W2SC Tom Georgens
Team: Latitude 13 – Sponsored Team (Team Leader)
Country: USA
Age: 54
Occupation: CEO of NetApp
W2SC Tom Georgens
I was originally licensed in 1974 at age 14. My father was a ham, W2NY, and I had a station at home where I mostly did DXing and began modest contesting. After going to college, I moved to Massachusetts where I installed a crank-up tower and participated in an occasional Sweepstakes. In 1989, I moved to a larger hilltop QTH with a single tower and began more serious contesting, with multiple top 10 finishes in DX contests.
In 1996, I moved away from Massachusetts for business reasons and have never again had a home station, so all future contests have had to be as a guest operator. I had the opportunity to contest from K5ZD’s excellent QTH and managed wins in CQWW and ARRL DX. In 1998 I guest operated outside the US for the first time as WP2AHW and it was a great experience. In 1999 I won ARRL DX CW as 8P9JG from the old 8P9Z station. When the previous station owners no longer wanted to sustain the maintenance, my wife Kathleen and I acquired the station in 2001. I have operated the major DX contests from there ever since, winning both modes of the CQ WW, CQ WPX and ARRL DX. It has been a long journey of design, improvement and maintenance that has been very rewarding, but would not be possible without the great advice of the contest community and Kathleen’s support and hard work.
I currently live and work in California with Kathleen and our son Alex. We also have two older daughters, one of whom is married, who live on the East Coast.
This will be my third WRTC. After fantastic events arranged by the Brazilian and Russian organizers, I am looking forward another outstanding WRTC in 2014. Not only will there be excellent competition, it will be great to see the many people with whom I have exchanged contacts over the years.