parents, which is unfortunate, and it forces a lot of kids to get burnt out and drop out. In my coaching, I’ve focused on reinforcing the beneficial elements of sport such as teamwork.

You recently sent your oldest child off to college – a major milestone for parents. How are you dealing with that transition?
My daughter is currently a freshman at Miami of Ohio University. Coincidentally, she currently resides in the dorm that is next-door to the dormitory that I lived in when I was in school there. She’s only two hours away by car, so she can easily come home when she wants to visit – maybe a little too easy! When we first dropped her off at school this past Fall, we told her to stay away for eight weeks. We wanted her to get acclimated and immersed in the college experience. But selfishly, it makes it a little easier knowing she’s not all that far from home.