Flywheel has said it before, but this time it’s real – the last hiring class of 2016! Continuing in our tradition of hiring exceptional people, we’ve added seven fresh, new faces to our team: Joao, Nitant, David, Jordan, Cody, Karen, and Whitney!

Customarily, we take our new hires to our favorite places in downtown Omaha, and this time we decided to bring them to the Gene Leahy Mall and its beautiful view of the skyline. With an excellent view in the background, let’s meet those excellent people in the fore!

Joao Quintela, Remote Happiness Engineer (Australia)

Favorite hobbies and interests? Travel (with a visit to Japan occurring at least once a year), pop culture, comics, and video games. Also, I am a designer toy collector and run an eCommerce store where I sell some too!

Favorite vacation spot? Tokyo, Japan. An entire month there is not even close to being enough time to absorb everything this enormous city has to offer.

Favorite thing on the internet? This changes on a daily basis, but right now its this YouTube video purely because it’s just as awkward as it is catchy.

If you could blow glass into any shape, what would it be? I think I would make an entire office building out of glass, otherwise a really cool, tinted glass mobile phone

Nitant Soni, Remote Happiness Engineer (Australia)

Favorite hobbies and interests: Airplanes and flying, apart from servers and hardware.

Favorite vacation spot: Under the stars, on an isolated mountain somewhere.

Favorite thing on the internet:  xkcd.com / He-man – heyyeyaaeyaaaeyaeyaa 

If you could blow glass into any shape, what would it be? In the shape of a pizza. Because pizza is love, pizza is life.

David Rapsey, Remote Happiness Engineer (Australia)

Favorite hobbies and interests? I enjoy surfing, running, tennis, and geeking out with science fiction movies and novels.

Favorite vacation spot? Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia – it has sunshine, beautiful beaches, lovely people, and great surfing!

Favorite thing on the internet? Netflix – it’s a pretty new thing in Australia, and it’s bringing all the good shows as they get released!

If you could blow glass into any shape, what would it be? I would blow the glass into a sea otter, because I love animals and sea otters are cute and furry. I think they are so smart because they can use tools to crack shells for food!

Jordan Johnson, Inside Sales Representative

Favorite hobbies and interests? I love my wife, Husker football, OKC Thunder basketball, podcasts, and perfecting my knowledge of random facts and trivia.

Favorite vacation spot? It’s got to be a tie between Moab, Utah and Brunnen, Switzerland.

Favorite thing on the internet? I love any site that helps me stay up-to-date with Husker football and OKC Thunder basketball.

If you could blow glass into any shape, what would it be? An indestructible wine glass, since I’ve broken at least four of them just doing the dishes.

Cody Villarreal, Inside Sales Representative

Favorite hobbies and interests? Music, Husker football (since 2002), family, and coffee.

Favorite vacation spot? Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Favorite thing on the internet? artofmanliness.com

If you could blow glass into any shape, what would it be? I’d make a fully functional guitar out of blown glass. If it sounds good, win. If it doesn’t, rockstar smash, still win.

Karen Borchert, Vice President of Operations

Favorite hobbies and interests? Running, great food, great wine, origami, nerding out on data analysis, and hanging out with my three amazing kids.

Favorite vacation spot? Anywhere I can scuba dive! We love Little Cayman the most.

Favorite thing on the internet? fivethirtyeight.com is my most favorite combination of data, music, and pop culture. But I also love Pinterest to spark a little creative joy.

If you could blow glass into any shape, what would it be? I would choose a life-size replica of Alexander Hamilton, in order to complete my obsession with the musical, and further embarrass my children.

Whitney Hoesing, Customer Success Representative

Favorite hobbies and interests? Family, friends, traveling, being outdoors, puppies, Target, and binge-watching TV series.

What is your favorite vacation spot? Home with my family, and Puerto Vallarta!

What is your favorite thing on the internet? Geekologie.com

If you could blow glass into any shape, what would it be? Giant wine glass! Because who doesn’t love wine (and a lot of it, at that).

Welcome to Flywheel! We’re ecstatic they’re here, and they’re eager to get started!