When I started thinking about what to write about for my latest blog, I remembered gap’s former retail manager telling me that when she was in that role, she had featured one of our retail data collectors for a blog.  She was willing to let me “copy” her great idea so I have decided to create an ongoing series of features on all of our data collectors.

With ten data collectors currently employed for gap, there are still nine that I’m excited to get to know more about.  I personally have the pleasure of working with our incredible collectors every week, and many people in the office rely heavily on their data.  I think it’s time we all get to know more about who exactly they are.

My first blog in the series features a Q&A with Terrence in Atlanta, or as some may know him, region 1004.  Terrence is very good at what he does for our company and is always consistent and reliable.  I asked Terrence a few questions about himself and his experience to this point with gap intelligence:

    • How long have you been working for gap?

3 years

    • How did you get involved with gap?

I was looking for work after losing my previous job in the music industry. I replied to a posting on Craigslist and a few days later I received a call from gap.  After hearing the description of the job, it seemed like it would be pretty cool.   About 2 weeks later I started working!

    • What is your favorite part of the job?

My schedule. I can go out and collect anytime I want as long as the store is open, and I’m not on the typical 9-5. Usually, I finish my collections early in the week so I can have plenty of extra time for other endeavors.

    • What is your favorite product category to collect and why?

Notebooks. While I personally own desktops & tablets as well, I still like the functionality of the notebook with a keyboard. When laptops first hit the market, they were very expensive. I have enjoyed seeing the category evolve with newer operating systems and hardware, yet the prices still steadily decline.

    • What is your favorite store to visit and why?

Frys. Although from a time perspective it takes me the longest to collect, I personally think that they just have some cool stuff.  I can spend hours in there just looking through all of the different gadgets and grown man toys that they have.  Costco is a close second as I have been a Costco member for quite some time and like their mix of products and reasonable prices.

    • What is something that you’ve learned about retail and consumer electronics through working with gap?

I’ve learned about the shelf life and product cycles of consumer electronics. As a consumer, I keep up with some products more than others, notebooks in particular for me.  I have seen how quickly some categories, such as notebooks, come out with newer models, compared with other categories that have a slower cycle, such as digital frames for example. However, all in all, I have noticed that most consumer electronics models change at a pretty fast rate.

    • Share something interesting about yourself: Hobbies? Family? Other Job? Kids? Pets? Anything else!

I have 3 dogs: A Pitbull named Black, a Schnauzer named Max, and a Shih Tzu/Yorkie mix named Willow, as well as a cat named Socks.  I have been married to my wife Trina for ten years this coming June. I love traveling & reading nonfiction books, exercising, watching Sci-Fi movies, and walking in the outdoors. I’m an avid animal lover and have been a vegetarian for 15 years.  I grew up just outside of Washington DC in Temple Hills, MD and am an avid New York Giants fan.  My favorite video game is “Gears Of War”, and I love basketball & football.  If one day, Mr. Peterson would fly me to San Diego, I would love to challenge Karen 1 on 1 in basketball while I’m still young enough that I think I can take her!

It has been so much fun for me getting to know some things about Terrence’s experiences with gap intelligence, as well as more about him as a person.  We are lucky to have Terrence as a data collector for gap intelligence, and I gladly welcome his 1 on 1 basketball challenge any time…it’s on!

Stay tuned for future features on the other data collectors.