Welcome back to today’s episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m your host, Doug Kameen, and today I’m talking with April Marquez, ERP Implementation Specialist at FNS Fresh Produce. Welcome to the show, April.
April Marquez
Thank you for having me, Doug.
Doug Camin
So, April, it’s great to talk to you. We were just talking, we were sharing a little bit of, we both work mostly remotely in our current role. So, you were sharing the FNS Fresh Produce is based in New Jersey, but you do not live in New Jersey, right? So you live in Texas.
April Marquez
I live in South Texas, yes. South Texas.
Doug Camin
So do you live in, are you in San Antonio?
April Marquez
Yes. Okay.
Doug Camin
Yeah. So I grew up in Austin.
April Marquez
Oh, wow. Not too far away. Just a stone’s throw, actually.
Doug Camin
I just upped the road a little bit when I was a kid. So I spent basically the 1980s and the part of the early 1990s.
April Marquez
Okay. You could have possibly been in what, Dazed and Confused or one of those other movies?
Doug Camin
That’s right. that’s right yeah they filmed it like i think they filmed it like right right that’s the last couple of times i was there so uh you know like i i jokingly discussed like i was at austin it was i lived in austin or i grew up in austin during the period that people um venerate as the reason why they wanted to move to austin you know like like that’s true you know now austin’s like three times that size you know it was like a city of like a million people are still back in the 80s and now it’s like like five or and it’s a huge city yeah it’s
April Marquez
gotten a little crazy yeah it’s a little wild still not as many people as san antonio but that’s true
Doug Camin
that’s true san antonio is still a bigger city yeah it’s and it is funny how how different um i say funny but like funny baby isn’t the right word it’s really interesting how different the culture just between san antonio and austin really is like like san antonio is so like they’re so
April Marquez
differently like influenced as cities oh for sure general sense for sure i think you get a lot of uh well you know the the motto is keep austin weird so i think there’s a big big push and and inclusive of inclusiveness and welcoming for someone who’s maybe a little quirky and san antonio’s influences are from you know a little further south of the border even and you get a completely different
Doug Camin
culture and experience yeah yeah such a different vibe and and um you know so i remember when i was a kid like one of our spring break trips was besides going to like south potter island was
April Marquez
was to go down to san antonio and go hang out on the river walk nice yeah just relax and chill right
Doug Camin
yeah yeah so so for those on the podcast i’m sorry i was just gonna say that the have you ever seen
April Marquez
The movie, Matthew McConaughey has a small part in it, Lone Star. And they talk about, okay, well, if you ever get a chance, you should. It’s a great movie, and it’s filmed, I want to say, out in the Uvalde area, which is south of San Antonio even. And they talk about the Alamo, and it’s a great line. No one really goes to see the Alamo, right? Everybody goes to see the Riverwalk.
Doug Camin
I’ve seen the Alamo. I’ve been in, you know, unlike Pee Wee Herman, I knew that there was no basement.
April Marquez
There you go. Awesome. Don’t destroy my hopes.
Doug Camin
That’s right. He did at least find the bike.
April Marquez
Yeah, very true.
Unknown Speaker
Very true.
Doug Camin
So, so anyways, we’ve talked a little bit about how, I guess, well, I’m going to divert ourselves back. We’re supposed to be on a leadership podcast here. Perhaps we should talk about some of that.
Unknown Speaker
Okay.
Doug Camin
So April, you’ve spent time, currently you’re working in, this is your kind of second gig in the, I call it the fresh food space, as I’ll refer it. Because you spent a number of years as an IT manager for another produce place. So, you know, I just one of the things we’re curious about here on the podcast is, is how did you shift from becoming, you know, becoming your schooling and your childhood? What made you want to get into IT? And then how did you transition into leadership?
April Marquez
So getting into IT, I guess, was really easy. I just I had an aptitude for computers starting out. know, I’m going to date myself here on an Apple IIe that they installed at the local library and then the computer lab in school. So that was the easy part.
Doug Camin
You died of dysentery a lot?
April Marquez
I did. Exactly.
Doug Camin
Dysentery.
April Marquez
Oregon Trail.
Doug Camin
Dysentery.
April Marquez
I knew what you meant.
Doug Camin
I knew what you meant.
April Marquez
But yeah, dysentery. But yes, exactly. And so that was fascinating for me. And so I guess I just, it grew from there. And then I actually wanted to be a neurosurgeon when I was first introduced into computer worlds. And those were the games that I played, right? The surgeon, the, you know, but moving forward, I got a little, I guess, enlightened about the medical field. And decided that wasn’t for me and found myself into computer science initially. And then took a break from school for a very long time, but continued taking jobs and learning on the job about systems and, you know, of all sorts. And actually didn’t even complete my degree. My degree is in cybersecurity. Didn’t complete that until about two years ago. Wow. So, yeah. But in the meantime, had a job as an IT manager working for a large wholesale distributor of produce in San Antonio. Learned a lot working with them. They were amazing and very supportive of my career and supportive of my education and continued education. So that’s that’s they were very helpful in me transitioning into into technology, into IT.
Doug Camin
And so you spent a long time with them. And I think that’s something I’d love to explore. I’d love to explore that a little bit for the benefit of the listeners here. So when you start in a career and you move up in a company and you’ve got a great – I call it a great gig. You share that they were very supportive and it was a great place to work. In the end, you still felt that there was a time when you needed to transition your career to a new role and you had to move on. And how did you approach that? personally not not like with your employer how do you approach it but like how did how did you figure out like okay i’ve grown to the point that i think i’ve you know now exceeded my um my next you know my next role is going to be somewhere else you know like right what were the signals that you felt that with that what how did you go through that and what what made you decide like
April Marquez
okay this is the time to make that switch i wasn’t waking up and excited to go to work anymore Wow. And that was new for me because I was always excited to go to work. And, you know, I had a lot of of latitude and I I was the first IT manager in the company. I created that, you know, created the policies, the procedures of and, you know, for whatever person takes up after me. But yeah, I just I just wasn’t that’s that’s really what it was. I just would wake up and go, oh, that’s cool. So, yeah, no, no, I just so that was that was the indication for me that maybe it’s time. So there was some, you know. And then just someone actually reached out to me with an with an opportunity. And it was no longer as an IT manager, though. And so that was a big decision for me because, you know, I spent a lot of time in leadership and decided after some long consideration that I really – it was an opportunity for me to have a different type of experience, experience working with a team. I had a very – it was at – My previous employer was an IT department of one. I touched everything. I led everything. So it’s been a new experience for me to step back and go, oh, wait, that’s not my job to do. Someone else can actually step in and manage the Cisco switches or the VoIP phone systems or something like that.
Doug Camin
And so when you’re moving up, and this is one of those big challenges that you have in particularly the small end of the mid-market space here is, you shared, you’re an IT department of one. So there’s a growth opportunity that you can see in the future where you say, you know what, where do I transition to the new experiences that expand my horizons to be able to move on to the next thing? So like in your case, it sounds to me like you’re really looking towards, and maybe I’ll frame this as a question, do you see yourself getting back into a more management role, but now that you’ve kind of moved laterally almost, not necessarily into more management, but then you’re starting a new path of moving up?
April Marquez
Yeah, no, that’s exactly what I’m hoping to do, actually. So, you know, my goal is to be the CTO, CIO somewhere. And I’m not, you know, perhaps it’s F&S or, you know, but yeah, that’s definitely my goal. I hope that it is.
Doug Camin
That’s a bit. I like that. That’s great ambition. I like it. I like it. This is great. So, so what being many years as the IT manager at a place where you were the only person, what was the biggest, what was your biggest like challenge or impediment that you saw?
April Marquez
A lack of resources, although I will say the company tried to be very supportive, but just – and buy in.
Unknown Speaker
The reality of the situation.
April Marquez
The reality of the situation, right. And I think getting the owners to buy in. So it was a small – I wouldn’t say it was a small company, but it’s a family-owned company. And there were a lot of opinions that I had to navigate. And, you know, that was probably the most, I guess, maybe the most difficult thing. But, you know, you get to where you know personalities and you know how to handle, or I shouldn’t say handle, but how to deal with your coworkers or ownership or leadership. But, you know, the top execs, the C-suite execs that are above you.
Doug Camin
yeah i refer i refer to that as managing up so like like there you go i manage people but i also you have to manage up too you know like i manage the people that are above me there you go thank you and in it i think that’s it happens a lot because there’s a the it leader is frequently the translators at some point in the middle here where you’re like all right thing needs to happen you know whatever the thing is we need phone system we need this thing we need you know the service i don’t know anything about this that you do so please make this happen it’s like you know how do you manage up to manage their expectations manage right they think is appropriate you know like entertain what’s actually possible here whatever the case may be uh particularly i think
April Marquez
it’s one of my strong suits that translation i think is one of my stronger suits is being able to to manage up and say okay here is what this piece of hardware will do and here’s how it’s going to benefit us and and so far and i’m a hand stalker i know you can’t see what i’m doing but yeah the
Doug Camin
listeners can’t see the hand stalker but i can see the hand stalker so i know what you’re saying okay uh we we could we could maybe we could just make commentary we’d be like hand wave
Unknown Speaker
hand wave when when that happens yes exactly so you i’m going to touch on something you mentioned
Doug Camin
a couple minutes ago, you had mentioned that you had been interested in computers and some of your first stuff was playing with an Apple IIe. And so for you, your first experience with the computer was with public computer access, it sounds like.
April Marquez
Yes. Yeah. We had to sign up, wait our turn, hope the person didn’t show up if we wanted to stay on the computer. Yeah, absolutely.
Doug Camin
So, so, and so like what types of things, I mean, obviously there were games and stuff like that, but like what, what, what parts of that computer are using that and doing that? Like, what’s the pieces that you really felt like were foundational for you that taught you stuff? You know, aside from being like, Oh, this is cool because it’s technology.
April Marquez
Oh, oh, gosh. Well, yeah, games were very attractive. But yeah, no, the whole idea of how it was put together was very attractive to me. It was maybe a few more years before I put my own system together. Just, you know, they were, well, it was a few more years because they were less expensive a few more years later, a few years later. But yeah, so it was just how does this work? How is this circuitry? How is it talking? Just trying to understand really was what motivated me, trying to understand how it’s – how did this floppy thing that you stick in the computer tell the computer what to do? You know, it’s malleable. It doesn’t seem like you could do much with it. Ben’s very easily damaged, you know.
Doug Camin
I think about one of the, a lot of times for folks that like had, like when I had a computer at home when I was in my teenage years, it was not uncommon for me to dismantle. I think that’s a pretty common story for folks that are into tech. But, you know, of course you could do that when it’s the library’s computer. They would probably not invite you back. It was frowned upon to dismantle the computer at the library, I guess we’ll say.
April Marquez
Right.
Doug Camin
Absolutely. But, you know, to understand those technologies and how they came apart, like, so later on, you mentioned you got the opportunity to start buying your own technology and get into that, stuff like that. What was your first experience there in that space?
April Marquez
Well, it was with a gateway PC.
Doug Camin
Oh, yeah. Cows? Little cow computer?
April Marquez
Yep, you got it.
Doug Camin
Was it still a gateway 2000 when you bought it?
April Marquez
You know, I honestly don’t remember. It may, it’s perhaps, I don’t know.
Doug Camin
If it was prior to 2000, they were known as Gateway 2000, right? They transitioned to Gateway.
April Marquez
Oh, is that? Okay, then yes, you’re absolutely right. It was a Gateway 2000.
Doug Camin
And then they transitioned to be out of business.
April Marquez
We’re talking late 80s, yeah, they were talking to late 80s, early 90s. So yes, yeah, it was a 2000 for sure. But yeah, just learning about memory and, you know, those were all just amazing. My mother was not happy with me when I would take something apart and put it back together and hope that it worked. Because it was a big expense for the family at that time, right, to have a PC in the home. So, yeah.
Doug Camin
Did you ever put it back together and it didn’t work?
April Marquez
No. No, I was pretty lucky that way, actually. Have you had an experience like that?
Doug Camin
Did you have one? I don’t think I ever pulled mine apart and didn’t get it working again. But I think I had some close calls where I was like, oh, my God, what’s wrong? And I had to pull things apart again. And I’d be like, oh, the memory wasn’t seated right or something like that. There you go. The processor wasn’t, you know. Right. The Pentium processor wasn’t put in the ZIF socket correctly.
April Marquez
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Learning about keeping it cool and all that other good stuff as well.
Doug Camin
So mention that you started in school. Did you go to school originally just like straight up? You’re like, I’m in computer science in school. Is that how you started? Or did you start?
April Marquez
No, I started in English.
Unknown Speaker
That’s right.
Doug Camin
You told me. I’m sorry. Sorry. So you started in English.
April Marquez
Started in English. Moved to computer science.
Doug Camin
Yeah.
April Marquez
And then stopped school for a very long time. Didn’t go for about 10 years.
Doug Camin
Yeah. And what motivated you to get back into that?
April Marquez
So I have a very strong, very strong support system, a group of within that support system. There are teachers, some of them former teachers of mine from, you know, third grade when I was playing on an Apple IIe. And they remain my friends. And just they have instilled in me this desire for to, you know, pursue a higher education. And so even being in tech, halfway through finishing my program, my most recent program, which is a cybersecurity program at UTSA, University of Texas at San Antonio. Halfway through, I went, I don’t even need this, right? I can go and get tons of certificates. I can go and do, you know, continued education. But I really want this. This is something I’m going to complete for myself. so that I have fulfilled a desire that I’ve had since I was young. So, yeah, I would have to blame it on teachers. Yeah.
Doug Camin
So tell me a little more about your work with the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition.
April Marquez
So I volunteered as a mentor for a school. And unfortunately, it was really amazing because I say unfortunately because I wasn’t able to complete the school year with them. But it was really amazing because it gives the kids are learning so much now. And you’re talking about, you know, sophomore, juniors, seniors who are able to wade through cyber attacks, white hat, blue team, red team, you name it. They’re managing through all, they’re working through all of this and they’re learning. I mean, I just, it’s so amazing because I really wish this was available for me when I was their age. You know, it’s something that we’ve had to like, I’ve had to seek out. But those who are interested, they have this available to them. And it’s a really amazing program. High schoolers?
Doug Camin
Is this high schoolers?
April Marquez
Yes. Yeah, high schoolers. So my experience was as a mentor. So it was a first-time experience for me. So it was just like a sit back and watch and support where I could at least administratively. But it was really, really fun. And I’d love to support it again.
Doug Camin
How did you come to get involved in this type of stuff?
April Marquez
So the local Alamo-Isa chapter in San Antonio, they have events and different types of organizations posted on their websites. And so I went to their website and I found this opportunity through their website and through the CyberPatriot website as well. So you can sign up as a volunteer. And then if a school needs the volunteers, they get your name off the list of someone who’s available in their area and they call you up.
Doug Camin
So I was just thinking about, this is something you’ve signed up for the ESA chapter. That’s the Information Systems Security Association, right?
April Marquez
Yes, yes. Association, I think.
Doug Camin
Information Security Systems. Yep, yep. And so I think one of the things that I’d love to get your insight on and share with our listeners is about how do you become involved? What are some of the best ways that you’ve seen to become involved as a leader? You know, you’re coming up as a leader, you’re building your skills and things like that. What things should people be looking at participating and being a part of?
April Marquez
So certainly networking. I try to attend conferences as often as I can. The ISA chapter, the Alamo ISA chapter has monthly meetings to attend and mentorships as well. So those are all, I think, probably the most beneficial when you’re trying to, because they go into, it’s not just about the tech. It’s also about your soft skills. You’re learning how to lead others in this industry, you know, that we’re in and within so many different disciplines. And so that’s that’s really I really think that that’s probably one of the best ways is to just get out there. And I discovered them by attending an IT conference that was in San Antonio. Gosh, I can’t remember the name of it was so long ago. I’m sorry. But just, you know, someone said, here, I’ve got a free passport if you’d like to attend. And I went, OK, awesome. And that just kind of opened my whole world.
Doug Camin
So so like strike it out there. Don’t be afraid to approach people. You’ll be afraid to talk at those conferences. Absolutely. Find your way through there. So I’m going to shift back. More fun conversation for a second here. You mentioned your Apple IIe days. So what was your favorite game?
April Marquez
So I played Oregon Trail like crazy. But also, yeah, Oregon Trail is the one that pops up the most. But anything that allowed me to, any logic games. So anything where I could answer, or trivia, or logic games where I could just answer questions and move forward. So those were, but yeah, definitely Oregon Trail was one where. But we didn’t have the pretty pictures back then. It was like, okay, there’s a, and in words it said, there’s a stampede coming your way. What do you do? And you have to quickly type it, and hopefully you did it fast enough.
Doug Camin
And hopefully it was the right answer.
April Marquez
Yeah.
Doug Camin
And so a couple of weeks ago, I was so I live in upstate New York and in Rochester, New York. That’s where my office is, although I live a couple hours away from Rochester. We have there’s a museum called the Strong Museum of Play. and the strong museum has they’re they’re actually the national the like literally like the u.s’s national museum for play and all types of play so games everything else they have like they’ve like original copies of monopoly and all sorts of crazy um one of the things they also have is the international video game hall of fame and uh so so for all the listeners out there you know you put to put Rochester on your uh your your list of things if you’re a big video gamer because that’s actually where they have the like the international video game like induction ceremonies but they of course have a series of video games that you can play so like last a couple weeks ago when I was up um one day with my family we stopped at the strong yeah I’m sitting here like on a phone call I’m playing Oregon Trail in the back and I like working my way working my way along going through Kansas do I have to ford this river you know right you know oh look my my my wagon took on water
April Marquez
and when I forded the river I lose two days you know yes I remember all of that and I think the other one that I used to enjoy which is not done not crazy for me but uh Mavis Davis was the typing at the typing tutor one?
Doug Camin
Mavis Bacon? Mavis Bacon? Beacon?
April Marquez
Not 100%. I have the benefit
Doug Camin
of the internet here while we’re talking that can tell us which one this actually was. I remember it was Mavis Beacon typing. I do remember that. If you were just a couple years younger, like my my wife’s a couple years younger than me it was like a mario teaches typing oh i didn’t know that yeah but yes that may have a speaking with in her business suit showing you how to type
April Marquez
like a pro that’s right that’s right and the worst typists i think are our it people or
Doug Camin
maybe not coders coders are pretty good but yeah now no this is it i’m gonna something I’m trying to figure out as I’m talking to you is, was Mavis Beacon a real person? The character Mavis Beacon was-
April Marquez
I think she was, right? I don’t know.
Doug Camin
It says a fictional character created for this computer software, went to history, fame, Mavis Beacon. So it’s often thought of to be- Here’s a thing with confusion. Mavis Beacon is often thought to be a living or historical figure by the public. Confusion has led to many to contact the software developer seeking to speak to, interview or book Mavis for an event. That’s awesome. Mavis has taught all our students. Can we get them for a student assembly, please? They’re like, yeah. You know what? They should have just leaned into this and been like, yeah, yeah, we’ll send it right over.
April Marquez
Right. No kidding. Oh, that would have been a big moneymaker. And here I had a whole narrative. I had a whole narrative in my head. She was from the thirties, the little typing rooms. That’s right. I had this whole.
Doug Camin
Right. You were 100% certain of that 30 seconds ago, right? Yeah, exactly. Although there’s a detail here that says as of 1998, she had instructed 6 million school children.
April Marquez
Oh, see? She’s touched people.
Doug Camin
That’s right. Wikipedia says that she is, compared to a U.S. cultural icon, Betty Crocker, has been called the Betty Crocker of cyberspace. i love it we’re groundbreaking stuff right here wikipedia about about the typing software we used as children exactly yeah so like i remember what speaking of like first computers when i was a kid by we had the um the ti a texas instruments the ti 99 4a that was our okay that was like technically my first computer now my dad was an ibm-er um and and so we that’s actually how i moved to texas was where i live in upstate new york binghamton is where ibm was founded and uh uh yeah so like they had tons of ibm employees like 30 000 ibm employees around here at one point and big manufacturing hub for them and things and then when in the 50s and 60s when they grew rapidly they built out raleigh in Austin as clones of the Handicott facility for manufacturing purposes. My father, he worked in the manufacturing areas and was like, oh, I’ll take a transfer to Austin. So off we went in the early 1980s to live in Austin. But ironically, our first computer was not, in fact, an IBM. It was a TI. We did later get an IBM computer. In fact, at one point in my life, I owned an IBM PS1, in fact.
April Marquez
oh my gosh yeah i remember those i had a commodore i mean i found it in a garage sale once and
Doug Camin
yeah it was yes and nowadays some of these things are worth pretty good money like when you yeah you know if you you know if you find the right ones i know like you know but the thing is how do you
April Marquez
keep them like like handy i think it’s tandy was another one right you get yourself a trs-80 or
Doug Camin
something yeah like like at one point like for instance my my grandparents um here in town they had a uh i mean it’s long since past but back when i was a kid 80s and early 90s they had this like 71 dodge and i don’t know why they kept it but they just never sold it it was a cool car from the 70s i had a nice cool design i don’t remember exactly which model of dodge it was but um they got rid of it i think in the mid-90s because eventually it stopped passing state inspection because like like the it was past this private it was to work but like if that car was around it was uh you know in good condition it might be a 30 000 car a 40 000 car so it’d be like oh man if you only saved that thing for now but i’m like you know how much effort it is to save a vehicle like Like, you’re probably going to put $20,000 over the years into saving it to get $30,000 at the end. Like, is that – I mean, of course, if you did put $20,000 in and you got $30,000, I guess technically you’re ahead on your money. But you still have the question of, like, what’s your time worth and what’s your effort worth? Absolutely. Like, I had a motorcycle that I had for many years, and I got riding it very little. And I was like, well, if anybody else, you know, maybe a kid who might want it or something, but do I really want to hang on to this for the next, like, 12 years until I find out that my kid is going to be like, oh, yeah, dad, that would be awesome to have that thing you kept.
April Marquez
That’s a big risk right there, because chances are pretty good they wouldn’t, right? They’re like, eh, it’s older.
Doug Camin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, of course, that, like, one thing, you know, you threw away, like, the, you know, first edition of whatever thing.
April Marquez
Right. Well, my grandfather had a gold wing, a Mercedes gold wing, and he bought it for 10 grand. I forget how much it was. It was some ridiculous number nowadays and sold it the next year and made $5,000. And that was a wonderful deal as far as he was concerned. Until, you know, fast forward 60 years and he can get, I don’t know what they’re going for now. A million, something like, I don’t know. I actually have no idea, but it’s like some crazy amount of money. And yeah.
Doug Camin
Clearly, that clearly would have been worth it for like that one thing.
Unknown Speaker
So now you can now you can you can curse and be like, oh, damn you, grandpa, you should have saved that after all.
Doug Camin
But like, how do you know which ones are the ones that actually save? Like it’s so I don’t want to call it a crapshoot because it’s not totally a crapshoot, but it’s hard. Like the cars that usually the ones that are most the thing that’s most valuable started valuable to begin with. So like, would you really have it to begin with?
April Marquez
Like, right. True that. True that.
Doug Camin
you know there’s there’s there’s very there’s many fewer of the like oh this is the um in the motorcycle where there’s i think it’s the honda like cb7 which was a like honda’s first motorcycle what the first like four stroke something like motorcycle i don’t know all the details somebody will probably you know flame us on the podcast about how how i blew that up and didn’t get it right but but anyways it was an important bike but it was cheap you know it was it was meant to be like an every person’s bike so if you had one you had one of the first generations that was made in like a sand cast metal instead of the die cast metals or whatever they were uh it’s incredibly valuable and that would be an inexpensive thing that became
April Marquez
very valuable but like most things don’t follow that trajectory right absolutely anyways there’s
Doug Camin
our rabbit hole about them so so getting back to some of the other things we talked about before um when when you’re thinking about leadership and and you know you mentioned you’ve mentored kids uh with cyber security you yourself have a you finished a degree somewhat recently in cyber security at least more recently than when you first went to school you took a break sure um what what kind of advice do you have to share for folks that are looking for those first it leadership roles and how do they break into them
April Marquez
listening i think that was one of my biggest challenges was learning to listen and learning to work with a team of you know of and learning learning how, as you said, managing up. I think listening is probably the most important skill that we have to, you know, whether it’s to listen to what people, what their needs are, what they’re really asking for. As a, you know, as a younger person, I was certainly that person that would go, oh, you want blah, blah, blah, blah, and I go off on this whole, you know, path, and that really wasn’t going to solve their problem. It really wasn’t, And so as I hope, at least, that as I’ve gotten older and been in leadership and that I’ve developed much better listening skills, that’s probably my number one thing that I would say. I think I’ve really, that would be the number one thing, actually. Yeah. And be hungry. And be hungry. Yeah, be hungry, too, you know, to get into leadership.
Doug Camin
How, what things have you feel that you’ve learned? I mean, you had multiple years in the leadership role.
Unknown Speaker
Mm-hmm.
Doug Camin
What do you think was different about you when you left that role, when you started?
April Marquez
I’d like to think that I have a little more humility. I’ll say it was a decision, as we said earlier, a lateral move, but something that I went, wait, I’m a manager. And I’m going to move to not being a manager. And, yeah, I think it took a lot of some humility, and I hope that I’ve learned some humility, you know, over the years. And to be able to do that for myself and say, okay, this is a step that you need to take to continue moving forward, upward, however you might want to phrase that.
Doug Camin
Yeah, I think about I know I’ve had this conversation with different guests on a podcast over time. But the way I frame it is I’m like, so I’m I’m 46. And, you know, so 46 year old me is a manager. I happen to be a manager when I was 26 at a consulting firm. There are things that 26 year old me did that I would be like, dude, what were you thinking? right right like calm down that was really you’re really being a you’re really being a jerk that time you know exactly you know like like you know you you know there’s a certain element of you know i don’t say age brings humility but it brings it brings a certain level of perspective and certainly you know the benefit of of time to understand certain things um and be more you know have a have a different horizon than you know when you’re sure it’s your younger years yeah but i was just thinking through the benefits of some of the benefits of that i can only i yeah i know i’d had
April Marquez
that same conversation with myself at 25 versus versus now so yeah yeah like i appreciate what
Doug Camin
you shared about like in your in your younger years you’re like i wouldn’t necessarily listen fully i would be like i heard what you said i gotta go take care of this and you like yeah like you’re trying to solve the problem before you’ve even perhaps before you’ve even stopped to think through like what are they actually asking exactly so yeah you know if you’re you’re solving the wrong problem are you really solving anything at all very true just create more work right exactly
Unknown Speaker
absolutely and it’s happened enough to where i’m glad that i i hope i’ve learned enough from that
Doug Camin
yeah from that experience so um you know another thing i would ask um if you what kind of advice you give to folks who are like you mentioned you mentored students stuff like that if one of them came to you and said hey i want to be you know in cyber security space you know whatever the job is they want to ask what kind of it you know what kind of advice would you give to them uh to to in the context of becoming a leader
April Marquez
I think openness. I think that, you know, as a leader, you’ve got to be open. And I think that as a leader, you have to share with your teams, you know, where you’re going. They’re going to need some, I really just, yeah, openness would probably be the one of the things that I would say. as a leader and in cyber uh it seems the opposite of what you might expect being a technical
Doug Camin
um field but um tell me more about that like why why why is there that difference there
April Marquez
why do you perceive that uh well it’s because i think that there there’s an i guess it’s probably an old, you know, stereotype about how tech people are, right, that closed and very much that person who went in and just, here, let me just fix this for you, and I don’t have the time to talk to you. I’ve got a hundred, you know. And so one of the things that I do, that I have tried when I’ve, we’ve had interns working with us and stuff like that is to is to push them to be you know more receptive and to to hear again going back to listening and hearing what people are are saying and what their needs are but also sharing and letting people know that there’s a there’s a us you know there’s another side to Yes, you’re there to meet the company’s goals as a whole, but we can all do it together. We can all do it. And we all contribute. We’re a big part of the success of the company as well. So it’s not just the… What’s the phrase I’m looking for? I guess it’s not just how the… it’s not just the end, right? It’s not just the end game. It’s not what we’re trying to, it’s how did we get there? And did we create a, did we create a culture and a, did we create a culture that will also perpetuate and continue on after us as well? So that can be built upon and continue on after us.
Doug Camin
I like that. April, thank you so much for investing your time with us on the podcast today.
April Marquez
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate your time as well.
Doug Camin
So that’s a wrap on today’s episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m Doug Camin, and we look forward to coming to you on our next episode.
