Monthly Archives: August 2013

Crystal Martin has just joined the Alpha team at the Dallas office in the position of Marketing Coordinator. She is also a student at the University of North Texas
in Denton and will be graduating in December. Born and raised here in the great state of Texas, Crystal enjoys finding trails locally to hike with her husband and her Yorkshire terrier. Their favorite spot to hike is the Dove Loop Trail at Dove Park near Grapevine Lake. If you want to visit this trail or others around Grapevine Lake, visit the Texas Trails Network.

Robert Boone is our new business development associate for Fort Worth,  currently making the hike to our Dallas Office for training.  Once the Fort Worth expansion (which includes his new office!) is complete, he will have a much shorter drive!

A Texan to the core, he grew up in Dallas, graduated from Baylor University (Go Bears!), and decided to make Fort Worth home. His family owns a cattle ranch in East Texas that they have been managing for 25 years. Now that’s a Texan at heart!

Our staff have some pretty incredible hobbies. Meet Dane Phariss, a Lab Technician in Dallas, who spends his free time willingly strapped to a bull – well, at least for 8 seconds – (or most of 8 seconds?). Yes, that is Dane in the photo.

Since his freshman year in high school, Dane has been participating in rodeos and is a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA).

He trains 4 times a week in Ponder, Texas and competes in the bull riding events every Friday and Saturday across the southwest, including a recent rodeo in New Mexico! Come support him this summer at the Mesquite Rodeo. My guess is that this training makes riding that motorcycle to work seem pretty tame in comparison!

Technician. Safety Officer. Stand-up Comedian! Josh Mueller joined the Houston Alpha Testing team in January 2013. Since then, he has become an integral part of our construction testing department. In his role of acting safety coordinator, he spends much of his time making sure we are safe in the office and on job sites. If laughter is the best medicine, Josh also keeps the Houston office VERY healthy with his constant jokes and good humor. One of his goals is to become a stand-up comedian. We, as his practice audience, are sure he will make The Improv in short order!

We have never had a new employee delay a start date for an Ironman Competition – until we asked Phil Johnson to be a part of the Alpha Testing team as CMT Manager in San Antonio. If someone has trained for, and actually entered, the Ironman France, who are we to put the brakes on a nice trip to Nice, France? Heck, some of us offered to carry his bags for him!

What is included in an Ironman? 2.4 miles of swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, 112 miles on a bicycle, and 26 miles on foot (Running!) – all a part of the same event. Look out San Antonio!