Underserved

Neal Cao started out feeling the pressure common in many families - "You need to become a doctor or an engineer!" After his internship, he knew the medical field was not for him, and saw his brother killing it in software development. After many burst bubbles and industry changes, Neal found himself a principal in a financial services firm. We discuss putting med students in the party dorm, sports...

Our first former sheriff's deputy, Shadd Schutte brings a unique perspective to Underserved #073. Being a police officer in Wyoming turned out to be good training for managing projects and customers in IT. Shadd talks about his memorable experiences, transitioning between industries, and becoming Agile, as well as motorcycle cruises and spoiling dogs.    Shadd on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com...

Episode 072 of Underserved features Brian Durkin, Sr. Group Manager & Head of User Experience, Data & Analytics at BNY Mellon. Brian leveraged his art degree into some web design work but found his true passion was in information architecture. He came to this realization in the middle of an interview, which he politely asked to terminate. Instead, he was offered a new IA job the next day! Also cov...

Dr. Colleen Tartow was convinced investigating the heavens was her calling, studying astronomy all the way to a PhD. Once she realized the job market there was tiny and slow to advance, she moved to consulting in data and analytics. Colleen quickly found that data and software suited her and made a career of it. We talk about finding mentors, calligraphy, and the relative merits of a billionaire s...

Why does John Blythe, our guest for Episode #070, believe in people first at technology companies? It could be his experience building teams, or influencing surgeons to help lower their delivery costs one hip at a time. We discuss making passion learning a business, what it means to be the Director of GIFs and comedic timing, and getting 10x throughput at 10% of the cost.   metallica history with...

Eli Goldberg received a life-changing diagnosis from a sweat test - he found out he had cystic fibrosis. Rather than shy away from it, Eli leaned into sharpening his focus, leaving consulting, and starting a company to help people with similar afflictions drive better medical outcomes. Listen to Episode #069 to hear how that drove Eli to help define the "last mile" of healthcare delivery by a tech...

Kevin Jarnot, CIO of Uptime Institute, is our guest for episode #068. Kevin proves there is no set path to becoming a CIO. He was interrogated by the Secret Service in college, his band opened for Run DMC, and he ran a financial services company off the cable modem in his basement. Nowadays Kevin is a thought leader for some of the largest data centers in existence. Hear Kevin's story and transfor...

Our guest from Episode #067, Parag Shah, foresaw the death of penmanship - something he happily announced at age 8. That didn't save him from having to write a page of QBasic code each day before he could go out to play! Topics discussed include how serious you get about studying when you are paying your own tuition, decoupling storage and compute, and handling turnover at the top.   https://learn...

Episode #066's guest is Matthew Wood, Deputy CTO, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Before ruling the IT end of Massachusetts roadways, Matthew grew up with technology in the United Kingdom. Some things were the same (the quest to build and play games), others very different (PC makers like the Alan Michael Sugar Trading company, aka Amstrad). We discuss differences manag...

Episode #065 features Pete Langois. Pete's first buffer overflow exploit in 8th grade earned him a trip to the vice principal's office, but starting his own BBS out of his bedroom earned him a job. We talk about trade shows including MacWorld, Star Wars including action figures, and the ROI of investing in yourself.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64 https://www.apple.com/leadership/phi...

Episode #064 features Ahmer Khan of athenahealth. After watching four friends fail their first Computer Science course, Ahmer figured he had to try it. Following a stint in rain-soaked Seattle, he came back to put down roots at Raytheon. He opened people's eyes there to new technologies, embracing other cultures, and appreciating diversity. The one constant theme in his career has been seeking out...

Season 6 of Underserved kicks off with Daniel Goldenberg. While many kids in high school were biding their time, Daniel was finishing a CCNA curriculum and working for a local MSP. User empathy and customer focus he learned there served him well later in his career as a Director of IT and Security. We also talk about the best brisket in Texas and the sports scene at Syracuse.   Dan's LinkedIn http...

We finish off Season 5 with Doug Morgan, Senior Director of Development at Alteryx. Doug took his CS chops from high school and Georgia Tech out to the west coast. After learning on the company dime, he took his own company through an acquisition and has run several engineering organizations since. We discuss the upside of a Division I sports school, the pain of the pivot, and rising early for rar...

Lifelong Texan Lance Sleeper joins us for Episode #061. Lance studied journalism in school but always tinkered with computers growing up. After a motorsports PR gig evaporated, Lance found himself the most tech-savvy person at a mortgage company. His career focused on security from that point forward, exposing him to several different industries. We talk about airline IT, the importance of diversi...

Episode #060 of Underserved features Conrad Morgan. Conrad started out building PCs when they were still a luxury item. His first foray into the technology industry was working with process control hardware, but a decision to work in an Amazon warehouse around the holidays led him to a career in large-scale e-commerce. We talk about labor management systems, automating your way out of a job, and l...

In Episode #059 we talk with Chris Sullivan. A former Navy submariner, Chris leveraged the GI bill and his curiosity about software development into a career tying together power and programming. We talk about what it's like being on a nuclear sub, doing Homer Simpson's job and then trying to improve it, and the business of sanctions compliance.   https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/asia/china-us-xinji...

John Arsneault started full-time in the IT industry while still in high school. Wellington Management was rapidly becoming more dependent on computers and John defaulted into desktop support for hundreds of people. After seeing the potential of software companies at a VC firm, John dreamed of equity and opportunity at a startup. It took a couple of tries to get that right and to balance the demand...

Erik Dasque is our guest on Episode #057. We talk about the winding road from "the West Virginia of France" to becoming a software VP in the United States. By always staying hands-on-keyboard and coding a bit in his free time, Erik has earned himself the moniker of "an engineer's engineering manager." We cover the role of a "Repair CTO", what to do when layoffs are in the investment thesis, and ha...

Episode #056 features Josh West, founder of Foundation.io. Josh is passionate about the foundation of software development - how do we make it easy and productive and FUN to be a software developer at a given company? How do we get developers writing code quickly instead of burning weeks on ramp-up and development environment setup tasks? (hint: Kubernetes!) A company where it is hard to "get up t...

Chris Hull is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Otus, a Chicago-based edtech company. After 13 years as an educator, Chris wanted to minimize the chaos of disconnected edtech tools for K-12 administrators, educators, students, and their families. We talk about his humble beginnings gaming, how hating education until college made him want to teach, and how his new company helps educators...

Episode #054 features Steve Picciano, VP of Engineering at FineTune. What if you interviewed for a job, didn't love it, but the interviewer says, "One of the reasons you don't want to come here is one of the reasons we want you here." Do you take the job and the challenge? Steve did. Hear that unusual tale, as well as taking the Smalltalk language to the big time, witnessing post-acquisition speec...

Episode #053 features Mike Sheldon, CTO of RedRover. Mike has made some unconventional moves, starting full-time work before graduating college, missing graduation to get married, and choosing to support an older product line instead of the hot, new greenfield project. It has all worked out for him though, still happily married, still working with friends he met at that first job, and heading up e...

Morgan Creighton grew up watching Carl Sagan explain the wonders of our universe on PBS, inspiring Morgan to study physics.  During his first job after college, a Nobel Physics Laureate famously opined that Computer Science would someday be declared a sub-discipline of physics. Morgan feels this is exactly the opposite of the truth - physics may eventually be declared a sub-discipline of CS! We co...

We kick off Season 5 speaking to Bob Hammond, CTO of Choreograph. Bob has survived the dotcom boom and bust, several acquisitions and divestitures, and scaling several companies to provide ad delivery to large audiences. When you make things big enough and fast enough, the LAN speed often becomes your throttle, and expansion efforts are like changing the tires on a speeding car. We talk about back...

Episode 050 of Underserved features Gene Grella, a renaissance IT executive who also teaches, flies RC planes/drones, and fires a musket after every Patriots home game touchdown. We discuss the merits of a big, boring, process-driven company for your first job out of college. We also talk about CEOs who put their personality stamp on their companies, FPV flight, and how the best professors correla...