athenista Spotlight: Meet Chip Ach
Ensuring that athenaNet is always working for you, Chip Ach is the man behind the curtain. Often awake in the middle of the night, Chip and his team give you 24/7 service so you can sleep well knowing that your practice is operating at maximum efficiency.
athenaPulse: Tell us about your position at athenahealth.
Chip Ach: My title is Director of Production Systems. Our team of seven including myself is charged with making sure that athenaNet is up and running. Our team's motto is, "We don't sleep so you can!" We work in rotating on-call shifts. It's not like a typical 9-5 job with weekends off. Frequently I'm up for a maintenance window in the middle of the night.
aP: That seems like a lot of pressure.
CA: It's my thing. Previously I worked as the Chief Technical Officer for HarvardNet, an ISP, hosting, and DSL provider. I helped the company grow into a sizable venture-backed telecommunications company. I like the challenge of growing technological systems. athenaNet is a wonderfully complex system that is growing quickly.
aP: What do you like most about working for athenahealth?
CA: As a "techie," my passion is systems and I could do that work almost anywhere. The special thing about athenahealth is that the company is actually improving the healthcare system. There are not a lot of places to work where you feel like your efforts are contributing to doing good in the world. Oftentimes when I'm up in the middle of the night I think to myself, "Why am I doing this? I'd rather be sleeping." Then I think about our mission. It's important to me. The healthcare system is one of those things that is not quite right in this world and I'm doing a little bit to make it better.
aP: When you do have time off, what do you like to do?
CA: I train for and run marathons for fun, although it generally ends up being painful! I'm also a bit of a news junkie. Besides that I'm sort of geek and a workaholic.
