Employee Mark Murray and his wife, Melinda Williams, were featured recently on a PBS “Frontline” special on U.S. health care after Microsoft benefits covered nearly $1 million in medical bills for the complicated pregnancy and premature birth of their son, Rees.
By Jennifer Warnick
Rees
Rees Murray Williams is a million dollar baby.
This is on paper, of course—the kind of paper medical bills are printed on. After a complicated pregnancy, Rees arrived nine weeks early and spent the first eight weeks of his life in neonatal intensive care, hooked up to wires and tubes.
It’s important to note, however, that the now-rambunctious one-year-old boy has a million dollar smile to match the two-inch stack of medical bills from his birth.
Rees and his parents, 13-year Microsoft employee Mark Murray and his wife, Melinda Williams, were recently featured on PBS’s “Frontline” as part of the investigative program’s special report on the U.S. health-care system, exploring its current state and ideas on how to fix it.
Mark Murray and his wife, Melinda Williams
Murray, general manager of corporate communications, said “Frontline” first approached Microsoft to be part of the program on health care because of the company’s outstanding health benefits. “Frontline” wanted to be able to show a “best-case example” of how the health-care system could work when a private employer offers its employees full coverage.
Turns out Murray and his wife were a keen example of the full range of medical challenges families can face, as well as the relief that can come from working for a company that provides complete coverage.
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Director of U.S. Health and Wellness Benefits Cecily Hall tells President Obama about some of the steps Microsoft has taken to provide its employees with affordable, comprehensive health coverage.
By Lou Gellos
Cecily Hall got the surprise of a lifetime on Mother’s Day.
Out to dinner with her three children, Hall, director of U.S. Health and Wellness Benefits, got a phone call from work. She would be meeting with President Barack Obama on Tuesday.
“I was thrilled that Microsoft was being recognized,” Hall said. Her children couldn’t believe their mom was going to meet the country’s most powerful person. “They were thrilled that I was going to meet the president,” she said. The dinner ended on a high note.
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Chris Rae, Scotsman and Excel program manager, writes “The Septic’s Companion” as a guide to British culture and slang. It may, however, incite some Americans to have a stonking wobbler.
By Robin Dalmas
December 2, 2008
Chris Rae, Excel program manager, created the Web site and book The Septic's Companion, a list of British expressions that are foreign to Americans.
When Chris Rae first visited the United States as a 19-year-old university student, he was positively gobsmacked by the number of septics who had no blooming clue what he was “on about.” After all, he was speaking plain English.
Rae was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, which is affectionately known as “Auld Reekie.” A mountain peak called “Arthur’s Seat” towers over the “Firth of Forth,” and people eat haggis, marrow, and trifle. The road signs say “Give way,” and buses carry the warnings “Mind your head.” Is it any wonder the Americans thought he was speaking a foreign language?
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After a personal tragedy, Security Program Manager Brian Harden began to volunteer his time to King County’s Search and Rescue team.
By Jake Siegel
October 13, 2008
As a volunteer with King County Search and Rescue, Brian Harden is often at the mercy of the elements. But the cold, the rain, and the snow are all temporary discomforts. The reason he goes out there is simple and summed up by the Search and Rescue motto: So that others may live.
“When I’m standing around freezing, I remind myself the person out there is in a lot more pain,” said Harden, a security program manager. “Why am I complaining? I’ve got work to do.”
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Greg Roth, a Microsoft staffing consultant for LCA, has a vibrant after-hours career as a musician. This weekend, his band is scheduled to open for the Temptations and the Four Tops.
By Jennifer Warnick
August 22, 2008
By day, Greg Roth works to recruit talented people to work at Microsoft. By night, he is the one being recruited.
Roth is a singer, songwriter, and recording artist who plays individually and as part of the band Rococo Blues. He’s about to play his biggest gig yet. Roth, along with his vocal coach Emily McIntosh and band mates, will be the opening act for the Temptations and the Four Tops at 7 p.m. on Sunday at the Tulalip Amphitheatre. The amphitheatre is on the Tulalip Reservation, about 30 miles north of Seattle.
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Microsoft developer Vijaye Raji spends his free time working on software designed to help beginners learn the principles behind Basic, programming’s original language.
By John Van Vleet
August 5, 2008
The way Vijaye Raji sees it, future developers need to get back to the Basics—literally and figuratively. That explains why Raji, a senior software developer, has spent a large chunk of his free nights and weekends over the past year working on a pet project he calls Small Basic, a language variant of Basic designed to teach beginners the principles behind programming.
“If you take a quick poll around Microsoft of all the developers, and you ask them what they started programming with, it’s usually some kind of variant of Basic,” said Raji. “When MS-DOS came around, they introduced QBasic, and it became very popular. Everybody started programming in QBasic. The interesting thing is that everybody who is a super developer right now at Microsoft started with the same humble beginnings: Basic.”
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Earning a seat at the final table of a World Poker Tour tournament took more than winning cards for Jeff DeWitt. It included a philosophy on gaming and the support of the Microsoft poker community.
By Joshua Isaac
July 21, 2008
Jeff DeWitt held two pair with aces over fours. Odds favored his cards, and some calculated betting on his part made this a big pot. Already eight hours into this four-day tournament, he played most of it short stacked, or at a low chip-level disadvantage, and could finally start playing from a position of power. But when someone went all in on the final card—in Texas hold ‘em, it’s called the river card—DeWitt got an uneasy feeling.
If he calls and wins, he’s up big. But if he loses, his tournament is done. He chose another option and folded. Sometimes, winning in poker requires cutting your losses. “I later learned the guy who went all in had two more fours, or four of a kind,” said DeWitt.
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Microsoft interns give back to the community as part of Microsoft’s first Intern Day of Caring. More than 500 interns participated by volunteering at five different Seattle-area locations.
By John Van Vleet
July 16, 2008
With a cloudless blue sky overhead and Mount Rainier looming large on the horizon, a long string of bustling workers spread out at the base of an overgrown hillside near the entrance to Seward Park, attacking the dense underbrush with pitchforks and pickaxes. “Take out anything that isn’t a tree,” shouted a supervisor. “You can even kill the flowers. They’re actually weeds.”
For a seasoned landscaping crew, removing invasive plant species would seem like just another day at the office. For this group of Microsoft interns, however, it was anything but. Continue reading →
Bruce Dawson shows that he can go just as far, or farther, on one wheel. He commutes 15 miles a day to work and recently finished a 500-mile team unicycle relay race across Nova Scotia.
By Jennifer Warnick
July 3, 2008
A lot about Bruce Dawson’s life can be explained with numbers, starting with the number 1. That’s how many wheels Dawson, a software design engineer in the Games group, uses to commute almost eight miles each way to work on an Avondale Road bike path in Redmond.
He averages 12 to 14 miles per hour (19 to 23 kilometers per hour) on his unicycle. On a recent training ride in Fremont, he achieved speeds of 16 to 17 mph (26 to 27 km/h). When pedaling to work or on the Sammamish and Burke Gilman bike trails, he routinely passes bicycles. “Anybody out for a casual ride is likely to be passed,” Dawson said. “It’s kind of a cruel pleasure I allow myself.”
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The MS Climb team summits Mt Rainier June 16th.
From left to right: Kevin Litwack, Benjamin Neuwirth, John Lowe, Ted Hudek, Gary Chen, Mike Kaufman and Jonas Boli.
Read more about their climb!
