Chesapeake Systems has seen an exciting 2008. On top of this being our most successful year ever, we have also made major investments in our infrastructure and staffing.

If you visit our office, you will notice that our greeting area has been enhanced by complimentary hot and cold beverages for guests, including glasses and mugs that are free for the taking. Slightly less obvious is the addition of our “tech lounge,” a slick area where our technicians meet, brainstorm, prep systems, conduct R&D on new technologies, do paperwork, and yes, sometimes relax.

We’ve also finalized the location of our check-in and check-out areas for hardware repairs, so that is finally streamlined (and out of my office! -Nick)

Saphrone Blade, who most of our customers know as the face and voice of our service department’s coordination team, has been promoted to take a more direct role in managing our support resources as a whole. On September 28th she and her husband Antoine also had a beautiful baby, Marcus, so obvious congratulations are due there!

During 2008, we’ve executed some of the largest and most complicated projects we’ve ever dealt with. The large (~50 Terabytes of usable space) Xsan for the Art Department of WABC New York comes to mind. We’ve also discovered exciting new products such as Archiware’s PresSTORE backup and archival software, the ATTO fibre channel to iSCSI bridge, and many others.

And finally, and probably most importantly, we’ve made huge investments in our staff — the heart of our organization, to be sure. In the sales department we’ve added Michael Sellers, who came our way from an Apple Service Provider in Northern California. He’s been shaping up extremely well, and has allowed our sales staff to be more responsive. In service, we’ve added Wayne, Ben, and of course Terry Melton. Terry is extremely expert in networking, servers, Filemaker, and beyond, and has proven to be an extraordinary member of our technical team. He hit the ground running and has not shied away from anything we’ve thrown at him, and we look forward to another year with him onboard! More recently Wayne and Ben joined our team, and have quickly been stepping up as in-house and onsite support technicians.

Our entire technical staff has received huge amounts of training during 2008, and we can very safely claim to be one of the most expert Mac solution providers in the entire country. 2009 will see us continue this trend, and extend our reach further — both geographically, and in terms of the scope of products, solutions, and support packages we offer. Thank you so much for your support over the course of 2008, and we look forward to a productive and exciting 2009!