Aaron Shaw is our Lab Manager and an integral part of our Client Experience team at Lloyd. In 2022, Aaron was selected by his fellow Lloydians to receive our Lloydian Choice Award, which is presented to someone who consistently exemplifies Lloyd’s core values: Be Human. Be Accountable. Be Better. Aaron builds genuine relationships with members of our community, is always ready to lend a hand, and continually looks to elevate himself and his peers, who describe him as responsive, dedicated, and hard-working.
“Aaron always receives great feedback from Lloydians and our clients. He goes above and beyond to help us, and his work is extremely efficient.” – a fellow Lloydian.
Aaron has been a valuable part of our team for the past 2 years and continues to bring his positive outlook to Lloyd. In the lab, his primary focus is to ensure that all lab requests, whether it’s configuring new hardware or repairing old hardware, are handled quickly and efficiently for all of Lloyd's clients. Aaron manages warranty and out-of-warranty repairs with our partners and develops processes and procedures to ensure the lab runs as smoothly as possible. He also works on hiring and training our team of lab interns and has played a key role in making our intern program successful. Aaron currently holds a CompTIA A+ certificate and is a certified Google IT Support Professional. When asked what his favorite part of his job is, Aaron says, “My job lets me do three things I really love: working with computer hardware, mentoring and teaching trainees, and helping people.”
Aaron’s Story
I spent many years working as a manager for Barnes & Noble Booksellers, including a few stores here in NYC that are sadly no longer open. IT as a career is new to me, but technology is not. I grew up with a tech savvy dad that bought our family’s first PC when I was still in elementary school. I loved seeing what I could do with it – I remember as a kid playing around with some basic coding to make little video games. I got into the hardware side of PCs later in life by building my own computers and home servers, but never seriously considered making a career out of it until a few years ago when my Barnes and Noble store permanently closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. I decided to use the pandemic shutdown to round out my tech knowledge by taking online classes and then studying for and passing the CompTIA A+ certification exam. I feel like I came into Lloyd with good foundational IT knowledge, but I can definitely say that I've learned more in my almost 2 years at Lloyd than I ever could've learned studying at home. And I'm still learning new things every day.
What makes you good at what you do?
There's a lot to juggle and keep track of as Lab Manager, and I get a lot of questions and requests throughout the day, so I think my organizational skills and attention to detail, along with my previous management experience, are key to keeping up with the demands of the job.
What are the contributing factors to your success since joining Lloyd?
I'd say the main factor for my success is the amazing support system I have here at Lloyd. Even when I’ve had some ups and downs in my personal life, the leadership team here has been amazingly supportive and understanding. And Lloyd has so many talented employees with a tremendous wealth of knowledge, I always feel like I have great resources to lean on when I need them.
What do you love about being a Lloydian?
Feeling like I'm a contributor in a well-run organization that recognizes and leverages the things I'm good at. Also, the people that work here: everyone here is ready and willing to help everyone else. It's a great environment to work and to learn in.
What makes Lloyd different?
The amazing culture here! I feel like everyone at Lloyd genuinely likes helping people, whether it’s helping our clients or other Lloydians. There’s such a focus on hiring people that not only have the right technical skills, but that are also the right cultural fit, and it really shows.
How do you relate to one of Lloyd’s core values? (Be Human. Be Accountable. Be Better.)
I love our company’s core values, since not only are they great values for running a company, but they’re simply great values to live by. But if I have to choose just one, I’ll give a shout out to “Be Better”: I'm always striving to be better—to never stop learning and never stop looking for ways to improve.
Get to Know Aaron
My wife and I have lived in New York City for almost 10 years now, and at this point in our lives, we can’t imagine living anywhere else. Central Park is my happy place, so I love taking long walks there—it never gets old. I'm a diehard New York Giants fan. I'm also always on the lookout for the best pizza in NYC: It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. I occasionally play guitar, but not as much as I used to. This is probably going to sound a bit obsessive, but my main hobby is doing what I do at work: tinkering with computer hardware. I also have a side passion for interior decorating—I love antiques and prewar design and architecture. My wife and I have slowly been restoring prewar charm and style to our 120-year-old apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
