Speaker 0 | 00:09.566
All right, welcome everyone back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today, we are talking with, hope I do this right, Ryan Groover.
Speaker 1 | 00:19.233
Yes, sir, you got it right.
Speaker 0 | 00:20.273
All right. And you are IT Director at Banner Health. Maybe just real quick, give me an idea of… what that looks like on a daily basis? Are we dealing with like, you know, mobile wireless units and all kinds of insanity over there? How big is Banner Health?
Speaker 1 | 00:39.704
Okay. So to give you the quick rundown, Banner Health is a 60,000 person organization, approximately, over 300 locations. I administer the data center. So I have nine data centers and 1,100 IDFs and MTFs under my firm. million square foot of IT real estate. That’s my insanity is managing the physical that enables everything else to happen.
Speaker 0 | 01:07.494
That’s exciting. I mean,
Speaker 1 | 01:09.715
it’s not quite that. I love my job.
Speaker 0 | 01:11.497
It’s not as big as the Facebook data center spaces, which I’ve seen are probably insane, but it might be getting up there.
Speaker 1 | 01:18.521
You know, I’ve actually, funny enough, I have toured a Facebook data center. I know what it’s like. The big difference in managing an enterprise data center is I don’t. have that level of redundancy on all of the core services above me. So I have to keep this side running online where, you know, Facebook, Hey, if that data center goes offline, you shift to the next data center over and they keep running.
Speaker 0 | 01:40.921
So there we go. Topic number one. So how do we, how do we, how do we keep a, I don’t know, how do we deal with disaster avoidance and redundancy when you have, well, You’re in one data center. Do you have multiple data centers or any kind of geo redundancy or anything like that?
Speaker 1 | 01:58.181
We have nine data centers and we do have basically kind of H.A. pairs of data centers. You know, we have like basically a primary and secondary for applications. We’ve got primary and secondary for regional access. And I got a couple of legacy sites that I’m actively working on shutting down right now. But to your question, it’s really all about in my world about building resilient infrastructure. So I. I’ve been doing this for about 15 years now. Got a lot of experience in building proper infrastructure. I’m a certified data center designer through Bixie. And it’s building that fault-tolerant design. My flagship is an F4 design. So that is the highest level of classification in Bixie, meaning I can basically work on anything no one notices. And my uptime record currently is 16 years, 11 months.
Speaker 0 | 02:49.820
Nice.
Speaker 1 | 02:50.340
So we’re doing it right.
Speaker 0 | 02:53.922
That’s really cool. It should be like a sign in there. It’s like no accidents for 365 days. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 | 03:00.145
Just like that.
Speaker 0 | 03:01.426
For 16. Think of what’s happened in 16 years. I mean.
Speaker 1 | 03:06.268
Absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 03:07.589
So let me get this straight. You were there, is this right, 16 years ago? Well, there was two years without you that things were up.
Speaker 1 | 03:20.864
that’s correct yeah the last major outage was 05 and that was under the first director of my team i my the second director had no issues and i am currently the third director in the history of banner running the data centers so with all the accountability of running said data centers so
Speaker 0 | 03:40.758
yeah let’s go back in time a little bit though you know 14 years ago what what did your i mean you’re you’ve you’ve literally grown up
Speaker 1 | 03:49.488
at one company and seen massive scalable change absolutely uh 14 years ago i 14 years ago i was just a pup um i was i was the pup kid coming in and you know just trying to disrupt everything i recently left my first it job which that was at corbin’s electric i was a guy was the guy with all the hats because really i was the one guy they had on board to do it things so everything from desktop management to running out in the field and selling wireless cards at construction sites a job you know doing construction i.t but i knew it wasn’t for me so i got an introduction came into banner health uh started off as a junior operator so in a in a data center you have a thing called the knock or the network operations center and that is those are the people you know for those obviously who run data centers or have data services.
Speaker 0 | 04:45.906
I really think only nerds and IT people listen to this show, but it’s good. I mean, we can tell people what a knock is, I guess. It’s good for the sake of the end users. It’s good as a best practice for us to not speak in acronyms and things like that so that we can learn to sell to executive management and speak to other people and not gloss them over.
Speaker 1 | 05:08.437
Absolutely. And funny enough, you know, I tour a lot of IT professionals around my data center, and they still have no clue what a data center is when I bring them in. So that’s why I always like to elaborate a little bit on what I do, because, you know, data centers have traditionally been a black box. But back to what I was doing. So I was, you know, the Knox, that 24-7, 365 shifts. So I worked my shifts, monitoring our, you know, electronic health records, applications, monitoring the health of the mainframe. Yeah, I worked on Z-Series. I remember the old commands like D space A comma L to look at all the active running processes and looking at, you know, the status of my 3494 tape library. And at the time, Banner was looking at building its new primary data center. So I expressed interest to the director of the time saying, hey, you know, I want to be involved in the project. I want to start my journey of the ladder beyond the knockers. You know. those who know the knock is it’s very no it’s a very necessary job but it is very you know it’s very routine and i needed something more interesting to do so luckily enough a position to open up i got hired on as a junior engineer uh just starting to actually do some designs in this data center so even till today today um that my cabling design on doing server racking in room design there are still aspects around here that are truly not that I’m very proud that when I walk around and take a look, it’s like, I did that. And it was awesome that I got to do this.
Speaker 0 | 06:42.659
I want to just pause for a second because one of the themes that comes up on the show a lot and one that I want to put as possibly maybe the final chapter in a book here that is a team effort is what to say in a job interview to ensure you’re in the right place. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be that, but I think the key piece is that you didn’t want to be A lot of the people that we have on the show are, you know, like your older position, IT manager at Corbin’s Electric, where you’re wearing multiple hats. You’re dealing with the ticketing system. You’re dealing with, you know, network upgrades, infrastructure upgrades, trying to drive a digital transformation, plus training end users at the same time, plus making the company more efficient and dealing with a cardboard box full of cell phones. people throw at you. So there’s that aspect, but then you moved to, you knew you wanted something different. So you did something to get a different job. And then when you were in that job, you were in the NOC, which became routine for you, which wasn’t enough. And you knew enough to speak up and say, Hey, I wanted to be involved in this project. And it might sound simple and ridiculous and stupid to say, Hey, speak up and tell people what you want. But is it that simple?
Speaker 1 | 08:06.833
You know, in my opinion, it is, it’s almost that simple. You know, when I tell people, I actually just onboarded a few new employees and, you know, and I told them from the outset, you know, you’re going to first start off in the junior engineer role. You’re going to master that. And then when you are thirsty and you’re ready for that next challenge, we’re going to take a look at that next level position. I’m going to start giving you the assignments to achieve that next level position. You hit it. I’ll give you the promotion. That simple. And I have done that with one of my senior engineers. And, you know, he is just, he is blossomed. He is phenomenal. And that’s essentially what I did with my leadership. I said, hey, you know, I want to keep growing. I want to keep improving because, you know, even at this point, I’m not at my final state of my career. This is the next step. And I want to keep moving up. And my new leadership knows that. So, and I’m just, I’m always thirsty for the next challenge. Yes. Be very transparent to your leadership about that. Always tell them, Hey, you know, I want to be on the stretch assignment. I want to do this thing. And you know, they’ll probably go, okay, let’s, let’s have you do it.
Speaker 0 | 09:15.926
All my data center guys, all my data center guys have this love of life and energy to them. It’s like the opposite of like, of like the CISO role. I just think there’s something there to be said.
Speaker 1 | 09:30.758
You know, I agree with you. I will agree with you. I know a lot of good data center experts through my app comm work and going to data center world and stuff like that. And it is quite amazing to see the energy that really passionate data center people have. We know that we are the core of the digital society and we make a really big difference every day. I mean, in my role, if my data centers were up and running, it impacts patient care. I take that so seriously. I always tell my guys, I don’t run data centers, I enable patient care. Because that’s truly what I do at the end of the day.
Speaker 0 | 10:08.758
Maybe it’s just such a cool environment too. I don’t know. I just, it’s, the data center world is, it’s something that I’m not, I’m not always directly like walking around and like, hey, we’re N plus one and we’re this and here’s our diesel routes and all that type of stuff. But it’s, if I was to start all over again. just from talking with you and all my data center guys, you’re just making it sound so wonderful and exciting. So maybe there shouldn’t be this big flock to, you know, security stuff. Maybe we should be, you know, flocking somewhere else.
Speaker 1 | 10:44.533
I mean, and I agree. That’s part of my, my passion with my nonprofit work via the outcome Phoenix chapter is I’m trying to get out there into the high schools, into the colleges. I mean, she, we’re actually starting an internship program to pay. Does it help? bring students into the data center industry um we we need good infrastructure personnel at the end of the day you know you can have devops you can have cyber security robots all those things are awesome i don’t get you wrong i love them all but at the end of the day you need dedicated people at the core of the infrastructure maintaining this and yeah i i will say walking around seeing my gen sets my big ups’s and all my pulling you know it’s not traditional it but Cool stuff,
Speaker 0 | 11:31.555
I must say. So selfishly speaking, my son’s always asked me where to get in. I’m like, oh, just start taking these courses, you know, take a networking course, take this, take that. But what would your advice be to someone that might want to do a different traditional, different than the typical traditional route of education and maybe want to go more your route? Would you still say, hey, go to college and take this? Or would you say, no, go do this instead?
Speaker 1 | 11:58.858
So I’m going to say yes and no to that. So I’m going to say if you go to college, you’re probably going to be aiming for into more of the upper, you know, the upper engineering architect ranks or the leadership. And that’s, you know, a reason I actually went back to my master’s degree in 2015 is because, you know, my trajectory for myself isn’t to be the higher leadership ranks. But not to say you can’t get there using, you know, going out of high school right into, like I say, a knock situation. you know, as I tell them, just be aware, you’re going to have to probably put your dues in a little bit more, but you know, again, if you show that drive, you’ll still work up the ladder. And I’d say for any students that’s interested in data center stuff, like the Schneider, Schneider electric has their energy university and they offer what they call their data center certified associate certification base level, very entry, but Hey, you know, then you come to the interview, you can still talk intelligently to UPSs and units and all that. What’s up? I don’t know. Hey, he put some energy into it. I’m going to hire him. You know, that’s seriously, I look out for a little things like that. It’s just, Hey, he’s got a little bit of a spark. Let me grow it.
Speaker 0 | 13:08.307
Okay. Now let’s play the opposite. Since you’re saying you wanted to, since you went back and got your what MBA, MBA.
Speaker 1 | 13:16.572
So I have my master’s of science and information management from the WP Carey school at ASU.
Speaker 0 | 13:21.555
Okay. So the, the, the next role, I mean, What level of business speak do you have? Financial terms, understanding of the business as well. Because again, one of the kind of biggest themes here is kind of bridging that gap between the technology world and the business world. Because nothing in business runs without technology. Nothing in business anymore gets done better or worse with or without technology, so to speak. But typically the people at the top, unless you’re A, you built a technology company from the ground up, typically when I’m thinking manufacturing, healthcare, other businesses and stuff, typically the people at the top, the business leaders, don’t necessarily have all of that technical speak. But I think there’s this change coming where the… technical leaders will have to understand and know the financial terms and understanding of the business and how to drive it forward.
Speaker 1 | 14:28.687
Absolutely. That’s a part of, you know, being into, you know, my prior leadership role as the IT ops director, which is very much a technical director. But, you know, I had great leadership that was helping mentor me into the business speak, being able to speak intelligently to the executive leadership, write those summaries that make sense at that level. at the end of the day i can geek out all day about all the technology and the data center and how it all runs but to speak to them it’s got to be that one pager bullet point to the point to help them make you know the decision at the end of the day so i so as i have you know, progress in my career. I’ve been watching that level and absorbing all that. So I can speak intelligently to the executive level and not bog them down in technical terms because I hate that.
Speaker 0 | 15:18.958
Yeah. So what would be some of the key, what would be some of the key points or maybe, I don’t know, tips or anything like that for, I guess, translation into business speak that you can think of, even if you’ve got an example, that’s good as well. But any advice there? Because a lot of times people… there’s just this divide and there’s no, there’s no bridge to it. You know what I mean? And a lot of times that could be the difference between, you know, making that jump that you want to get as dumb as we said earlier, like, you know, just, you know, Hey, just asking, but in this, but when you get into the kind of the, I don’t know, higher roles, you need to be able to say, here’s how our technology is helping run the business and here’s specific bullet points and language points that you’re used to hearing.
Speaker 1 | 16:01.725
Yep. I’d say the biggest thing, um, I don’t really talk a whole lot about the technology itself. I talk about the service I provide and how it enables the business to do its role. So, you know, as I say, at the end of the day, it’s not for me, it’s not about running the data centers and running all the technology in the data centers. It’s about enabling that air. So saying that, hey, you know, the services that run the doctor, the nurse needs, they come out of here. I enable that service to happen and saying, you know, simple things like that. Don’t. don’t take it to the app layer don’t take it to the infrastructure layer keep it at the service layer um and then you know and also yes money as you as you mentioned earlier it’s all about the effects and being able to you know chart that out in a way that they understand with you know the for line graphs bar graphs um breaking down the cost yeah that’s extremely important because they at the end of the day that little kind of want to know how much am i getting uh or how much am i going to pay for this investment And then, of course, if you have hard ROI or soft ROI, being able to explain that properly. So,
Speaker 0 | 17:09.533
again,
Speaker 1 | 17:10.674
to me, it’s all, if I’m talking about my services in the data center, I keep it to that high level about how I enable the rest of the business to run.
Speaker 0 | 17:19.878
Just curious, as a technology leader, in healthcare, when you go to the doctor or hospital, do you notice certain things?
Speaker 1 | 17:34.559
actually so funny enough my what my wife and i just welcomed a brand new son here 10 weeks ago congratulations so thank you so when she was in the hospital oh yeah i mean i was it’s rare that i have to see if i go to one of our hospitals or ambulatory places i’m going into the closet looking at the closet this was like the first time actually sitting in a patient you room and watching how like the biomedical device works and how the the pc works there and i made a lot of observations that help educate me on what’s actually happening so well how interesting is sometimes you’ll go into a hospital and you’ll be like what
Speaker 0 | 18:20.380
is this archaic system here and then what is this system that’s like fully up to date you And then you’re obviously, I mean, obviously in front of the data center, you guys are grabbing a lot of data. But it’s just interesting to see technology can be such a hindrance or a helper, especially in the healthcare world. And I think it can, it could even, I mean, it could be, it can be problematic in numerous ways that I think would be opening up a can of worms if we even went there. But… um yeah every time i’m in the hospital i’m like oh it’s either an old phone system but the this is up to date or this isn’t you know this is insecure there’s a login left open you know just different things like that i’m just wondering if you have the same experience i have when you go in but um the as as in your current role how how big is your team a team of like people that report to you
Speaker 1 | 19:22.851
My team of people report to me. So I have a team of, okay, approximately 30 right now. With my promotion recently, I did gain some additional services. So I’ve got the NOC, as we mentioned. So they report to me. I’ve got a small crew there. I’ve got a crew of dedicated data center engineers. So people with knowledge similar to mine that do the rack stack, do the patch cabling, all those fun things that are actually in the data center environment daily. now run the IT infrastructure cabling team. So I now have accountability of basically from the wall jack to the switch in the walls. That’s… That’s fun. So the, so you’re the Bixie, the RCDDs. So those, uh, those cabling designers. So that’s, that’s been a recent addition. And actually I think that was, that was a great idea of merging me with them because I cover the power cooling side of the house, the rack layouts. They cover a lot of that cabling, the really good designs. So I’ve got that team. And then I have one gentleman that runs a monitoring tool. So that is my full team layout now.
Speaker 0 | 20:32.255
The, so. It’s big. I guess my question there is, what have you learned about coaching a team and setting expectations over the years? It sounds like, just from talking with you, just from the energy level and the excitement alone, I can tell you love your job. I can tell you love coming into work every day. And that must mean that people love working for you as well. Was there ever a time that it wasn’t like that? And you remember some struggles of building a team? And is there any insight that you can provide there to other people listening on how to coach a team?
Speaker 1 | 21:07.761
Oh, absolutely. So my first year, my first few years of leadership. So say the 2014 to 2016 years. That, I mean, I was brand new into being a leader, coming out of being just a technology guy. Just, you know, doing designs, outputting, you know, doing the rack stack, all that. So I managed the NOC was my first assignment. It was the… knock management and i had to learn to find my own kind of leadership style so you know the i grew up my dad is a high power leader with an electrical uh organization here in town and you know he’s kind of that really old school leader and i and i think him and my prior boss again kind of that boomer you know it’s it’s my way or the highway you know there’s no question and you As a millennial leader, that, first off, it didn’t always resonate with me. You know, millennials, we like to have that kind of more instant feedback. And, you know, it’s not about, it’s not about the once a year review. So I, I think I emulated that a little too much and it was all putting to my staff. So I had to learn to kind of back that down and be more empathetic, be more, really work on my emotional intelligence. Because, you know, as a technical person. I work with a lot of great technical people. The emotional intelligence isn’t always there. I mean, I think that’s just a thing in our industry. So I really had to step up that, and I kind of grew organically with that. I didn’t go to classes or anything to learn that. It’s just more self-reflection going, hey, I need to change how I’m viewing it. So I would definitely say for new leaders, especially technical leaders, make sure you’re not… putting all your eggs into that technical basket and running it that way and being a being a bit of a jerk you know really listen to the people and remember remember at the end of the day they’re people yeah so and it’s paid off and you know i went from those rough years to last year i was a top 10 leader at banner and i won of like 15 and 19 so like in the entire organization so i’ve been very important phenomenals for the last few years so i’ve really I really turned it around. You’ve got to remember for me at the end of the day, they don’t serve me. I serve them. It’s real.
Speaker 0 | 23:38.474
Yeah. Some of those, some of the best books that helped me were a one, um, emotional intelligence is a book. You can go buy it. Um, it is a great book. Um, first break, all the rules was great for a millennial also like me. Um, being able to sit back and really like connect, discover, respond with your, with your, um, your team, I guess we don’t say employees, but, um, with your team, but yes, it can be a, it can be a painful road of learning by mistakes. You know, you can, uh, you can, you can, um, it’s, it’s, it, and when you’re not in the leadership role, it’s always easy to look up and be like, oh my gosh, I could do that better. And then when you’re there, you’re like, oh my Lord, now I know. Um,
Speaker 1 | 24:26.328
Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 0 | 24:28.548
Yeah. Yeah. So, so congratulations on your success there and going through the painful, going through the, uh, the painful years. Um, but yeah, just to, for anyone out there listening, yeah. Emotional intelligence. Good one. First break. All the rules was given to me by the VP of Starbucks years ago. That helped me a lot. Um, but yeah, any books that any, uh, favorite books of yours that have been very helpful in that, in the leadership space.
Speaker 1 | 24:54.550
You know, honestly, no, I, I, my, my preferred way is going and just talking to other leaders that, you know, in, in, and that’s, that was another thing, you know, another hard lesson learned is, you know, you enter this industry and you think it’s all about the technology and, Hey, I know how to administer ADD and S exchange. And you go down the alphabet of things, you know, that’s only half of it. And the, building of the relationships um doing the networking that has become more important than i ever imagined coming bright-eyed bushy-tailed out of the universe so yeah i said i did read some leadership stuff you know with my uh my master’s degree program a lot of it was you know it was good stuff but i’d rather Talk to people and learn.
Speaker 0 | 25:47.746
Yeah. So throw the books away. Like whatever. That’s fine. I mean, me, I’m an audio guy. I might say I read books, but it’s really, I listen to the audio, but the, and then listening to people and getting feedback from people, um, any particular questions or, or ways that you’ve approached, uh, mentors or people that, that would be helpful.
Speaker 1 | 26:04.911
So what I generally, I mean, I always like to do is you just, you know, ask, you know, Hey, what does I ask him? Frankly, what could I be doing better? What, what do you see? in me that I need to work on. And they’ll say, okay, Ryan, go do work on these things. And you know, that becomes my focus for the next quarter and the next year. So I work on that work. I’m building that up. I’m a very frank person. I just say, I speak my mind a whole lot. So that’s why this comes like, Hey, what, what do you see in me? What, what, what are the blood points? They say, Ryan, this is blunt. Go work on it. Like, okay.
Speaker 0 | 26:38.102
Yeah, no, I think part of that is an ability to be open and be coachable. An ability to realize that we’re really underutilized, undertapped human beings. So there’s always endless room for growth. So being open and coachable and not stubborn from that standpoint. And I guess humble to a certain degree can help a lot.
Speaker 1 | 27:06.626
Absolutely. To me, there’s always room to improve. There’s always, it’s that, no. And that continuous improvement cycle, I always focus on how, how can I improve myself? Um, cause then, you know, I can elevate myself. I can be better for my team. I’ll, you know, provide better services. That’s, that’s, that’s me. You know,
Speaker 0 | 27:26.477
the, if you had one question to ask, um, when dealing, I guess from a political standpoint inside a large organization, um, what’s the single biggest. frustration problem or concern, I guess, that you deal with when trying to influence executive management?
Speaker 1 | 27:53.930
I think the biggest pain point I would say I have is, as a leader now that has responsibility of, you know, capital dollars is making sure that, you know, I can help influence to get the capital dollars right. do, you know, where I need the most improvements. To your point earlier about antiquated stuff, I, you know, that’s part of my job and it’s kind of influencing the decisions to make sure that we deal with those as quickly as we can. You know, I can’t, I can’t get a billion dollars to change the world tomorrow, but Hey, I can at least get a little bit here and there prioritize and work on it. So, um, and that’s, and that’s hard also, and this is being a nonprofit healthcare organization. We don’t get a whole lot to do things like that. So that’s, in my newest role here, that’s been some of the hardest decisions. What do we allocate funding to?
Speaker 0 | 28:54.115
Do you know, have you ever sat down with, I don’t know, I don’t know what your CFO version is over there or the person that’s responsible for writing the check or is it a board of decisions? When you guys go around to making these decisions for capital expenditures, how does that, How does that work? One. And I guess two would be, is there, is there some sort of financial speak that you might be missing that you don’t know about? I know it’s kind of dumb. It’s like asking you like, what do you not know? You know what I mean? But is there, is there something that would be like, if we were, you know, what would it be?
Speaker 1 | 29:38.581
So, you know, definitely, uh, things around here are generally more the committee based on hey you know i i’m one sliver of a giant organization so um those those big decisions aren’t made in a vacuum there’s there are people that are probably smarter than me that make those decisions at the end of the day i think the the it’s more to me knowing what’s out there. What do I not have purview into? There are still a lot of various silos, which sometimes make it harder than to say, hey, am I trying to justify this against something that’s way more important? You don’t find out until later on that, hey, okay, we needed a new surgery seat to suite at a hospital. It’s like, oh, yeah, that’s going to take priority over me.
Speaker 0 | 30:30.494
needing uh you know some new cabling somewhere oh so that’s very that’s actually very that’s very um eye-opening so how do we i guess the question would be is you know how do we stay more aware of all these various different um competing uh projects that are all asking for money at the same time especially when in within an organization like that and then how can you um further shivvy yours up the up the line of acceptance based on, well, mine’s going to provide more this and mine’s going to, you know, bring more revenue in and mine’s going to save on labor and mine’s going to do this. I mean, do you have a way of providing those types of figures in the, in the work that you’re doing?
Speaker 1 | 31:15.764
So I’d say, um, finding out it’s definitely for me, it’s about networking and networking with the right people in the organization and knowing who the movers and shakers are. So that’s. kind of how I really started keeping in the loop on some of the larger projects. We’re always building stuff around here, so I kind of need to keep in the loop. Hey, you’re building new edge sites for me that I’m going to have to manage at the end of the day. Try it and go. What’s going on? So that’s the first part. But the second part, in my world of electrical, mechanical, data centers, data center services, It really comes down to risk management at the end of the day. And, you know, do you do I and also do I want to even do I want to justify that? Hey, this is a higher risk than maybe say, hey, that new that new surgery suite is needed. You know, I kind of have to look at that going, you know, you can kind of look and go, you know, that’s probably more important. And I’m OK stepping back this year to allow that to happen. But it’s more about quantifying that risk that, hey, if you know. we didn’t put the right power in somewhere and we’re at risk of nuking a bunch of our servers or switches or something like that, then yeah, that’s probably going to take priority. Because you knock off all that, then shoot, the system goes offline.
Speaker 0 | 32:44.604
Yeah, and then you need to be able to explain that to them in a way that makes sense. Like, we will be underwater.
Speaker 1 | 32:51.878
Exactly. At the end of the day, is it going to impact patient care? That’s what I always have to look at in this role is, if I didn’t do this thing and I didn’t speak up, will it impact patient care?
Speaker 0 | 33:12.508
The last tale of this piece. So that’s kind of like voicing your decisions on the roadmap and, you know, kind of direction, decision, decision, direction around the roadmap and that piece. But there’s another aspect of this as well, which is I’m assuming you must have to deal with some kind of vendors and vendor negotiation at times.
Speaker 1 | 33:37.573
Oh, yes. I have been doing that for years now. So absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 33:43.022
How many people, just out of curiosity, how many people do you have calling you on a weekly basis trying to sell you something?
Speaker 1 | 33:49.904
Oh, my. It could be anywhere between like 10 and 30. It’s ridiculous how many calls I get.
Speaker 0 | 33:58.108
And, well, I mean, it’s important because there’s vendor speak and vendor negotiation. And how do you filter real knowledge versus, you know, Frost and Sullivan knowledge?
Speaker 1 | 34:09.132
That is a good question. Good question. So I must say, well, first off, a lot of the vendors that contact me are even really relevant into my particular space. So those are kind of an easy to filter out. But it’s when I, like, for example, I’ve actually got a kind of a large project I’m trying to kick off where I want to, you know, I need a little assistance, you know, managing the extra spaces and do some evaluations. It is when I, I write very good. I write very good, very detailed RFPs and RFIs. So to me, how they kind of respond back will help determine, you know, I kind of gauge that level of intelligence and the level of experience in addition to doing the calls with them, doing the calls with the customers. um to help kind of gauge that but um i i mean luckily i i am i do feel pretty lucky i have a great level of knowledge when it comes to data center stuff so i can speak intelligently to them they can speak intelligently to me and then you know i it’s fairly easy for me to gauge but that’s because i have 15 years experience doing this um so that’s that’s pretty much how i do it is Join me at those methods is, you know, the more of the formal, the formal work. And then I work with them out.
Speaker 0 | 35:34.327
The RFP, do you ever worry that the RFP might eliminate people that you should have talked to that you didn’t? Or does, or, you know, everyone out there because the data center space can get kind of small. So it’s not, not small, but when you get to the top, it definitely gets smaller and kind of funnels in.
Speaker 1 | 35:48.811
So from my prior experiences, I’ve done a few of these and I’d say, no, I’ve, I’ve had a lot of luck in the. in the spaces that I have done RFPs where it’s like, okay, you know, I, I basically, I’ve always felt like I’ve made the right decision at the end of the day. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 36:05.380
It’s almost like a scope of work. I think probably what you do is more like a detailed scope of work of the project and everything. I’m just trying to think of like, when I think of RFPs, I think of like massive government contracts and, you know, like, Hey, this goes out for bid type of thing. That’s what I think of. But, um, I would imagine yours is probably more of a detailed rating system and, and, and bringing in.
Speaker 1 | 36:24.618
like look we’re looking for this this this and this it must be this point this point and this point exactly it’s like it’s that but then plus i hadn’t like you know are you how are you financially stable are you doing you know lawsuits or are your customers happy you know how many lawsuits have you had in the last week
Speaker 0 | 36:43.772
um well we’ve had 20 lawsuits we’ve had this but we’re the
Speaker 1 | 36:52.118
perfect provider for you from this standpoint so every now and then that does happen unfortunately like yeah and then i will say also when it comes to technical solutions um definitely kick the tire get the poc no matter what don’t don’t take it oh for sure for sure anyone
Speaker 0 | 37:09.946
that tells you trial period anyone that tells you trial period run for the run for the hills no trial period poc yes yes eos
Speaker 1 | 37:18.890
POC, you’re going to give me a limited access for as long as I ask. Then I’ll make the decision.
Speaker 0 | 37:26.154
Outstanding. Outstanding. What have I not asked you that I should have asked you?
Speaker 1 | 37:31.438
Ooh, let me think here. I mean, you want to.
Speaker 0 | 37:35.640
What do you want to talk about? I mean, what do you want to talk about? What was your first computer? How’d you get started in technology? I mean, is there anything really cool? Oh, I know what it is. Like, do you have a life? outside of the data center, right? Obviously you do, but work-life balance is kind of a big one for some people, right? Like how do you balance, how do you shut off when the data center can never go offline?
Speaker 1 | 37:56.791
So that is actually, I’ve had to work on that, I must say, because when I first did on-call, I mean, I was on-call like 24-7, 365. But you know, the calls were never, they’re nothing ever catastrophic. It was, oh, hey, our cameras were. reporting the humidity is 29% in this closet.
Speaker 0 | 38:16.060
Why’d you call me?
Speaker 1 | 38:18.622
Why’d you call me for 20? Why’d you call me for 29%? Call me if it’s 10%. So I’ve had to deal with that. I, you know, basically, you know, going back to, you know, and I mentioned my father earlier being an up-to-date leader. One, you know, you learn positive lessons and negative lessons from your parents. One of the, I’m going to say the negative, one of the negative lessons is, you know, in his trade, He, I, growing up, I used to see him, you know, he’d go in the office at 2 a.m. and come back at 6 p.m. And then, you know, go to sleep and do it all over again. And it’s like, I, I bet I would never do that. And to this day, I, you know, occasionally, okay, maybe I need to do a little something, maybe an hour past my normal work, but I turn it off. I go, nope. You know, if there’s, if there’s a catastrophic thing, you’ll call me. Other than that, I’ve got a fantastic group of people that run the on-call. They know what to do. they get it done. So, um, so I’m very good at turning it off.
Speaker 0 | 39:17.808
Today guys, we’re, we’re pretending that I died and what would happen? That’s the, that’s the role playing that we’re doing as I leave. Anyways,
Speaker 1 | 39:28.412
what would you do?
Speaker 0 | 39:29.132
Go ahead. Yeah, I was going to say,
Speaker 1 | 39:33.034
but yes, I do have a life outside of work. You know, obviously I’ve got my, my, my, uh, my son now, a little average 10 weeks old.
Speaker 0 | 39:39.297
So awesome.
Speaker 1 | 39:40.457
Yes. When I go home, it’s caring for him, making sure he gets everything he needs. I am an avid cook and baker. My wife doesn’t do any of that. I am head chef 365 days a year.
Speaker 0 | 39:57.180
What are we baking? What are we baking tonight? What’s your number? What’s the thing that everyone always asks for? So my wife’s a baker. When I first got married, my wife was not the cook and was not the baker. I was the cook. And the baker, I mean, it really was. Like, I was good. Now I’m bad. I’ve gotten bad over the years, and she’s gotten really, really good. But there’s always this one thing. There’s like one or two things that people will ask you to make. They’re like, will you please make that? I need to know what that is from you.
Speaker 1 | 40:25.726
So the thing that people always ask me to make, so my family is all from the Midwest, so a great steak. That is what I get asked for. And then part is baking really proper chocolate, chocolatey things because my wife is a chocoholic. So if I can make, you know, a French silk pie or chocolate muffins or anything like that, she loves it. Or good mousses. That’s my thing.
Speaker 0 | 40:53.124
French silk pie.
Speaker 1 | 40:55.710
French silk bag. It is delicious. And then, you know, beyond that, I love the camp. I’m an Eagle Scout. So I was in the Boy Scouts for 11 years.
Speaker 0 | 41:06.134
Now it’s all making sense. It’s all making sense now. Anyways, go ahead. Next time I was a Navy SEAL.
Speaker 1 | 41:13.957
No, I didn’t do anything like that. But I love to get out and camp and, you know, just enjoy the outdoors. And I’m also an avid photographer. My latest setup is a Nikon. D850 with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens. That’s pro-grade. It’s a $6,000 setup. Let’s be real. It’s true pro-grade, but I love I got about 6,000 plus pictures in my portfolio. I’ve done weddings. I’ve done engagement parties. I’ve been to Japan, Germany, London, Canada. I’ve got awesome pictures from around the world. And then, you know, if I do a little bit at home, I love hacker boxes. You get a little kit each month and you build things with Edwinos and pies and solder. I love the solder. I love going to conferences, DEF CON, go to the hardware hacking village and just play with solder and building. I love it so much. You know, it’s a good way to focus your mind. You know, just get in there. and encode it. Lights blink and it’s fun.
Speaker 0 | 42:27.569
Oh, see? See, we don’t need to just play video games all the time. That was good. That was good.
Speaker 1 | 42:33.033
I was an avid gamer as a kid. Nowadays, it’s just trying to find the time to sit down.
Speaker 0 | 42:39.597
It’s a waste of time when you get older. When you have a family and things like that, the soldering, the stuff like you just said, all of that would be great things to do with your kids. I have a lot of kids. So yeah, there’s no time for gaming anymore.
Speaker 1 | 42:52.614
I know. It’s yeah. If I, if I do, it’s like between four and 5. AM on a Saturday, like get up before everybody.
Speaker 0 | 42:58.717
I would feel guilty. I feel guilty, but every now and then I’m drawn in, you know, like, Oh look, there’s an old mini NES with 200 games, all program programmed onto it. And it fits in your hand. Yeah. Stupid old stuff. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on dissecting popular it nerds for everyone out there listening. I rarely. I always, always, always forget to do this. Please go to iTunes and rate us. Give us real ratings. Don’t just do a star thing. Type something in. Tell us if you like the show, if it’s beneficial and it’s helpful and you like it. Ryan, thank you very much for being on the show.
Speaker 1 | 43:36.837
No, thank you so much. I appreciate the invite. It was just a blast to talk to you about just what I’ve been up to, data centers and all the fun things that I do. It’s been great.
Speaker 0 | 43:46.601
Awesome.
