It’s our first employee spotlight in a series to come, and to celebrate our 22nd anniversary, we thought it only fitting to give the spotlight to our first employee – Cory Seaman. Cory’s history has been intertwined with fivestar* from the beginning, going back to his previous job where he worked alongside future fivestar* co-founders Dave Colaizzi and Lou Camerlengo.
Cory began his career as our first developer, and has driven innovation and architected some of our most notable and complex solutions. He is now Vice President of Research & Technology Services. In his 22 years, Cory has seen it all – three office moves, massive shifts in the technology industry, and more bagel Wednesdays and pancake Fridays than he can count.
What brought you to fivestar*?
Our esteemed CEO, Mr. Colaizzi! I contacted him within a few days of leaving the company that we had both worked for just prior, asking him if by any chance he knew of any opportunities in Pittsburgh for which I might be a good fit. He said “As a matter of fact…” and the rest is history.
Describe your role as Vice President of Research & Technology Services at fivestar*
Having a role that’s hard to put a title to has always been a favorite characteristic of my work here. I give oversight to the technology we use in building software. I’m responsible for our user support, DevOps support, and infrastructure. I do technical consulting to support sales and project engagements, and until they pry my hands from the keyboard, I’ll continue spending time architecting and developing our software.
"And until they pry my hands from the keyboard, I’ll continue spending time architecting and developing our software."
-Cory Seaman
What is the most impactful project you’ve been a part of at fivestar*?
That’s a tough one. The Publishing Manager and Publishing Center web applications we built for a client in the digital payments sector encompassed over six years of effort and affected thousands of the client's issuers, so that may be one of the most impactful projects I’ve ever had the chance to help design and build.
On a more abstract level, years ago I created some internal development tooling that generated repetitive database and business logic – the “plumbing” code for our standard web projects. It improved our efficiency a lot and has been leveraged on many of our projects for quite a while, so that might qualify for the most wide-reaching work I’ve done.
What is your favorite thing about fivestar*?
My favorite thing about fivestar* is that it’s always been more than an amazing workplace with even better people – it’s family. I’m glad I get to be the first one to answer this, too, because I’ve found that to be a pretty universal sentiment :).
What is an interesting fact about yourself?
In my IT career since college, I’ve only had two jobs, and Dave hired me for both of them.