 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome everybody to our podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Stado-Cotaia, founder and CEO of JSA. Along with my fabulous co-host, top B2B social media influencer, Mr. Evan Christen. Evan. Hey everyone, welcome to Data Movers where we sit down with the most influential men and women in today's data center and telco world, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of this new normal. Jamie, good to see you again. Awesome to see you and it is a spectacular day here at JSA. We have so much celebration going on. So after this podcast, I'll have a glass of champagne in my hand. JSA is now able to say it's the 17th, so we're able to announce that we made two amazing lists. One top 100 elite PR agencies in the country by PR News, and the second is the very famous Inc. 5000 list. So really exciting big news. And so huge kudos to our team, to our clients, our community for this amazing benchmark here. Those are huge milestones. So tell us, looking back, when did you start or found JSA? How many years have you been running the company? 16 and a half years ago. 16 and a half years. So it's just a fast race to the top, right? That must have just flown by. Obviously you started the company when you were 16. So there you go. Yes, thank you. I learned a lot since 16. Well, fantastic. And I think you have another one of your fantastic clients and guests on today as well. Yeah, and I'll tell you, it's because of clients like Mr. Jim Marazzi, CEO and president of DQE Communications who support us and allow for this growth. So let's get right to it. Jim, welcome to Data Movers. Thank you. Yeah, welcome, Jim. Great to meet you. I was actually just reading your bio just before the podcast here. And starting from the beginning, you actually went to a great Philadelphia institution for school, Drexel University. You got an MBA and a degree in electrical engineering from Drexel, which is phenomenal. So tell us, do you still debug circuits in your spare time? I wish. I wish I still had those technical chops in me to be able to do that. And I always did enjoy the engineering aspect of things. And it was great training coming through at Drexel University. And maybe something that folks don't know about that is it's a five year university. So you do a co-op program there and you are working six months in industry and six months in the classroom. So that's why it's a five year program. And I got just great, great training and kind of confirmed for me that engineering is really what I like to do. And so it was a great choice. And it was a great way to come out of school with knowledge of what you're going to be doing. I'll take your word on that. I could barely stand three years at university, but let's fast forward to now and tell us more about yourself and DQE communications and the businesses you serve. Sort of an interesting combination of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, Northern West Virginia. Kind of what brought you to those markets? Sure, happy to do so. Before I do that, let me just congratulate Jamie as well. That's awesome. Good news for you and all great stuff. So congrats. Thank you. Hey, thanks for the opportunity to be here today. Certainly we're excited about that being able to partake in this and also excited about what we do and how we serve our customers. So DQE communications is a fiber optic data provider in Southwestern Pennsylvania primarily. Pittsburgh is our home. That's where we have our roots. That's where we've been doing business for many, many years and they're the customers that we serve. We serve the Southwestern PA region, Northern West Virginia, Eastern Ohio and recently moved into the center of the state, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as well. So what we do is we build big fat data pipes for our customers and we do that with fiber optics and we connect all of these enterprises, whether they're business enterprises or governmental institutions, schools and school districts so that they can have the connectivity and the data access that they need. It's been a really fulfilling and rewarding kind of a mission that we have. Got great, great people at DQE communications. They know the importance of serving the customer. They know the importance of keeping the circuits lit, if you will, the terminology that we use and how critical what we do is for their mission critical business, whether you're talking about a hospital or a university, they need these services and our team kind of looks at that and says that that's kind of job number one and then we're really proud of that. And I take it you're not a Pittsburgh Steelers fan at all. I certainly am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I consider myself kind of a Pan-Pennsylvania fan here because I spent time in the Eastern part of the state in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. So when I first joined the DQE family, people gave me a little bit of a hard time because I came from the Philadelphia region with the Eagles and the Steelers, but I say that we're all Pennsylvanians and you can root for more than one team. So I've tried to bring that to DQE as I've gotten there as well. I'm glad. And talking about that expansion in the past couple of years from the Pittsburgh metro area into the state capital, Harrisburg there, what's it like to oversee a company's entry into a new market? And what is it like being the new competition on the block? Well, it's exciting, first of all, to do something new to build, to grow, to figure out what to do next. So that's always the fun aspect of the job is to kind of thinking down the road a little bit. You know, it's work. It certainly is a lot of work. As I said, what we do is we build fiber-optic networks. So it's not something that happens overnight. There's a lot of engineering, a lot of planning that takes place, a lot of interaction with local utility companies to gain access to poles and conduits and things of that nature. So there's truly an engineering and a construction aspect of it, first and foremost. But then there's also the business aspect. Why would we go there? What's the business opportunity? How can we be helpful to customers? What needs are not being met in a marketplace? So you try to, you know, look at it from multiple perspectives here. And for us, you know, the philosophy that we've had is to try to follow our customers where they are. As I said, we do a tremendous amount of business in the Pittsburgh Western PA region. And we have a number of customers that also have presence in Harrisburg, the state capitol. So since we're serving their needs locally in Pittsburgh, it's a natural extension to try to serve their needs also in those markets as well. And that's how I would prefer to go about my growth in a very systematic kind of an approach there. Not always the case, not always with the luxury of doing that. But when you have that kind of an opportunity, it makes a whole lot of sense. And, you know, we've enjoyed it. We've enjoyed kind of continuing to expand this network. You know, we are one of the smaller players in the fiber optic space. You know, you clearly have the large national players and things of that nature, but for a company of our size and where we focus our efforts, we build a solid, you know, network and a very deep rich fiber of network in Western PA. And now moving into the center of the state and also into West Virginia, the northern part of West Virginia as well. Interesting. So as a metropolitan fiber provider, you face pretty stiff competition from the giant players in our space who are of course known for their amazing customer service. Just kidding. So how do you differentiate yourself and what advice do you give to business leaders who are facing competition from, you know, big tech or giants like the ones you compete against? Well, I think you hit the nail on the head there in terms of service, right? So large doesn't always mean bad service, but large could indicate poor service. We really do try to focus on knowing our customers and providing them unparalleled service. Being the local provider, having the relationships with the local municipalities and the schools and the school districts and things like that, I think it's critically important. And you've got to be able to deliver on the commitments that you're making here. You know, we live, work, and kind of breathe in the community. So we want to be good partners to all of our customers. So we really do try to distinguish ourselves on that service aspect. And I know a lot of people say that, a lot of people sort of use that phraseology, but we really do try to take that to heart. Service is really important. You know, what we sell is something that could be provided by others, the very, very large national and international players. And price certainly does come into customers decision-making processes, but they also give you credit for your reliability, your ease of doing business. And I think that's a really important concept, your ease of doing business. Can they pick up the phone and get what they need? Can they get it in a timely fashion? Is there someone to answer their phone call when they have an issue or a question as opposed to going through an inordinate phone tree to try to figure out, you know, who do I talk to if I have a problem or a concern? So that's something that we've really tried to distinguish ourselves on is that service aspect. But one other thing I wanted to kind of talk about with regard to how do I compete with these players? That's the competition side, but there's also an opportunity for me to serve them. And that's a fairly significant part of my business. So if you think about the kind of customers that I do really well with, they are locally based organizations, whether they are, you know, headquartered in Pittsburgh or their local municipalities, local school districts, they're Pittsburgh-centric customers and I have the best opportunity to work with them. For those people that are national kind of customers, maybe big box stores or retailers or things like that, I don't necessarily have the relationships with them. Maybe one of my big competitors do and now they need to go fulfill in 50 cities or 75 cities. And they come to a DQA communications to locally fulfill on their national contract. So we've actually built a very nice business in being that last mile provider to some of these national customers who do business with the national providers. So it's actually a nice win-win kind of a combination for us. I love it. Co-opetition, it's what I call it. That's great. And you mentioned those locally owned, locally based customers from the schools to financial companies, the healthcare organizations, commercial real estate developments. It's just they just are really trying to dig deep, invest in those digital transformation processes right now. What's driving all this? Oh boy. I think there's a lot of things that are driving. Certainly it's happening. It's happening at an accelerated rate. I think organizations, whether you are a for-profit organization or a local government, you're trying to make informed decisions and you're trying to make data driven kinds of decisions. You're trying to optimize your operations and take efficiencies or inefficiencies out of the equation. And that's all predicated on access to good data. It's all predicated on access to quick, reliable data and having that information absolutely when you need it. So I think as organizations get more sophisticated or more motivated to make informed data driven decisions, their reliance on data analytics, artificial intelligence, all those kinds of things just becomes almost like a common way for them to conduct their operations. And to enable all that, they just need some of the plumbing that we supply. They need that physical connectivity. Years ago, what you saw for larger enterprise businesses, they would have in-house data centers. They would own their own steel. They would have their own space and air-condition it. And then it moved to, are there locally-based third-party data centers? And they moved to that aspect. Well, now the vast majority of enterprises are going to cloud-based services, whether that be in Ashburn, Virginia or in Chicago or places like that. So they still need all of these very, very low-latency, high-reliability kinds of fiber-optic services that we provide. Because what that does, it enables them to fulfill their mission much, much more quickly. That's fantastic. It's really great to see advanced technologies in the data center and optical world move into new markets outside of the big tech centers and big cities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, actually the state of West Virginia is a client of mine as helping them promote the state as a destination for startups and even remote workers. What's inspiring you to grow into these markets and lead your company into these new non-traditional tech markets and finding customers there? So it's trying to follow the opportunity. You mentioned West Virginia. There's an area down for I-79, high-tech partners, they promote themselves and they're having some nice success. They are saying, we are not the traditional area where you would see a lot of high-tech kind of companies like a Silicon Valley or places like that, but there are smart people all over this country and you can locate them anywhere and be super productive and super creative and develop products and services. So we're seeing more of that throughout the US. Unfortunately, we're in an area where people are locating and tend to want to locate. So we're simply just trying to make sure we understand the landscape and to be responsive to that and if we're smart enough, be just a little bit ahead of that so we know where to go with our bills and try to be helpful to people. We're fortunate in that the Pittsburgh region has a couple of really great universities and it really does develop new talent and the new talent is more technologically oriented. One university that comes to mind, Carnegie Mellon University, extremely strong with robotics, computer program and computer science. They've been off a lot of sort of new startups and what we've seen as a result of some of those kinds of things is that the driverless car industry really is kind of, there's a nexus in Pittsburgh because of just that feedstock of smart individuals. So there are kind of examples of what we're seeing in terms of technological development, sort of the AI, robotics, driverless cars, those kinds of things, process automation as well. And then the other thing that we really see in a very big fashion in Pittsburgh is just the medical services companies. We've got some great healthcare services in the Pittsburgh region. And there are the forefront also of developing technology and therapeutics and treatments as well. So it sort of breeds that mindset and it's great for an area in the economy to have that. So, you know, that begs this question. I'm not sure you can answer it yet or not, but are you planning any future network expansions to new markets maybe? So thank you for asking it. The answer is yes. The short answer is yes, but I can't tell you where and when. Fair enough. We're constantly looking for how do we expand, how do we grow, and how do we sort of be relevant to customers? And since I've been at DQE Communications, we've grown the network kind of a two-fold. And again, I know we're one of the smaller sort of providers out there compared to the large national players. But, you know, we do try to focus on being helpful to customers and where there's real opportunities. And we are looking for those other expansions as well where we believe we can be helpful and provide a service that others maybe are not able to sort of fulfill. As I said earlier in my comments, we try to find areas where we have an existing customer that has a, you know, another location in a different city and different geography where we can be helpful to them. You know, I use an expression where we want to be bigger than what we are, but not as big as some of those other players. You know, some will say, you know, you're small, but big, the biggest small. Yeah, I'm trying to find that nice middle ground where we can still be a person that delivers top-notch service and not just the laws and processes and bureaucracies and things like that. Yes. Nice approach. Well, let's shift gears. Talk about business and leadership from your perspective. What makes a good CEO and president? What's your sort of philosophy on leadership besides just being a super nice guy which you clearly are? Well, thank you for that. That's nice to hear. Sometimes my employees wouldn't say that. You know, I think that as a leader, you certainly have to have the best interest of the stakeholders at heart. And when I think of stakeholders, I really do think about all of the stakeholders. I think about our team members. I think about our customers. And I think about the owners of our business as well. And I think a good leader, particularly good CEO has to give attention to each of those three major components. You know, you need to focus on each one and not sort of give short attention to one versus another. All three are very, very important. You got to have great employees and you have to have great employees who are doing their best and have the right kind of incentives and the right kind of rewards in order to do that. You got to serve the customers well. And that happens because of great employees and you need to have the capital access and the capital funding and, you know, give a very good return to investors so that they continue to want to provide you with the capital necessary to expand. So I think that's kind of first and foremost is just trying to find that right balance amongst all the stakeholders. What comes right under that, you know, it's really making sure that you are very clear to the organization of what your mission is. We are here to support other people fulfill on their mission. You know, we are here so that the universities in our area can do what they do well so that the hospitals can do what they do well so that the data centers can. So you got to be very clear that we're a customer-centric organization and we will, you know, move whatever obstacles in the way in order to satisfy the customer, deliver the reliability, provide the ease of doing business. If there is an issue or a problem, you work on it and you get it done right away. Everybody has problems. Everybody has a blip. It's how you respond to those blips that really defines your character and defines how you have that customer relationship. Because again, you know, we would all be foolish if we sat here thinking that, you know, you never have an issue, you never have a problem. Everybody does. It's how you respond to those issues. I think it's important. And then the last thing I just wanted to sort of get across is I think it's important that you sort of stay connected and stay grounded with your employees and your customers. You need to understand what's going on. You need to communicate a lot. You need to be in front of people a lot. You need to listen. And that's something that I had to learn over my career. And I had to learn to listen more and talk less. Because, you know, as you're sort of growing up through your career, you think, well, I've got the answer to that. I know what to do. I know how to do that. And it might be right, but listening is a skill and it's a critical skill that I think good leaders have developed at home over time. They know when to listen and stay silent. They know when to add perspective. They know when to call on others to join in and be part of the solution. And I have to tell you, I am still a work in progress. I am still somebody who is trying to figure it out and get better at this and kind of hone these things in. But I think that's an important thing. I said earlier, I'm an engineer by training. Engineers, we love to see how things work. We love to sort of peel back the blankets and see how everything is built. My issue from time to time is I drop down into the weeds. You know, I want to see how this is built or what's going on or what the root causes are. Every once in a while, I got to remind myself to kind of come back up to the 10,000 foot view level and let my subject matter experts kind of work what they need to work. And me just kind of asking the appropriate questions and making sure that people are, you know, kind of staying on task or being responsive to the deliverables there. Yeah, that is so hard as a leader. I definitely hear that. And another thing that really spoke to me was when you said, you know, your grit kind of shows how you respond to issues. And for sure, you know, leading a company through any type of change is hard enough. But when it comes to leading a company through a global pandemic, you know, the stakes are just at an all time high. What are some of the lessons maybe that you learned as a CEO through this past year and a half? Yeah, so certainly I learned a lot of lessons. You know, I think the most important one is the need to still stay connected with everyone even in this virtual environment. We were really, really good in terms of making that transition from being physically in the office to working remotely from our homes or from some other location. And, you know, your technology solves that problem and, you know, your planning solves all those kinds of problems. But what it doesn't solve is just the connectionness. And I don't know if it's a word or not, but the connection is to your employees. You know, you can sort of have a Zoom call or a Teams call or something like that. But you got to go beyond that and you've got to sort of still take the time and the effort to check in with people, make sure that folks are doing okay, giving folks an opportunity to just kind of talk and, you know, get out their emotions. We all bumped into one another getting a cup of coffee. We all sort of talked about the Steelers on Monday morning after the Sunday game when we were in the office together and that stopped and it stopped abruptly. But so how do you sort of replace some of those interactions that you're having? And I think it was really important for us to focus in on that and make sure that we still paid attention to it. The other thing that I learned is just the importance of pre-planning and to go through those exercises of risk mitigation and try to plan for the events that were just kind of whiteboard exercises. And I can tell you that we didn't really sort of think that a global pandemic was something that was possible or plausible, but we did plan for a major event that took us out of our offices for a seven day period. We thought, what if a major hurricane or major storm event or some other event to shut down major parts of Pittsburgh and we could not get our employees into offices and we could not sort of do business as we had done business in the past? What technologies, tools, protocols, processes, would we put in place to make that happen? So we were ready for a remote work environment. We were ready with all of the technology, every one of our employees had laptops, you know, and they were taking those home each and every night. We practiced everyone VP and ending into the networks all at the same time to make sure we had the bandwidth and the capabilities and capacity. So the effort and the time you put into those things paid off handsomely for us. Our transition was seamless, it really was seamless. Conversely, I can tell you, you know, I know I talked with a number of our customers, they were really scrambling to go get a thousand laptops for their employees who routinely worked in the office and work from desktop terminals. And now they're working from their homes and how do they connect? How do they do all those things? So just that pre-planning and going through that risk mitigation kind of mindset really is important. I think it really helped us quite a bit. Yeah, it's all about resilience, that's for sure. It is, it is, you know, we build resilience into our networks. We make sure we've got dual paths and we've got, you know, sort of closed rings and all that stuff and two end technology. But how do you, how do you build resiliency into the processes? How do you build resiliency into these kind of things that a lot of people don't think about? Well, does everybody have internet access at home? Does everybody have a laptop they could take from the office so we can continue to do what we need to do? Yeah. And I think we can bring this to a little bit more of our personal flavor right now. Right Evan, we usually like to get a little bit more about here, here from... Oh yeah, that'd be fun. So tell us around Pittsburgh, what do you do in your spare time when you're not leading and managing a company? You know, so, Pittsburgh really has some great neighborhoods. There's a number of great restaurants. So, you know, I don't say I'm a foodie, but I like to cook, I certainly do. And I like to go out to eat. So I like to try new places, try new restaurants. And we're very fortunate that we've got a lot of new places that have done well. That's a pre-prandemic, I have to admit, you know, a lot of restaurants were just continuing to open in boom in 2019 and 2020 came and 2021 is here and things were still a little bit challenging from a restaurant perspective, but that's such a fun thing for me to do. You don't have to drive all the way to Philadelphia to get a good cheese steak. Yes, you do. There are some good places in Pittsburgh that have a cheese steak, but, you know, I was born and raised in Philadelphia and I could tell you that I think I probably know the vast majority of cheese steak places in Philly and I certainly have an older priority, which I think you're good. And I know that cheese steaks in Philly are pretty darn good for sure. So that brings us to our rapid fire section of this interview. So we just, there's some quick questions out there and tell us the first thing that comes to mind. So talking foodie, what is your favorite food that might surprise us? Veal Parm, veal parm or veal salt and baka. I love Italian food. Yeah, that's right. I grew up in an Italian family. My mom was a fantastic cook. My grandfather was an Italian immigrant. So, you know, Italian food, particularly veal parm and veal salt and baka, no question. Well, we're all gonna have to get together with Jamie in Federal Hill in Providence. Exactly. Have some good Italian at some point, so. Right, that's right. We, I know where it's at, Jamie Scott or Katya. So, okay, if you could watch one movie and this could actually be horrible, on repeat for 24 hours straight. Those eyes, eyeballs up. What would it be? What's your favorite movie? National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Oh, that's a good one. That's a shocker. You know, that is a funny, funny movie. I can't say that I've never sat and watched it for 24 hours straight, but during the Christmas season, I will watch that thing five, six, seven times. I know almost every line to it. I know everything that's coming, but it still makes me laugh. And I think it's just a riot. And, you know, when I'm watching a movie, I'd rather laugh than cry. So, that's what I'm interested in. Here, here. And anything that gets me into Christmas spirit, I'm all about too. I'm like Christmas in July or I'm here. So if you could try out any job for just one day, what would you choose? I would be a framing carpenter. You know, I just love building. You know, I sort of tinker a little bit with woodworking and stuff like that. But, you know, maybe it's the engineering background, but to be part of a crew that just builds homes and, you know, just to see the way those things get thrown up then anymore, you know, two, three days and you have a house frame, that looks like a lot of fun. As I said, I've sort of tinkered a lot with my own personal projects, but I would love to be a framing carpenter. I think it would be just a blast to do that. Yeah, well, they're in great demand. And, well, thanks for joining us, Jim. It's been really great learning about your vision and the way you're helping customers and we can't wait to come down one day and see a Steelers game. So we'll keep that on the back burner, but really great hearing about your vision and team. Thanks so much. It was a pleasure being with you all today. I enjoyed our conversation and I look forward to having come to Pittsburgh, okay? Yeah, absolutely. Steelers game, that's a thing. All right, that sounds great. And guys, if you enjoyed listening to today's Data Movers podcast as much as we did, be sure to check out jsa.net slash podcasts for more upcoming Data Movers episodes. We release those every other week on Wednesdays. So please join us there. And follow us on Twitter at Jay Scott, Jo and Evan Kirstel, where we love to engage. So until then. As always, family, stay safe and happy networking.