For Murray Green, working for a company that is a steward of critical internet infrastructure is a mission that he can get behind. Green, a senior engineering manager at Verisign, is a U.S. Army veteran who served during Operation Desert Storm and sees stewardship as a lifelong mission. In both roles, he has stayed focused on the success of the mission and cultivating great teamwork.
Teamwork is something that Laura Street, a software engineer and U.S. Air Force veteran, came to appreciate through her military service. It was then that she learned to appreciate how people from different backgrounds can work together on missions by finding their commonalities.
While military and civilian roles are very different, Verisign appeals to many veterans because of the mission-driven nature of the work we do.
Green and Street are two of the many veterans who have chosen to apply their military experience in a civilian career at Verisign. Both say that the work is not only rewarding to them, but to anyone who depends on Verisign’s commitment in helping to maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Domain Name System (DNS) and the internet.
At Verisign, we celebrate Military Appreciation Month by paying tribute to those who have served and recognizing how fortunate we are to work alongside amazing veterans whose contributions to our work provide enormous value.
Introducing Data-Powered Technology
Before joining the military, Murray Green studied electrical engineering but soon realized that his true passion was computer science. Looking for a way to pay for school and explore and excel as a Programmer Analyst, he turned to the U.S. Army.
He served more than four years at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington as the sole programmer for military personnel, using a proprietary language to maintain a reporting system that supplied data analysis. It was a role that helped him recognize the importance of data to any mission – whether for the U.S. Army or a company like Verisign.
At Walter Reed, he helped usher in the age of client-server computing, which dramatically reduced data processing time. “Around this time, personal computers connected to mini servers were just coming online so, using this new technology, I was able to unload data from the mainframe and bring it down to minicomputers running programs locally, which resulted in tasks being completed without the wait times associated with conventional mainframe computing,” he said. “I was there at the right time.”
His work led him to receive the Meritorious Service Medal, recognizing his expertise in the proprietary programming language that was used to assist in preparation for Operation Desert Storm, the first mobilization of U.S. Army personnel since Vietnam.
In the military, he also came to understand the importance of leadership – “providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.”
Green has been at Verisign for over 20 years, starting off in the registry side of the business. In that role, he helped maintain the .com/.net top level-domain (TLD) name database, which at the time, held 5 million domain names. Today, he still oversees this database, managing a highly skilled team that has helped provide uninterrupted resolution service for .com and .net for over a quarter of a century.
Sense of Teamwork Leaves a Lasting Impression
Street had been in medical school, looking for a way to pay for her continued education, when she heard about the military’s Health Professional Scholarship Program and turned to the U.S. Air Force.
“I met some terrific people in the military,” she said. “My favorite experiences involved working with people who cared about others and were able to motivate them with positivity.” But it was the sense of teamwork she encountered in the military that left a lasting impression.
“There’s a sense of accountability and concern for others,” she said. “You help one another.”
While working in the Education and Training department, she had been working with a support team to troubleshoot a video that wasn’t loading properly and was impressed with how the developers worked to fix the problem. She immediately took an interest in programming and enrolled in night classes at a local community college. After completing her service in the U.S. Air Force, she went back to school to pursue a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
She’s been at Verisign for two years and, while the job itself is rewarding because it taps into so many of her interests – from Java programming to network protection and packet analysis – it was the chemistry with the team that was most enticing about the role.
“I felt as at-ease as one can possibly feel during a technical interview,” she said. “I got the sense that these were people who I would want to work with.
Street credits the military for teaching her valuable communication and teamwork skills that she continues to apply in her role, which focuses on keeping the .com and .net top-level-domains available around the clock, around the world.
A Unique and Global Mission
Both Green and Street encourage service members to stay focused on the success of their personal missions and the teamwork they learned in the military, and to leverage those skills in the civilian world. Use your service as a selling point and understand that companies value that background more than you think, they said.
“Being proud of the service we provide to others and paying attention to details allows us at Verisign to make a global difference,” Green said. “The veterans on our team bring an incredible skillset that is highly valued here. I know that I’m a part of an incredible team at Verisign.”
Verisign is proud to create career opportunities where veterans can apply their military training. To learn more about our current openings, visit Verisign Careers.
