PolarStar Profile: Terry Colton

Terry Colton is a Senior Applications Consultant at Polar Systems. Terry explains her role at Polar this way: “One facet of the Polar business is that we sell, install and train our clients on business applications. The majority of those are accounting systems for both profit and non-profit businesses. I also do some database design and some custom programming of applications that work in conjunction with accounting software.”

Polar Systems supports all major accounting systems, including Dynamics GP (from Great Plains Software) and in the non-profit sector – Blackbaud. Terry says she loves her job because it always involves different challenges. “There’s always a new puzzle to solve. I’m always going into a new place, meeting new people, and learning what they do, so that I can help solve their problem or issue.”  Terry enjoys the fact that her job provides her with an opportunity to learn new things.

Terry’s been with Polar just over three years as an employee, but was a contract consultant for Polar for a couple years before that; however, she’s been in the same field for about 20 years. Prior to working for Polar she was the co-owner of a fairly large custom application development company. While there, she designed the King County Court System years ago – when there wasn’t a lot of relevant canned software to buy off the shelf.

With a degree from University of Washington in English and theatre, Terry had no idea that life would lead her to a career as a Senior Applications Consultant, but she’s glad it did. Though she had done a lot of acting in high school and college, and even had many paid acting jobs in Seattle in her 20s, she found herself job hunting after a move back from the East Coast.

Because of her English degree, she was hired as a technical writer by a company looking for someone to write training manuals. In order to do her best work for that company, she needed to learn more, so she started doing some testing on custom application software. Then she needed to know how things were constructed… and her knowledge and experience just grew from there.

Although she doesn’t have a lot of time for hobbies, Terry is an avid reader, and admits to frequent visits to the Downtown Powell’s where she usually ends up adding to her book collection. Terry and her husband, Ken, have been married for 33 years and have one son, Ben, who is grown and lives in Seattle.

“One of the things I love about Polar is that there are people around me all the time that know a lot of interesting things. Polar works hard to make sure that its staff has a diverse knowledge base with as many skill sets as possible. That makes me proud of the company I work for, and keeps my job interesting.”