Polar Star Profile: Michelle Thayer

This was one time that Michelle Thayer is glad she didn’t listen to her husband! With a love of math and a desire for change, Michelle wanted to enroll in the Heald Institute of Technology in Martinez, California (near Concord in the East Bay) and take a four-year accelerated course to become a Network Engineer. “I had to beg my husband to go to this school, because it was a trade school, it was expensive, and he didn’t think it was a fit for me.” That was twenty years and a successful career ago.

Michelle is now a Network Engineer at Polar Systems and she thrives on the daily challenge, the busy environment, and enjoys seeing different people nearly every day. “I’ve worked at a lot of different companies on their IT staff and in that environment, once you learn their system, you know it. At Polar, we support many different companies and they’re all set up differently, so it’s a challenge to learn exactly how they are set up and how to best support their needs. When I get home I’m totally exhausted and my head is spinning, but I’m thrilled.”

Being a Network Engineer is a far stretch from her background in cosmetology. This was Michelle’s husband, Lauren’s concern when she expressed an interest in IT. “This is a much more exciting field, and a better fit for me than doing hair, nails and skincare,” says Michelle. And Lauren now agrees.

On being a woman in a world dominated by men, Michelle says, it rarely happens now, but she used to get comments a lot. “A lot of customers expect male engineers, so when I walk into a customer’s site I used to get a lot of comments about that, but when I leave I always have their respect because they saw that I know how to do my job.” Michelle says women can offer a different perspective to the Network Engineer world, and she views the difference as a strength for her personally, and a strength for the Polar team.

In her spare time Michelle enjoys gardening and spending time with her extended family: Lauren and their daughter Tiffany (18), and the family’s horses, dogs, cats, chickens and fish.