[0:30] What is your position and what are your responsibilities?

I’m Senior Director of Information Technology at ElectriCom. I manage the IT group and keep us aligned to the business and heading in a positive direction.

[0:55] What does ElectriCom do?

We are a utility infrastructure company working with telecommunications and power suppliers. We work to connect people across America to things like broadband services.

[01:26] What are some of the initiatives are you guys working on?

Traditional IT such as HR, back-office work, accounting, and so on. The other side is working on fleet management, fieldwork, production data capture, and analysis from job sites.

[02:40] What’s the Holy Grail that you can deliver from a situation like that technology-wise?

Probably the ability for a foreman to electronically record what his crew has done for the day and for the data to flow seamlessly back through our tech stack.

[03:35] How could that become a reality?

A combination of automation and site devices recording data. There are manual pieces of the process, and getting that data into the processing funnel and corporate systems is what could be more efficient. How can we keep it simple for the guys?

[06:04] How did you get your start?

Originally, I was going to be a veterinarian. When I was looking for college programs, I realized vet medicine wasn’t for me. At the time in the late 80s, I took every technology class in high school, and then I went on to college and got a BS in Computer Science.

[07:30] Were you more software oriented, or more on the development side?

As an undergrad it was more in development, but later I became more involved in the networking side of things and LAN administration. When I originally graduated, I was more of an infrastructure engineer.

[10:20] What do you consider one of your biggest failures in your career?

Early on, I was a software product manager. We came up with a program that would talk to the mainframe and spit out a price sheet. Prices varied by customer plan, etc. We hoped to give the program to banks and financial institutions to use, and when we presented it to the executive, he was hesitant. He asked me “Are you willing to bet your paycheque that this will succeed?” I was mid-20s with a young family and I didn’t respond. The program ended up only being used internally. In hindsight, I should have presented my case better.

[14:30] What’s your biggest career win?

I think of the wins more in terms of the relationship side. Creating good relationships is a big win.

[16:20] What’s the biggest bottleneck in the industry right now?

It’s always an inefficient process. It’s data storage, re-keying, naming, etc.

[22:44] What do you think is the biggest problem in IT?

IT became unapproachable. Over time, people have become more comfortable due to advances. I try to be the best partner I can be.

[25:00] What’s the most promising tech or platform coming up right now?

Microsoft’s Power Automate platform. There are visual data connectors and you can move your data around easily. It’s a programming language, but they’ve made it visual.

[34:30] I have been diving into Citizen Development, which reminds me of Agile from back in the day.

It’s becoming more commonplace because there’s a tool for everything. People are finding ways to pull their reports and extract their data.

[36:43] What could be improved at the executive level in IT?

The ones who are open to listening and staying humble are the ones that succeed. Don’t go in thinking you know all the answers. Listen first. Don’t get attached to any one platform, because tech moves on.

[39:25] What are you geeking out on these days regarding technology?

I’ve been looking at the offerings in the security sector. I’m learning about the construction side of things, too.

[40:50] In terms of security, what’s the new “a-ha” for you?

There isn’t a new a-ha as such. It’s about educating our people about the threats around.

[42:30] What made you come on the podcast?

I’ve listened to it before and was familiar with it. It’s always interesting to get the perspectives of others in the field.

[46:00} What other things do you do to sharpen your knowledge?

I blog and use it to think through things. It helps me analyze things.