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FirstRain Starts off the Summer…

Jun 2012/in /by

Lots of exciting things happening at FirstRain lately! With a mixture of some great new customers, fun company events, new FirstRain faces, giving the office a fresh, new look, and a big award announcement— June has been busy and we’re only eight days into the month!

First, we announced this week that FirstRain is a finalist for the 2012 American Business Awards in the new product or service of the year, business-to-business products category. As a finalist, FirstRain will either be the Gold, Silver or Bronze Stevie Award winner in the program. The ABA will present the awards at two award ceremonies, the ABA traditional banquet on June 18th in New York, and a new tech awards event on Monday, September 17th in San Francisco. A fantastic honor for us.

Last week, the FirstRain team held one of our traditional potluck lunches. Jordy brought in a special French dessert, baked by his mother, who is in town visiting from France. Our special guest was Eugene’s new 1 month old daughter. Our potluck lunch turned into a baby shower, welcoming her to the FirstRain team— our youngest and smallest team member yet!

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Along with Eugene’s beautiful new daughter, we are excited to welcome two new additions to FirstRain this summer, Patrick and Sebastian. Patrick is a student at San Jose State and is working with Eugene and Connie in our accounting department. Sebastian (who worked at FirstRain last summer) will be assisting Ryan and the marketing team this summer, before starting college at NYU this Fall. We’re thrilled to have them.

Last night, some of the FirstRain team participated in the annual Splash and Dash race at Stevens Creek Reservoir in Cupertino, CA. We had 9 rainmakers competing in the race, Doug and Aaron finished first for the relay teams, but everyone did a great job and all finished the race strong. Afterwards, everyone went back to Penny’s house for a barbeque. We will partake in the event again in August, when our east coast team is in town to join in on the fun.

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Looks like another FirstRain summer is definitely off to a fun and full-forced start!

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Splash and a Dash of Teamwork

Aug 2011/in /by

The FirstRain office has had a full house this week with members from our East Coast sales team in town for our quarterly sales kick-off. And last night, in the spirit of fun, culture and generally getting over ourselves, the entire sales team and most of the company, headed down south to Cupertino for the final Splash and Dash race of the summer.  The race consisted of a one-mile swim in the Stevens Creek Reservoir, followed by a three-mile run.  We are lucky to have 13 great (or at least enthusiastic!) athletes that competed in relays – so we had 6.5 teams in the competition. The less brave joined the superb cheerleading team led by Julie and her cowbell.

Splash and Dash race @ Stevens Creek Reservoir

Aaron and Ryan finished first for the team, crediting their win to the support from our star, 5-year old cheerleader Natalie.  Natalie earned her prize, keeping the shiny blue pom-poms that she used to cheer on each rainmaker.

Natalie– our star cheerleader

After the race, everyone plus families and friends and headed back to my house for a team cookout – where Thomas, Carolyn and Doug dueled over the grill (I was happy to hand off the tongs, so to speak). It was a beautiful night out, with great food and terrific company.  We finished the night by celebrating Rajiv’s birthday (he is visiting us from our Gurgaon office) using our best singing voices to serenade him (in and out of tune!).

all of our FirstRain racers (minus Eugene)

The Splash and Dash race has proven to be a great team building event for FirstRain and I’m very proud of my team.  The encouragement and support they show one another builds the kind of relationships that make a company great.  Their ability to congratulate each other for a job well done, to help each other, to care about each other independent of their work roles is part of what makes FirstRain such a fun place to be.

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FirstRain team at the Cupertino Splash and Dash last night

Jul 2011/in /by

Perfect, beautiful Cupertino evening last night. A few of us competed in the July Splash and Dash in the Stevens Creek Reservoir – a 1 mile swim and 3 mile run which is just the right distance to make you feel great! Aaron and Cory did both the swim and the run, Thomas ran in relay to my swim, and Doug completed the swim and decided he’d wait until next time to do the run….

I am a big believer that competing in sporting events is a great way to build teams and it’s something we do well together at FirstRain, especially within the sales team. We started with everyone participating in some way at the Aquabike in 2008 and now we not only compete in a couple of events a year together, we also train together, and eat and drink together!

David, Thomas, Jordy, me, Doug, Carolyn and Cory

Because the reservoir is only a couple of miles from my house we joined up with supporters, spouses and several kids at my house for a bar-be-que. The kids — and one of our dogs — spent the whole time in the pool and I gather everyone under age 10 slept like a log last night!

Having fun together in my back garden on a warm Bay Area night

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Teambuilding FirstRain style

Jun 2010/in /by

We have a history of taking on whacky athletic challenges at FirstRain – both to get and stay fit and also to play together as a team.

Yesterday was no exception, although we were a small team this time. Three of us competed in the Splash and Dash in the Stevens Creek Reservoir in Cupertino CA. It was supposed to be a 1.2 mile swim and 3 mile run.

Well, it turned out a little different than we had expected. First off the water was really cold – which meant we were gasping for the first leg as we got accustomed to the temperature. And then the swim was not 1.2 miles – it was closer to 1.6-1.7 miles. We only knew this because it took me so much longer than last time I did it and so we asked around some of the more experienced competitors who estimated the distance for us based on their swim times.

It’s no wonder that at the end we didn’t run. We’d had enough. But we enjoyed it, we didn’t come last, and we are signed up for two more races this year!

Here we are before the race (we didn’t look as good afterwards!)

Eugene, me and David

You can see some of our other events here: The 2008 Vineman Aquabike, The 2009 San Jose Rock n Roll Half Marathon and The 2009 Great Delhi Run.
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