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In fond memory of Michell Cantin, coal miner's daughter, biochemist, super saleswoman, road warrior, team player and a delight to all who knew her, except those who incurred her wrath.
We traveled together for over three years, working for two different companies; she sold, and I was her techie.
I worked hard to earn her trust. I told her how my friend Rosetta in college used to say "Trust your Alan."
I kept being right about how to win sales technically (my part of the job), and she appreciated that, but she never seemed to want to celebrate our victories at first.
She finally let me talk her into stopping at the Twenty Mule Museum in Boron on the way back from a particularly rewarding visit to NASA Dryden near Mojave, CA. It was a silly, amusing little museum about Borax mines and the Space Shuttle and old aviators like Pancho Barnes. After that she started saying, "Trust your Alan."
I realized later I should've started saying "trust your Michell" as well.
She taught me many things: that sales is service, and to focus on revenue-producing activities first, and that customers will sometimes reward patience and loyalty, and to proactively learn about every product my company has, and to check myself in a mirror before a meeting.
When she was upset she would put on headphones and listen to U2's Pride (In the Name of Love) on auto-repeat.
We she was happy she would sing along to Beck's Loser:
Together we fought cancer in our small way, making a record breaking sale that was the first for our company in the medical market (gamma cameras that spot cancers), helping to push the company into that market.
But cancer fought back, and claimed her in 2006.
She is missed.
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