“Serving in the Army played a critical role in my life,” says veteran Jeff Allen, an account manager in the merchant services team in Omaha. At PayPal for 15 years, Jeff says his education and career can be attributed to the lessons he learned when he joined the military. At age 17, Jeff was among the youngest Army recruits and became a Specialist E4 during his time.
Military veterans are celebrated with pride at PayPal. The Omaha PayPal office hosts an annual lunch with inspirational speakers and gives veterans an opportunity to connect and reminisce about their days in the military. Throughout the U.S., Canada and several European countries where Armistice or Remembrance Day is observed in November, military veterans are honored and remembered. For Jeff, the annual observance underscores the lessons he learned in the military that have guided him as a civilian.
How did your Army service shape your career development?
I can truly say I owe my education and every job I ever had to the Army. There, I discovered I can achieve anything. I came from a broken home and was a high school dropout with no real prospects. But I learned that if I followed the Army program, I would grow and get promoted. I earned my high school diploma in the service, became a medic, and when I got out, I went to university thanks to the G.I. bill. I gained a lot of self-confidence and a solid foundation.
How did you land at PayPal?
I saw a classified ad in the Omaha paper for a customer service agent opening at PayPal and applied. After my initial phone interview, I was asked if I would be interested in being an account manager. I’m a pretty blunt person so I asked, “Does it pay more?” and the recruiter said “yes.” So I took the job and have not looked back since.
You’ve been at PayPal for 15 years now, what do you like most about working here?
PayPal is a very different company. Its culture reflects very nice people being human toward each other. You don’t always see that. Plus, we develop a lot of different products and we keep pushing forward with better products that really help our customers.
How has the account manager role evolved during your time at PayPal?
In the beginning, account managers answered calls and might have sent a weekly email to the account base. There weren’t really any programs, but as PayPal and the job grew, we became more focused on how to grow our customers’ business. The position evolved from being a customer service agent to becoming a trusted advisor to our customers, helping them navigate through all the aspects of a relationship with us, including more and more sophisticated programs and tools such as express checkout and great protection.
You will be going on your third sabbatical soon. What are you planning?
I love playing golf, so a friend and I are planning to go to Florida to play early in the new year. At one time I had a handicap of around 15 but now that I’m older it’s about 28.
What else do you enjoy doing outside of PayPal?
I was a single parent for a long time and it was a struggle at times but well worth it. I’m devoted to my two boys, my son Andrew and my stepson, Scott.
I met Scott when he was just two years old and have a close relationship with him. He’s now married and has three children. He recently graduated summa cum laude from the University of Nebraska at Omaha as a criminology major and landed the job he wanted as a juvenile probation officer. It makes me very proud. He sent me a letter upon graduation, where he wore my graduation cap, thanking me for being, in his words, “a father and best friend.” This has made me the happiest and most fulfilled man on the planet.