作者:Anna Stolley Persky
2017年7月10日
With members in all 50 states and more than 80 countries, the D.C. 酒吧 is beginning a regular feature to profile the people who make up our community. Read about your peers, their lives, and their work around the world.
布莱恩·韦伯斯特 was sitting at a bar in Seattle after a job interview, 以为是为了在华盛顿谋个职位, D.C.他当时住在那里. 他的电话响了. 这份工作是他的. He deliberated for a long time, but eventually decided to pack up his things and head west.
今天, Webster is a senior attorney at 微软 公司 in Washington state who has an affinity for trips back to D.C. He has decades of work experience in patent prosecution and litigation, 软件许可, 专利组合管理.
Webster graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in engineering and The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law.
你是怎么进法学院的?
我在德克萨斯州长大，然后去了雪城大学, 1991年我在那里获得了工程学学位. 我本来打算读工程专业的研究生, 但后来我的一个朋友在美国国防部找到了一份工作.S. 专利商标局. The notion of actually having money was an interesting one, so I followed him to the Patent Office. I got a job as a patent examiner specializing in digital communications. I figured I could put my education on hold to make some money.
At the time, it was the height of the dot-com boom so patent lawyers were in demand. Some of my colleagues at the Patent Office went to law school at night. 他们开始接到靠谱的滚球平台事务所的电话. I started thinking that going to law school could open more doors for me than engineering would. 所以我晚上去了法学院. It took me four years to finish, and I worked at the Patent Office for the majority of the time.
你在专利局的工作经历如何?
It was a great first job out of college, a great place to learn how to be an employee. I learned how to bounce ideas off my colleagues and how to appreciate the different perspectives there can be in a workplace.
专利局是一个非常多元化的工作场所. 我遇到了来自许多不同国家和文化的人. I liked talking to my colleagues about their experiences in their lives. Many of them came from immigrant communities, and I liked learning about that.
你是怎么到微软来的?
多年来，我一直在D的专利领域工作.C offices of a number of firms, including Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Door and Arnold & 行李搬运工人. 最后，我在当时的麦肯纳工作 & 阿尔德里奇，从事专利申请和诉讼的综合工作. 干得好. There were ebbs and flows in terms of the amount of work, but that is normal at a law firm. 随着我事业的发展, I became less focused on the brass ring of partnership and more on skills development. This prompted me to look beyond the typical law firm career path.
一次偶然的机会，我接到了一个微软公司的工作电话. 我以为这个职位是给D的.C.所以我来到雷德蒙德参加了一轮面试. I spent all day in interviews, and then I headed to Seattle. I had never been to Washington state before, and didn’t know if I would ever be back. 我想这可能是我参观西雅图的唯一机会, so I headed to the two largest tourist attractions—the Space Needle and Pike Place Market. 天在下雨，我全身都湿透了. I went into a 7-11 and asked the guy behind the counter if he sold umbrellas. 店里的每个人都嘲笑我. 这是我第一次接触太平洋西北地区.
我找了个酒吧，坐在两个男人中间. 奇才队对阵超音速队, and these guys were telling me all the reasons I should move to Seattle. 在这一点上, 我的手机响了, and it was the recruiter telling me that 微软 was offering me a job, 但那是在雷德蒙德, 不符合D。.C.
我尽可能推迟做决定的时间, 但后来我下定了决心, 收拾好我的东西, 搬到了太平洋西北部. 我开始在公司内部做专利准备和申请工作. My job evolved over time, and I took on more of an outside counsel management role. Now, my practice focuses on portfolio management and client counseling.
住在西雅图和住在D是什么感觉.C.?
我和西雅图的关系很复杂. 该地区因其自然美景而闻名. However, the generally cloudy weather is very different from the East Coast.
Seattle is starting to rival Silicon Valley in terms of the number of startups and the presence of players in the tech space like Amazon, 微软, 等. Google, 脸谱网, and other tech companies are enlarging their footprint in the Pacific Northwest. 在这个地区从事法律工作是一个激动人心的时刻.
但是D有一个世界性的方面.C. 我想念你. 在D.C., you can stand at a crosswalk and hear people speaking a lot of different languages.
我在D有家人和朋友.C.所以我就找借口回去. 华盛顿特区.C., is unique—there are things that happen there that don’t happen in other areas of the country, 但直到你离开后才会注意到这一点. Out here, there isn’t the same sense of current affairs and politics. 在D.C., if you went out with friends, there was always some portion of the night spent discussing politics.
在你的职业生涯中，你经常搬家. 为什么?
A lot of my movement in my career was a result of me wanting to expand my skills and knowledge base. 我总是想学习一些新的和不同的东西. When I start to feel comfortable in my job, I ask myself, “What can I do to become less comfortable?微软的另一个人说, 我把它当作护身符, 在找工作的时候, 寻找优秀的人才和陡峭的学习曲线.”
Sometimes fate steps in and makes things happen, and that can become your impetus for change. 我已经了解到敏捷是有帮助的. Change is an opportunity to try something different, to str等h your skills. 专利靠谱的滚球平台可能会规避风险, so they especially need to push themselves even further to take on new and different opportunities
