Swwweeeeeet! VP of IdeaStar Insurance Technologies Mike Wise just announced some great news. His son Zach signed a national letter of intent to play soccer at Houghton College in Houghton, New York. Zach has had a stellar soccer career at Cuyahoga Christian Academy. Read the press release.

Zach will be working his way through college on an Army ROTC scholarship. His family is so proud!

Here’s the picture of him signing with his sister Kelle, his mom Diane and dad Mike in the front row, and school officials in the back. Congratulations Zach!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

IdeaStar Project Manager Lia Spithas may have been born in America, but she and her family are very much Greek. “We speak Greek at home and with family and friends and have made it a point to stay bilingual down through the generations,” Lia says. “Greek is a very rich, interesting language and has really helped me understand English much better. It is amazing how much English derives from other languages.”

The other day, Lia posted a “A Greek Word of the Day.” It was interesting to hear people walking up and down the halls mangling “thank you” in Greek. So we asked her for some lessons, including:

Basics

• yes - Malesta or ne no - oxi (o-hee)
• please- separakalo
• thank you - efharisto

Professional

• Yes. We will make a new Web site for you. Ne. Tha sas kanoume kenurio Web site.
• A content management system is included. Deahirisitiko systema ton perierheomienon.
• What a beautiful Web site. To Web site enai poli omorfo.

Survival

• When is lunch? Pote tha fame mesimerino?
• May I have a 50 percent raise? Thelo afksisis peninda teen ekato?
• I would like Mondays off. Thelo na meen doulevo steen deftera.

Greek does use a different alphabet, so Lia wrote the words phonetically in English. Learn about Greek writing here.

Lia also gave us a Greek mystery word for the week. Oktopodee. If you know what it is, or would like to take a guess, click the link below and tell us.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22, 2007 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

In keeping with the tradition of the Oscars, the Grammys, and other significant events, IdeaStar’s Vice President of Insurance Technologies Mike Wise (L) was awarded The 2006 Employee of the Year by President Jim Fisher (R).

The award is given annually to the IdeaStar employee who made the most of opportunities and had a stellar year. Mike, responsible for selling IdeaStar’s online insurance services, joined IdeaStar over three years ago. That first year he didn’t sell anything. But times have changed, and last year Mike had over $1 million in sales.

“I really like going out and selling for all you guys,” he told the IdeaStar staff. “It’s especially easy when I get to tell people about our resident PH. D. and how smart he is, that we have one of the top guys in the country programming quote engines, and we have a whole team of great, great professionals just waiting to Web enable insurance systems.”

Two other employees, Jane Hudeck and Scott Largent, were awarded clocks for five years of service. Thanks Jane and Scott!

How does the employee of the year celebrate? He cooks the staff corned beef for lunch.

And then, of course, he does the dishes.

Brent Williams and Steve Harrison enjoyed the lunch, along with everybody else at IdeaStar.

Yum. Thanks Mike!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 2:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

IdeaStar’s Mike Wise, Jim Fisher, Jane Hudeck and Wayne Largent attended the Inter-Company Marketing Group Annual Meeting last week in sunny Florida. The conference brings together insurance carriers and distributors who cut deals on new products and marketing relationships. IdeaStar provides Web development services to those who want to get their insurance products and business practices online. We did a lot of networking and came away with some hot, hot leads. That’s a little consolation for returning to frigid Cleveland where the temperature is hovering around 0 degrees.

IdeaStar’s “Major Award” leg lamp give-away drew a lot of interest. Mike did a great job getting people to the drawing.

Yes, we actually were at the meeting and not at the beach. Here’s a picture of (l to R) Mike, Wayne, and Jane and a meeting attendee. Jim is taking the picture.
; - )

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5, 2007 at 11:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.