CS SE IT Panel 2025 C1V1 — Transcript

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1. 0:00Great question and kind of a funny
2. 0:01question. Uh I don't know if I'm the
3. 0:03best example of this because they're
4. 0:05planning a strategy. No, I was 16 years
5. 0:08old and wanted to buy Magic cards and
6. 0:10our school district um they had a paid
7. 0:13internship for IT stuff. Uh I will say
8. 0:16however I'm in most of the majority of
9. 0:18my life I've been very fortunate and
10. 0:19lucky to have people that have helped me
11. 0:21and also just chance. All of you know
12. 0:23how it goes. The the door opens and
13. 0:25luckily I stepped through it. I didn't
14. 0:26know any better. Um, but I was always
15. 0:29the computer nerd growing up. I was the,
16. 0:31"Hey, Zach, this doesn't work. Fix it."
17. 0:33And so that just became who I thought I
18. 0:35was and who I am. And I always loved
19. 0:38solving problems. And I liked
20. 0:39technology. I've always been a computer
21. 0:40nerd. And so it just kind of it kind of
22. 0:43snowballed from there. School district
23. 0:45fixing printers and, you know,
24. 0:46projectors and technology problems for
25. 0:48the classrooms in high school and then
26. 0:50into what I want to do professionally.
27. 0:53Um, because it's a little different. As
28. 0:55you can kind of tell, I'm I'm an older
29. 0:58person in this group and um I've been in
30. 1:00IT for 45 years and I didn't start in IT
31. 1:04because back then the computers were as
32. 1:06big as a building. So um there was a a a
33. 1:10lot less opportunities at that point.
34. 1:12But in one of my first jobs, they were
35. 1:15bringing in technology
36. 1:17and it was um you know they had to teach
37. 1:21everybody how to use technology and I'm
38. 1:24sitting there with engineers and they're
39. 1:26saying they're um learning and I'm
40. 1:29learning and I think it's fun and I
41. 1:30think it's interesting and then I
42. 1:31thought very selfishly to myself, but
43. 1:34I'll let you guys know about this. I
44. 1:36thought, wait a minute, I'm smarter than
45. 1:38these guys and they're making a lot more
46. 1:39money than I am. And so I so I switched
47. 1:42paths at that and have never looked
48. 1:45back. But um but as Zach said, it's an
49. 1:48opportunity. You see an opportunity and
50. 1:51a door opens. Um you know, a number of
51. 1:53famous athletes have said this. So um I
52. 1:56can't quote it to anybody, but it's you
53. 1:58miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
54. 2:01And so when you have an opportunity,
55. 2:03take the opportunity even if you have
56. 2:06just a little interest. It might not
57. 2:08work out, but it might too. it might it
58. 2:10might work out. So um so that was that
59. 2:13was really what turned me into this is
60. 2:15when technology started coming into
61. 2:17schools and companies and they had no
62. 2:19one to manage it, no one to learn it, no
63. 2:22one so so an opportunity opened up and I
64. 2:25jumped at it and and I've never looked
65. 2:27back. As I said,
66. 2:31something cool you just mentioned Corey
67. 2:33that you made me think of Oh, sorry Tim
68. 2:35was, you know, taking these shots. A lot
69. 2:37of people don't because they're afraid
70. 2:38or they're nervous or taking shots and
71. 2:40then you fail. But as we all know in
72. 2:43technology, most most the time when I
73. 2:46learned the most was when I broke
74. 2:47something and then had to fix it and
75. 2:48figure it out. So I'm glad you said
76. 2:50that, Cory. Let me think of that.
77. 2:53I went to a small high school up in
78. 2:55northern Arizona and we didn't even have
79. 2:59a programming class. So, I got into
80. 3:03programming the first day I started at
81. 3:07ASU pursuing my computer science degree
82. 3:10and quickly realized how much I needed
83. 3:12to learn. Uh, I'd I'd recently changed
84. 3:16my mind from being a lawyer to wanting
85. 3:18to do something that was more involved
86. 3:20in the math side. I also had kind of
87. 3:22this creative side and I said, you know,
88. 3:24programming that sounds good. Uh, but I
89. 3:26really knew very little about it. So, I
90. 3:28felt like I was kind of playing it on
91. 3:30hard mode, trying to figure out the 101
92. 3:32basics while being a computer science
93. 3:34major and realizing that all these other
94. 3:36people in the class had already taken
95. 3:38years of programming in some cases
96. 3:40either for fun. I didn't even own a
97. 3:42computer growing up. So, this was uh I
98. 3:44got access to the computer lab. So, I
99. 3:46feel very fortunate that I was able to
100. 3:48get to the point that I'm here today. uh
101. 3:50also very fortunate because I was not
102. 3:54being very forward-looking when I was
103. 3:57going through ASU. And by that I mean I
104. 3:59wasn't even thinking about internships.
105. 4:01And I was lucky enough to have one of my
106. 4:05friends who had an internship say, "Hey,
107. 4:08we need some more interns. Would you
108. 4:10like to apply? I think you'd do a good
109. 4:12job." And you were talking about taking
110. 4:14risks, Corey. At the time I was like, "I
111. 4:16don't know. That's going to put
112. 4:17pressure. I'm already working a job
113. 4:18right now. how can I do both a job and
114. 4:20school and an internship? Uh, but I went
115. 4:23ahead gave it a try and I feel very
116. 4:26lucky that I did because that led to my
117. 4:29first job outside of ASU and it was a a
118. 4:33my first tech job I should say. So, it
119. 4:35all ended up working out from there and
120. 4:38I continued to get these opportunities
121. 4:39that would line up and I would have to
122. 4:43think about them, kind of be prayerful
123. 4:45about them, talk to my wife about them.
124. 4:46And then most the time though, we
125. 4:48decided, yeah, let's go ahead and give
126. 4:50that a shot. Even though it's a little
127. 4:51bit scary whenever you're making a big
128. 4:53change,