We Interrupt This Blog for the Following Special Announcement: *I*AM*EMPLOYED!*

I have been offered and have accepted a position with Broadspire, an excellent third-party claim administration company.

I will be the Dedicated Unit Manager for the on-site HISD unit, managing the Broadspire staff that administers the workers' compensation claims for the Houston Independent School District.  HISD is the seventh largest school district in the nation, employing approximately 36,000 people.  It is the largest employer in the City of Houston.  One always thinks of teachers when one thinks of schools, but there are bus drivers, mechanics, building maintenance, groundskeepers, food service staff, administrators, a private, certified police force, etc.  The HISD workers’ comp program has been cited as a model program, having won the prestigious Theodore Roosevelt Award for excellence in Risk Management.

The office is actually kind of a neat deal, very unconventional.  Broadspire's Houston office is in a glass box at Katy Freeway and Gessner.  I won't be working there.  HISD's office is the (converted) old Northwest Mall, at Katy Freeway and Northwest Freeway.  I won't be there, either.  The office is in an old elementary school in the Fifth Ward.  It's a two story school building, located directly on US 59; I'll have a (very nice) private office (with my own a/c control, VERY nice) with a view of the downtown Houston skyline out my window.  The administrator for HISD chose it purposely; making a commitment to the Fifth Ward.  The offices are on the second floor, the lower floor is used for community outreach.  I'll be driving downtown, but on the newly finished, super-duper ultra Katy Freeway.

I don't even have to move.

It is a lot more SECURE than the job I had before (as secure as it gets in these times).

So thank you, Jesus (serious as I can be).

And thank you to all my friends who have been through the Valley of the Shadow of Death with me these last 5 difficult months.  Being laid off messes with your brain; be kind to your friends and neighbors in that situation. Had it not been for my friend/roommate Nathan, my sister Marla, my friends Robert, Keith, Kathy and Marty, I don’t know what I would have done.  I can never repay them as long as I live.

And a special thank you to Suzann Still, the friend who started this ball rolling by putting Broadspire and me together.

I start Wednesday!  Wish me luck!