Spartans, by Josh Thielbar

“The Spartans started off from an idea from Chris Pierce I believe. I forgot who else contributed, but the reasoning behind them is because of the corporate sales segments relentlessly driving towards our sales goals.

“For example: in the last few days in November, we were only at 70% of our goal. There was little hope, but we had alot of Rackers put in some serious hours, and crazy work efforts to get us to our goal literally in the last several minutes of the day before midnight.

“We never give up an inch of ground, and we fight until the end to hit our sales goals.

“We’ve got some cool gear too. People compliment our flag and our wicked awesome shirts all the time.”

Blue Team, by Annalisa Rodriguez

“ We are a part of the “Sales Spartans.” We wanted a name that coincided with the Spartans theme, but was outside the box – “Blue Team” was made famous and renowned because it was the designation for a prestigious Spartan-oriented squad from the popular game, Halo.

“Much like the Halo characters, members of our Blue Team are heroes, masters of battle, strong, persistent, achievers but more importantly, we work together.  It’s key in Victory.  We have our Master Chief (aka Manager) and the rest of us are respected Officers/Lieutenants.”

A1, by Mark Melin

“Our team, A1, was chosen for a special mission when CCM launched.  The charter of the team was to not only provide Fanatical Support, but also to identify, consult with and migrate customers that were considered to be cloud ready.  A1 ran as a support team and a migration team until September of 2011.  Starting in October of 2011 we became a migrations only team called Cloud Ready.  A1 still lives as a support team within SMB.

“A1 was composed of passionate Rackers that were chosen to take on a new mission for Rackspace.  A mission that was somewhat difficult being that migrations were, at that time, not advertised or offered to our customer base.  The mission required a team of Account Managers as well as Technicians that could think outside of the box in order to accomplish our goal.

The Account Managers made sure to set the right business expectations and coordinated both our traditional support requests in addition to the migrations we were responsible for.  They also helped build the support model for how migrations would be handled.

The Technicians took on the task of figuring out how to logically move our customers from physical to virtual devices.  This was an interesting challenge that was met with many obstacles, but they figured it out.  They created a process known as the “rescue mode migration” which has been used to move hundreds of servers.

The team worked hard and embraced the spirit of treating fellow teammates like Friends and Family.  It was a privilege to be part of it.”

Ozone, by Paul Voccio

“The team name came about as we were trying to find something Cloud related since that was our product. Ozone was chosen because it abbreviated easily (o3) and wasn’t already taken.

“Most of the developers on the Ozone team are strong python developers with a background in systems engineering or networking. We’re a distributed team with concentrations in Blacksburg, San Antonio and San Francisco but have developers scattered across the US and even one in Canada. “

Thunderchats, by Chris Stapivic

“Email and Apps chat support started January 19th, 2009. After a very successful Pirate day at Datapoint, one of our guys decided our team name (at that time we were merged with the phone team) should be called “Jolly Rogers”. Once the Support Specialists were added to our team, we changed our name to “Auxed 9ers” which is the code used on phones when you were logged out to take chats.  About a year later, we moved to the Castle and started thinking about team names for this wickedly awesome team. While Kris Workman, one of our veteran chatters, was in a heated conversation about the ThunderCats, Scott Chandler stood and goes, “Woah, did you just say ThunderChats?!” to which Kris replied, “No, but that’s a great name” and the rest is chat history!

“Just like the ThunderCats, we’re all totally different but have a deep passion for what we do. We have Lady Gaga lovers and video game enthusiasts as well as the best meme creators in town. A “typical” ThunderChatter isn’t typical at all outside of our fierce ability to multitask and rock out to 90′s music. We’re all quirky in our own way, and super dedicated to Email with an ability to adapt to change in a snap with a drop of “weird”. THUNDERCHATS ARE GO!”

Ott-ermen Empire, by Matthew Teehee

“The Ottoman Empire was one the the longest lasting empires in history, much like our team we will last just as long.  At the height of its power it was known for its multinational and multilingual culture. Our team is composed of different likeness as well and we are here to ensure not only our success but the success of our peers and co-workers as a whole regardless of team title or support.  The empire matured to a level that once it was official defect in the 1920′s much of the knowledge it had obtained through its rein was adopted in to the different nations it was broke in to. Much like our lead Ken Ott, we are not here to keep people in one spot, we want our people to mature and grow whether it be with us or with another teams and spread the knowledge that was gained in the time they were on our team. “

Pretty rad, right?

Now go explore some jobs and apply to join our team!

Now, this in and of itself is cause for celebration.  We made the flippin’ list, again, and even rose in our position.  Taken in tandem with Glassdoor’s recent survey, Rackspace has never been more able to say we work at one Fanatical place.

One more thing: an interesting piece of information may get lost in the shuffle if you don’t look carefully.  While Rackspace ranks #74 out of Best Companies to Work For, it actually ranks #3 in terms of % of job growth, at 37%.  That means that not only are we one of the best companies in the universe to work for, but we’re hiring.  Feel free to skip over to the Careers section up top if you want to join the team!

Personal reflections aside, San Antonio has recently made the news as it topped the list of the “Cities With The Best Economies in America” according to Forbes.com.

If you’re on the bubble and not sure if San Antonio is right for you, I encourage you to explore the web and learn more.  Here are some resources to get you started:

• San Antonio – Relocation Synergy Group
• San Antonio Chamber of Commerce
• San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau
• The Art of The Future

Choosing the best place to live for you (and your family) is an important decision.  Feel free to comment if you have questions that we can help answer!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last Friday, Rackers spent the morning packing up 1,000 boxes with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, corn, cake mix and cranberry sauce.  It was an incredible effort that ran like a well-oiled machine.  This prepared us for Saturday’s big distribution day with 505 families passing through the Rackspace parking lot to pick up their Thanksgiving meals, which included the box of trimmings, a turkey, and drinks.

Partnering with our local schools in the Castle Community, the San Antonio Housing Authority, and the San Antonio Food Bank, vouchers were distributed to families in need within our neighborhood and San Antonio at large.  The families who came by were truly grateful to the Rackers who moved into this community and have done so much to give back to this neighborhood.  Not only were we able to feed so many people this holiday season, but we were able to give them a greater gift – to be able to cook a Thanksgiving meal together in their own homes and celebrate the holidays with loved ones.  Through various partner organizations and the San Antonio Food Bank’s outreach program, the remaining 495 boxes have been allocated to other families in need throughout San Antonio.

You can check out the additional highlights on the KSAT news coverage here.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families!

“Excellent schools, combined with an affordable cost of living, relatively low crime, and plentiful amenities lifted Blacksburg to first place in Businessweek.com’s sixth nationwide ranking of best places in each state in the U.S. to raise kids.”

Read the full article – “Virginia Town is Best Place in the U.S. to Raise Kids”

Interested in pursuing an opportunity in Blacksburg?  Check out our current openings!

Career opportunities in Blacksburg

Check out the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This time around we worked on the main playground to ensure that it was up to code. There was a lot of measuring taking place to ensure that we spread enough rubber mulch to all the areas of the playground that were not in compliance with government standards. It was hard work that would ensure that the playground would remain open and provide a safe and fun environment for the children of Boysville.

We also took on a beautification project of sorts by painting the benches and trash bins around the playground in vibrant colors. It was a much needed color pop to the playground.

While the majority of the team worked on the playground projects, a handful of Rackers hosted a Halloween party for the infants and toddlers of Boysville. The kids snacked while they designed and painted personalized Halloween masks to match the superhero capes we made for them. Seeing the smiles on their faces is always the best reward.

We’re looking forward to many more service opportunities at Boysville. Over 75% of Boysville’s budget is funded by donations from people like you. If you are interested in making an impactful donation, please follow this link: https://www.boysvilletexas.org/helping/donate-form.aspx

Nick Rangel

Director, Racker Accounting Services

The next talk is fast approaching on November 15th.  Udi Dahan will be onsite at Rackspace in Blacksburg, doing an informal Q&A session with the audience.  He will be answering questions on software architecture and design, so come prepared to ask a few of your own questions.

Here is a little more information about Udi taken from his website:

Udi Dahan is The Software Simplist, an internationally renowned expert on software architecture and design. A solutions architecture and connected systems MVP, 5 years in a row, Udi is also one of 33 experts in Europe recognized by the International .NET Association.

During the past decade of consulting with enterprise clients and large-scale web sites, Udi noticed they all needed service bus technology but that none of the existing offerings were good enough. After 5 years of growing a framework used by his clients in the most severe production scenarios, Udi released NServiceBus to the world. Since then, it has had over 10 major releases and is now used by companies, large and small, all over the world both for its scalability and simplicity.

We are very excited about this tech talk and hope you can make it out.

When: November 15th @ 6pm
Where: Rackspace office inside the University Mall next to Sushi Factory
Will have pizza and drinks