Technology Customer Service Manager VJD

All right, Jim, thank you for putting yourself out there. Like we say at Veteran Hiring Solutions, people don't follow companies, they follow leaders. So if you could tell me a little bit about yourself, your work history, and what brought you to this moment at the company.

I spent 31 years working in the cable television industry, working my way up from the bottom to a point in middle management. Where I basically was banging my head on the glass ceiling and saw an opportunity to move on to something different and something new and exciting with a growing company. And that's where I found myself after a transition of our family and with SMG. And I've really enjoyed my process through this. I started as a manager about 9 and a half months ago and became a director, um, very recently overseeing a large portion of the company.

That's great. And I'm sure getting back home and getting back to that family feel and, and community must have been great.

Yes, that's— it's been, it's been really positive for our family. It's been wonderful to get back into the community and to give back an environment where everybody knows everybody else.

Yeah, right? Isn't that great? Well, and this is what I said earlier before we turned on the camera, is what a great opportunity this is to have that attachment to, you know, So what the role is, is you're going to be managing the first and second level tickets of a community college's IT systems, networks, IoTs, really, right? But it gives you that purpose and that connection to those, that younger generation that's, you know, bettering themselves. But first, like, if you could tell us about the role so the audience knows what we're talking about from the hiring manager.

Absolutely. So the first, the position oversees a very robust team of IT professionals. Who handle the Tier 1 and Tier 2 operations for a community college for their IT needs. So we handle all of the intake of calls, emails, tickets, walk-ins of people that have IT issues with computers, with access, with the printers, wireless, whatever. So we work with everybody who comes in. And if it's something that's a college-related problem for the network, then we hand it off to them. Otherwise, internally we handle it. The team then deals with whoever needs to handle it. The person is, if they're the lead or if there's somebody who has a specific knowledge base of printers or of AV or of a specific piece of hardware, then they handle that, that need and take care of that in the process. So this leader will oversee that entire team, making sure that they grow and can handle all of the SLAs and all of the needs of the college and from SMG's perspective.

Yeah. And what you were saying too is that team, you have specialized tech for the printer side, the AV side, you have some general techs to disperse out, you have somebody managing that call, the incoming traffic, the walk-ins, and they're really coordinating all that and they're managing the relationship between the college and the Absolutely.

And this is— so this is a— this is that worker position. This isn't somebody who gets to sit back and, and just enjoy looking at dashboards on a screen all day because it's very interactive. It's a relatively small team of 6 people plus a manager who are taking care of an entire community college. So you are active, you're doing— you're involved in the process each and every day. And part of that is being the face of SMG. So being present with the college, being attentive to the college's needs and making sure that the leadership to the college has all the answers that they need. So you have that back and forth between the SMG team and the college and being that, you know, that ad hoc person that goes between the two.

So, you know, you say that now, you make me think, you know, a typical day, a typical week. You know, I'm sure you're kind of coming in and you're checking what happened the evening before. You're seeing what tickets need to be addressed. You're kind of deploying the team, so to speak. But then from there, I mean, are you walking the campus? Do you have meetings with people? Are you waiting for the— are you reacting to tickets coming in? What's that like?

It's a little bit of everything, to be honest. Mostly there's a lot of triage. There's a lot of juggling and making sure that everything is dealt with. You're also putting on your firefighter hat. Suit once in a while and putting out a fire. And sometimes you might have to be traffic cop too, but you are running around, you're doing as much as you possibly can to make the team a better team. And one of the things that I've always told the people that I'm mentoring is, as a leader, you're there to provide the resources to make your team efficient. And that's your job. If that means you got to carry a box of stuff across campus to make it— your team better and more efficient, that's what you do. If it's making phone calls, if it's talking to people, That's what you do.

And what I like about the role too is that one, there's the ability to invest in your team, develop and grow your team, and build that culture and build on it. But from a technical side, what does this person have to be capable of understanding and knowing to support their team correctly?

Well, one of the things that I don't look at when I hire is making, looking for certifications. A certification tells me that you can pass a class, but that really doesn't tell me how you interact with that, with that type of situation. What I need to know is that you have a technical knowledge, that you may not be the one who knows the exact answer to everything, but you have the ability to find the resources in a timely fashion and to take care of it. You need to understand technology. You need to be able— somebody who can work with it. But being efficient in every possible means of technology, I don't ever see that as extremely practical. I want somebody who can be a human, who can work with people, leave with a smile on your face when the conversation is done and know that they're satisfied with the outcome of what you did.

You know, I think about that. So You know, somebody's thinking if they're a fit or if they're trying to present themselves the best way to you, it is talking about that, that failure opportunity where there was a breakdown in the network, there was a breakdown in the systems. How did they find that information? How did they find the answers? How did they deploy the answers either through human capital or through technical means?

Yeah, a lot of that is having the ability to fail once in a while. You know, that's a wonderful way to learn how to grow. You know, there's a lot of opportunities in failing and growing. I mean, we all learn how to walk eventually.

Couple bruises later.

Yeah. Very few of us walked out of the womb. So I mean, that opportunity for growth is always there. And I think that with SMG being a very small company that is growing quickly, there's definitely going to be growth opportunities outside of this potential school. So there's always going to be growth opportunities and opportunities for people to move up.

You know, that being said, they're going to have a team of 6, which is their like, their tight unit. They're there outside from a military standpoint, outside the wire. But back home, how big is that team? What's that team look like?

From the SMG perspective?

Yeah. And from support.

Yeah. So the leadership team, there's about a dozen of us in the operations side that handle, from the directors that, that deal directly with the schools to the people that are in charge of all of our print, for our access controls, for our AV, for all of the aspects of the accounting, obviously, and HR. Um, there's a great team of at least about a dozen people that are split between our Cedar Rapids location where our warehouse is and our Davenport office where our corporate headquarters that are at.

That's great. I mean, if you're looking for purpose, you're looking to invest in a team, you want to be— you want where everybody knows your name.

Yeah, right.

This is the job. This is the right role for you.

Absolutely. Like in the— in just the past year that I've been with, with SMG, I— everybody knows me. I know, I know everybody. That's the beauty of having a company of around 100 employees currently. So everybody gets to know each other and gets to have positive experiences with them.

Yeah. And that's why I love this experience, because you get to put that culture out there and show like, hey, come here, have a great career, raise your family, follow your purpose.

Absolutely. And grow. Absolutely.

I have everything I need. I think everything the veteran needs. Is there anything you wanted to discuss or put out there before we close out the conversation?

Just a reminder that this is a wonderful opportunity for growth. We were looking for people to come in and stabilize teams, help us grow the teams, and we will offer find the opportunities for them to grow outside of that eventually also.

That's great. Well, again, Jim, I appreciate it so much. Once we find that right human, we'll deliver them to you.

Appreciate it, Justin Henderson Henderson Henderson.