Carl De Chavez - Communication Technician

In his first three months as Sodexo’s first Communication Technician, Carl de Chavez had solved every issue that had come his way.

In turn, Sodexo provided Carl with opportunities that would help him continue to upskill and grow in leadership responsibilities.

“They funded my schooling, tools and equipment, gave me a car to travel between sites with and even put together a small team to help me to manage the workload,” Carl said.

Despite the pay increase that came with this promotion, Carl had a family to provide for. From there he made the decision to move on and become an Airport Baggage Handler with Sodexo. In this role, he met Milan Novakovic—the Village Manager at the time.

“Milan helped me out a lot with my career after discovering I was qualified in Computer Engineering back home,” Carl said.

“He and Sodexo really became invested in getting me to a position where I could use my skills, passions and education to contribute back to the business.”

Milan helped Carl start learning maintenance tasks on weekends while working weekdays at the airport.

As Carl began to excel in maintenance and take on communication technician tasks, his skills were quickly recognised by his Area Manager who had, until then, been looking to outsource communication support.

“When I was told the Area Manager, I wasn’t sure what it was about. But when I sat down with him, he asked me directly if I wanted to work in Maintenance as a Communication Technician,” he said.