On 30 July 2016, blueAPACHE turned eighteen. Commencing in 1998 in a spare room in Glen Waverley, blueAPACHE has grown into one of Australia’s true success stories. Very few businesses reach such a milestone, and even less do so in the best shape of their life.
The celebrations coincided with the blueAPACHE Golf Championship, with acknowledgements and speeches occurring during the on-course luncheon. With formalities out of the way, we headed straight into celebrations. No birthday celebration is complete without presents and what a bounty there was!
We acknowledged the first three employees of the company by having handcrafted bobble heads made for the occasion. The miniature versions of Chris, James and Grant generated quite a few laughs. It was noted that the purpose of these was to replace the founders whenever they were out of the office, and the bobble heads were very adept at nodding yes to any question asked.
Chris was also presented with a large frame celebrating the milestone. The frame featured a collage of past and present staff members, and the art was signed by every employee of blueAPACHE. The signatures were important, as they form a snapshot of everyone who has helped us grow to where we are today.
Our vendor and distribution partners also sent gifts, and they were unexpected and very well received. Karen at Dicker Data offered gifts that were incredibly fitting and prompted a lot of questions as staff started mentally ticking people off their Christmas list.
Of course, it isn’t a birthday without a cake – and this was no exception. Following the gift giving, a custom created vanilla mudcake Switch was brought into the dining room. Designed by our marketing team, the cake was made by a professional wedding cake designer. It created quite a stir (especially amongst the engineers) due to the high level of attention to detail on all sides.
A jovial and very vocal rendition of Happy Birthday was sung by all, before Chris sliced into the cake to reveal that vanilla mudcake was in fact blue.
The day continued with the second half of our Golf Championship (and a new winner!).
As always, we would like to thank everyone involved in helping us celebrate this auspicious occasion. We remain humbled and honoured to have been able to recognise this milestone with our staff, knowing we had the support of our vendor and distribution partners.