Did you ever picture yourself working in IT?

No, I never pictured myself working in IT. I came from a production background — I worked in manufacturing my whole life. I've done everything from logistics to sales, everything to do with manufacturing. I was involved in manufacturing, but it wasn't my strong suit. My strong suit was more customer relations — working with people and individuals and productivity. I really prided myself on productivity, something I'd grown accustomed to.

Do you have a favorite memory from working at tech42?

One of the coolest things about working for a tech com

pany is that you get to interact with people on a day-to-day basis. We have well over a thousand people that we service and work with, and sometimes those stories get back to you. There was one particular lady who one of our techs worked with. She was extremely upset — her computer had died and she thought she'd lost all this work. We were able to go in and retrieve it, and we got back a hundred percent of everything she lost. At the end of the day, she's thanking us — "Oh my God, I don't know what I would've done." It's memories like that, where you make a difference for someone, that make it well worth it.

Is there any tech you're excited about?

Any tech I'm excited about right now — that's tough, because I'm the non-techie guy. But I go to these tech conferences, and tech42 is constantly trying to educate ourselves, getting out to see what's new that we can use — tools and different things we can do. When I go to these things, I'm just wowed at the amount of stuff that's out there. There are some really cool partners we work with, where we can use some of their products, and it's neat to see how on a day-to-day basis I can take their products and actually pull statistics out of them to help us become better. It's amazing what these guys come out with on a day-to-day basis. Those are the kinds of things that are really neat, so I'll probably keep going to these conferences — because I'm just wowed that this technology even exists.