My time in HYPER
Starting winter 2019, I’m happy to say that I will begin my new position as the lab manager for the HYPER lab here at WSU. I have been with the university for 11 years as a Procurement Specialist specializing in laboratory and life science supplies. Prior to that I was employed at a local jewelry shop where I specialized in repairs for watches, clocks and jewelry. By utilizing my expertise in procurement, contract management, public relations, and current WSU systems it is my task to assist the HYPER lab in achieving it’s research goals. Additionally, I want to develop skills and gain knowledge in the engineering field so that I might be a part of the HYPER lab mission in a more meaningful way.
Mark managed the HYPER lab’s finances and relationship with facilities for 5 years through July of 2024 before moving on to his dream job of community director of his church.
A HYPER-coda by Mark Parsons
There is no such thing as a magical place where all your hopes and dreams will come true. There are no secrets for you to find hidden between the couch cushions of your existence to allow you to write your future. There are no shamans sitting crisscross-applesauce on mountaintops, waiting to speak honeyed whispers of the secrets to success and fulfillment into your ever-so-eager earholes. There is no easy button. There are no shortcuts to make a truly better life.
There is only the work to be done…and change is required.
In the fall of 2019, I was 36 and trying to recover from what I can only describe as an early mid-life crisis, mere months before the pandemic shutdown. My professional life up to that point had been unsatisfactory to say the least. For over a decade, I had been a cog in an aging machine, operating well past obsoletion. It was good ol’fashioned busy work. I felt like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, double fisting wrenches, manically turning nuts onto bolts on conveyor belt moving at a furious pace, neither knowing where they are coming from nor where they are going. I did my job dutifully and collected a paycheck. I labored, but without any sense of purpose. I had plenty of work to do but I wasn’t doing the work.
Feeling stuck would not begin to describe my mental state at the time. I knew I needed to make a drastic change, but I had no idea what to do. By happy circumstance, I had connected with Dr. Jake Leachman, with whom I had graduated high school with, and he offered me a job to manage his lab. Not being an engineer, nor ever even working in academic research, I had no idea what being a lab manager entailed. But in December of that year, I made the move to HYPER. I would like to say this decision was born out of my shrewd career plotting acumen; in truth, I was just desperate. I could have never predicted the olive branch that was being extended to me by my old friend.
I’ll never forget a particular conversation I had with Jake early on about the direction and vision of the lab. Jake believed very earnestly that what we were doing with liquid hydrogen had the capacity to make a significant impact in renewable energy research. Feeling insecure and uncertain about my ability to manage this lab with such lofty goals, I confessed, “Jake, I’m not sure how I can help you, I’m not an engineer.” Jake replied, “I don’t need you to be an engineer. I need you to be everything else.” It was that moment that I realized the work to be done. I was no longer a cog hiding among other cogs in a larger machine. I wasn’t here to maintain a status quo. I was here to help build something. Something bigger than myself. Something that would have life beyond me.
This reality sank in much deeper when Jake took an extended sabbatical. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a make-or-break moment for the lab. We had to become or fade away. This would require all of us, staff and students, to become. Jake convinced his mentor, P.K. Northcutt, to stay behind with me to help re-form the lab as Jake did some re-forming of his own. Observing P.K.’s bottomless passion and dizzying intellect, I realized immediately that he knew how to do all the things I wished I could.
The bar that was now being set was a terrifying height, but not nearly as terrifying as being left behind, so I asked P.K. for help and he graciously offered it. In all the things I learned while working with P.K., it all goes back to a common thread: you must be brave enough to make changes, and you must be willing to do the work. I changed the way I thought about my role. I changed the way I thought about work. I changed how I thought about being a colleague. I went back to school. I wrote songs and poetry. I read different books. I dressed differently. I learned to see value in myself. I learned to see the value in others. I learned to see what is possible…I became something the lab needed to grow. I became something others could learn from. I became a Lab Manager. But, in doing so, I also became something else: myself.
At HYPER, there is a belief in developing the whole person, not just the engineer. It is the HYPER distinctive. It is what makes HYPER more than a research lab, but a community of passionate individuals in pursuit of a common goal while helping each other achieve their personal goals. Watching our students learn, grow, and succeed has been one of the great pleasures of my life. Their passion filled me with passion. Their victories were my victories. They did the work. They changed for the better. They made careers. They became. And, without realizing it, so did I. In helping others pursue their passions, I found the courage to pursue my own.
Though I walk away from HYPER as an employee, I will always be tethered to it. Dr. Leachman and P.K. have helped beyond anything I could ever repay. Now I step into a new career with their parting words ringing in my mind: “Now it’s your turn to help others.”
I guess it’s time to get work…and change will be required.