Act! Employee Spotlight
Glenn Garrison
Meet our Senior Program Manager, Glenn Garrison!
Act! provides some of the most helpful CRM and marketing automation solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). As the pace of technology growth and innovation accelerates, ensuring those solutions are launched without a hitch is crucial to our success at Act!. Meet Glenn, a Senior Program Manager here at Act!. A wearer of many hats, Glenn brings deep professional expertise, a powerful self-starting mindset, and a commitment to success that helps put Act!’s products in the hands of the SMBs that need them the most.
Department: Program Management
Office location: Scottsdale, AZ
What do you do at Act!?
I am a senior program manager at Act!. In my role, I have a hand in a lot of different projects, working closely with the engineering team and product management on coordinating releases and release schedules. I also work with our commercial teams to make sure the product updates deploy smoothly. In my position, I get to take on tasks in other areas as well, like compliance, and will often have a hand in projects that require some sort of structure around them.
What brought you to Act!?
My journey to Act! was a long one. From the time I started college, I always had an interest in technology, learning about code-driven machines, finding it so interesting that I dropped other classes to focus on more of it. Soon thereafter, I joined the Marines and then moved to the US Army , where I had the opportunity to work on technology again. Eventually, I went back to school and received a degree in software engineering, and spent time teaching at a university.
After that, I held roles with a few software companies in business development roles, working indirectly, in one way or another, with Act! throughout the years. Ultimately, down the road I ran into someone I knew from one of those previous roles who asked me to join Act!. And so, I joined as a program manager and have been here ever since.
How would you describe the team and work environment at Act!?
The team at Act! is a passionate, dedicated, and hard-working group that eagerly embraces success and excellence in everything that they do. Act! places a tremendous amount of trust and faith in its employees. The leadership team really gives us the freedom to take the initiative and, if necessary, make a decision in the moment that best serves our company’s mission. My role is all about figuring out what we need to get done, and then going out, finding the answer, and executing. So, not feeling like there needs to be this day-to-day supervision has been a really positive experience for me.
What do you think sets Act! apart from its competitors in the CRM space?
Act! as a company has one of the strongest track records of success across the entire industry and as a globally recognized player in the CRM space. The company itself has been around and operating for over 30 years now, so we have the foundation and experience to continue being a leader for many more years to come. But I think apart from our history and track record, we have some of the best people working here who are committed to serving our customers and who have a deep understanding for the needs of today’s SMBs.
Is there any advice you would give to someone just starting their career?
I would distill my advice down into three points: be open-minded, seek responsibility, and always continue to learn. Seeking responsibility is all about finding chances to go out, get something, and grow as a person in the process. And when I think about being open-minded—I see a lot of this in the people I work with—a key part of that is listening, hearing people out, and not jumping to conclusions. And lastly, you should always be trying to learn new things. This doesn’t necessarily mean in a formal education setting, but more so finding what interests you and taking the steps to engage and grow your knowledge.
How has your professional life influenced your personal life, and vice versa?
In our personal lives, my wife and I have always lived a very self-sufficient lifestyle. We now live on 40 acres of land and are 100% off the grid with our own wells and solar power, so independence has always been an important part of our lives. Fortunately for me, this was something that fits neatly into my role at Act!. I’ve always focused on finding ways to balance my wide-ranging lifestyle with my professional drive and passions, and Act! has proven to be a perfect match.
What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment during your time at Act!?
I’m very proud of the work I’ve been doing at Act!. I’ve had the honor of being named Employee of the Year in the past and really value seeing the efforts I’ve put into facilitating successful global software updates and new feature launches as they go to market. And I’ve been really happy with the work that I’ve gotten to do with the executive leadership team, helping them to work on, and achieve organizational level objectives.