Thomas Hunter shares his achievements and how he is coping with the current pandemic.
Thomas Hunter joined our firm through our Veterans Program in 2014. He, along with several other veterans, participated in this inaugural program which helped the group to successfully start their careers with our client as project managers. Fast forward six years later, we decided to catch up with Mr. Hunter to find out what he has been up to over the past few years. Read the full interview below.
- Consultant: Thomas Hunter
- Position: Associate Project Manager II
- Location: Kenilworth, NJ
Interview with Thomas Hunter
Thomas shares more about his six-year career journey with our client.
D: What do you enjoy the most about your role at Merck?
TH: I enjoy the fact that I can learn something new almost every day. We deal with a substantial amount of data in my area and I feel like in the time I have been here it has been a consistent learning experience. I am grateful to learn more about the position as well as the information we work with.
D: Can you share a high-level overview of your achievements during your tenure with our client?
TH: During my time at Merck, I have helped to manage many projects onboarding new applications for our business users. I have helped streamline our documentation and system development lifecycle process. Most recently I am managing a reporting project which has helped remediate and simply the reporting solutions in place for our business users. Their access and analytics to the data we manage is a crucial part of the business process in Managed Markets and I feel like my team helps to make their job a little bit easier where we can.
D: What has contributed the most to your career success?
TH: Merck has been a wonderful place to work. When I began working here, I had a very basic understanding of project management and what that job entailed. Merck provided me the knowledge and leadership to be very successful while working there. I was treated with a tremendous amount of respect when I arrived, and I had a very good leadership team to help me along the way. I rely heavily on my leadership even now to assist me with direction and provide insight when I need it. Also, my peers at Merck make it a memorable and rewarding experience. Without the team members I work with I would not be as successful as I have been.
D: How are you coping with the pandemic?
TH: I took a slightly different approach to cope with the pandemic. The first few months my fiancé and I kind of sheltered in place at home. That got old pretty fast, so we decided to get engaged and we will be getting married in 2022. We also decided to sell our home, and in doing so moved into a new home. Generally, not the best way to handle a pandemic, but it has helped us focus on things other than the impending dangers of Covid-19.
D: What is next for you?
TH: My plan is to continue working at Merck and to be the strongest and most diverse project manager I can be. I would eventually like to step into more of a program management role and get involved from that perspective. Program and project management go hand in hand so I feel the experience would be extremely beneficial. Short term goals are to round out my current reporting project and set our business partners up for success in their reporting and analytics needs. On a personal level, I would like to eventually unpack all the boxes in my house and get married on time pending any future pandemic restrictions.
Thomas Hunter’s career started before joining DIVERSANT. He joined the United States Army in 2003 and completed basic training and Infantry Advanced Individual Training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He went on to Airborne School and completed that in 2003. He was assigned to the 173rd Airborne in Vicenza Italy where he reported in December of 2003. Within two weeks he was assigned to 1st Platoon, Battle Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne) 503rd Infantry in Kirkuk Iraq. He would go on to complete two additional deployments to Afghanistan, the first from 2005 to 2006 in the Kandahar Province, and the second from 2007 to 2008 in the Korengal Valley.
Thank you Thoms for your daily contributions and for serving our country. We appreciate you taking the time to share your story. Here’s to many more years of career success.
