Phillip Hairfield is this month’s Volunteer of the Month and it’s an extra special award for our marketing group, who produces this newsletter, as he is our volunteer boss, currently serving as the Director of the Newsletter. The marketing team of six is excited to see the kind, talented, and organized Phillip honored. In his role, he is responsible for compiling, editing, and publishing the monthly newsletter and weekly e-blasts along with other content for PMI Portland.
Phillip, like many members of PMI PDX, fell into project management by accident. After working in a lab and earning his degree in marketing, he took a job at Thermo Fisher Scientific as a product manager for laboratory consumables and never looked back! He was able to blend his lab experience and marketing degree into a successful, cross-functional project management career.
Throughout his career, Philip has worked for a startup, as a consultant, and is now a Product Manager at Thomson Instrument Company where he is enjoying the fast pace and rapid growth. He has stayed with project management because he is inherently a learner. As a PM, Phillip can get into all the “nooks and crannies” of the business, learning new things everyday.
Phillip’s favorite project as a PM was getting his green belt in Six Sigma during which he was handed a problem and told to solve it with a cross functional group. During this process he was able to find the solution and make it stick. He reminisced how oftentimes we can rush from project to project and don’t always get the time to do a retrospective.
For those thinking of volunteering with PMI PDX, Phillip’s advice is that you should absolutely volunteer! It is a great way to earn PDUs and network. All the volunteers for PMI PDX are genuinely volunteering to help build up our community and are great to get to know.
In his free time, Phillip cultivates spicy peppers, the hotter the better! His favorite pastime is creating spicy salsa from his garden to bring to his weekly taco night with friends. He also is an avid writer and has published his first book on Amazon, “Spark of Genius.”
PMI PDX is very grateful to the time and effort that Phillip puts into developing the project management community. Congratulations and thank you, Phillip!