For my final blog of the year, I am going to do a recap of 2016 and talk about my goals for 2017. I plan to come to the point where I can publish an annual report like Mathias Jakobsen @thnkclrly and http://www.thnkclrly.com/ does. But I am not to that point yet.

As with most people I had my ups and downs during 2016. The year started with me working as a HR Manager for Trident Seafoods in Sand Point, Alaska. I loved the work I was doing and the people at the Trident Seafoods plant in Sand Point, Alaska. They are great people and I learned so much from them.

However, I decided to leave Trident Seafoods in May. From my perspective the senior executives of Trident Seafoods had at best not known how to compensate me for my services. Or at worse they had misled me on several occasions on what my compensation would be while I worked for them. Either way, I did not believe, I could continue working for them.

Although, I was now out of a job, this worked out for the best. As I would be needed somewhere else. As they say God works in mysterious ways. On May 31, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She passed way on July 1 and we buried her on July 8. My relationship with my mother at best was combative and complicated. So being able to spend those last days with her and making my peace with her was invaluable to me. I was able to take care of her along with my sister during my mother's last days. By being there I was able to make sure my mother's final wishes were honored. If I still had a job with Trident Seafoods, I don't know if I would of been able to do all of this for my mother and spend her final days with her.

Because of this, I really didn't start looking for a job until after we buried my mother on July 8. I also officially started my company cavnessHR at this time. I had been working on the concept for awhile and setting everything up. But it was not until July that I applied for my business license. I will talk about cavnessHR in my future blogs. After applying at several places and conducting an exhausting job search. I was hired as the HR Director for Highline College.

This previous blog goes into details about my job search. https://cavnesshr.silvrback.com/i-found-a-job.

During the past year I earned my SPHR certification. This was a long process to earn my SPHR certification. I had to study and prepare for a long period of time to obtain my SPHR certification. Historically, less than 50% of people pass the SPHR certification exam. According to the numbers out there, less than 15% of HR professionals are certified. I was able to pass because of the great prep program at DistinctiveHR. I highly recommend their program.

Their website is www.phrexamprep.com and their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/distintive.h.resources/?fref=ts If you have any specific questions about the program, send me an email at jasoncavness1914@gmail.com

I signed up for Neil Patel's Advanced Marketing Program this year to learn about various marketing techniques for my Startup. The course was great as it had weekly modules to complete and a weekly call in which they gave a presentation and where you could ask questions. There is also an Advanced Marketing FB page that allows you to ask questions and have the Neil Patel experts help you with your marketing challenges. I learned so much just from the interactions with the other people taking the course. The knowledge I learned and all the tools they provide are great and will be a great advantage to me while I build my Startup.

The website for the Advanced Marketing Program is neilpatel.com/advanced-marketing-program/ You can also contact Neil at his twitter @neilpatel.

Now for my goals for 2017.

I started my new role as HR Director for Highline College on December 12. I want to do everything I can to add value to Highline College and help to do everything I can to assist the students in improving themselves. I am a big believer that everything can be improved and I will do my best to improve the Highline College HR department.

For my Startup, cavnessHR, I have many goals. But my end goal is to have 100 paying customers by the end of 2017. I know I have a lot of work and hustle to do if I am going to meet this goal. As I stated earlier, I will be posting more about cavnessHR in future blogs.

I am going to learn how to use and become active on Snapchat and FB live and use them as a method to build cavnessHR. I am also going to make a better effort to consistently blog in 2017. I will also continue my networking efforts in 2017 to build momentum for cavnessHR. There are a great many networking opportunities in the Seattle/Tacoma area and I plan on taking advantage of as many of them as I can.

I will also be helping to put together and presenting a job search workshop for students at the University of Washington to assist them in preparing for their after graduation job search. My goal is provide the best possible job workshop and to provide them great value.

I will become more involved in the community and do my best to help others. I mainly plan on doing this through my Fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc is the sponsor of the job search workshop I am assisting with for the University of Washington students. @DblEpsilonSigma @pbs_1914

I also want to seek out opportunities to speak about cavnessHR, HR in general and other topics.

On a personal note, I want to get back to the gym and improve my health. I plan on getting down to 180 pounds. I currently weigh around 200.

What are your goals for 2017. How do you plan on accomplishing your goals. Share your goals with me and maybe we can help each other achieve them.