 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Hey everybody, welcome to Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scott Agataya, CEO and founder of JSA, along with my fabulous co-host, Mr. Evan Kristal, top B2B social media influencer. Hey, Hev. Hey, good to see you. And today on Data Movers, we'll sit down with yet another influential person in today's leading data center and telecom world, supporting the requirements of this new normal. Speaking of new normal, Jamie, have you gotten your vaccination yet? You know it. I just got back yesterday from getting the first shot in my arm. Bizer. Oh, did you get the Chinese or the Russian one? Or which... Bizer. And out here in California, they have it down to a science. I actually, it was a drive-through. I didn't even have to get out of my car. We just drove up. They popped into my arm. Had to like sit in a line. And by the time I was through the line, it was at 15 minutes to check that I'm all right. And then back out on my way. It's amazing. Amazing. Did you get fries or like a Coke to go with that or? No, but they had advertising of like amazing, like very, very like food that you just want like fries and shakes and stuff. Along the route, I thought that is just so mean. Like they're giving me these. That is the American way of vaccine and a shake. That is living the dream. Yeah, so I've had my second Moderna because everyone knows, you know, Moderna is the best. But in all seriousness now, I guess for those of us who pay attention to CDC guidance like us, we're allowed to travel now after we've been vaccinated two weeks after. So we're gonna hit the road. Are you getting close to getting on a plane? Well, you know what? I'm really thrilled because come June, my mom and my aunt would be the very first relatives that come out and get to see my baby girl who's now about a half months. And she still hasn't been held by like any family members other than or dad and me. So we're really excited to have her grandma out here to give her that much needed love other than her face times, which are awesome. But still like, I find Eva now is at the age where she's like looking behind the phone, like, is this it? Great. That's gonna be awesome. You gotta live stream that reunion. That's gonna be great. But speaking of reunions, we have a reunion with an amazing guest and client of yours. Let's get on to our show. Yes, yes, yes. You guys know it here at Data Movers. We just dive into the background stories of our guests, their career highs and lows, unique perspectives. And today we are so honored to welcome Mr. Dennis Savage, Vice President of Operations at Infinite. Hey Dennis, how are you? Oh, I'm great. Thanks for having me. Hey Dennis, good to see you. Nice meeting you for the first time. So Dennis, you're in San Diego, I believe. What is it like down in paradise? It's as beautiful as you might imagine. You know, I actually just came back from a trip to Florida and the dichotomy between the two cities in areas is astounding because we're very heavy mask centric. There, you're not sure if COVID was a real thing or not. So... Well, I'll take San Diego any day of the week. But looking at your IT career here, at the young age, you describe yourself as a slayer of dragons, which sounds like kind of a video game or, I don't know, maybe it's HBO game of Thrones or something else. I've become a video game fanatic during the pandemic again after a hate us of like 30 years. So tell us, for us gamers, gamer wannabes or parents who are afraid of their kids playing video games all the time, how did gaming spur your interest in the tech career? You know, it's interesting and I will admit that I started out playing Dungeons & Dragons before computers were really a thing. Oh, you're old. Yes, we had a standing game on Friday night amongst my friends and there's still some of my closest friends today. But my first computer was in Apple II and it had one of the best games ever and I still would play it if I had it available to me, which is the original Ultima game and that was a Dungeons & Dragons based game. And, you know, the original game got me really hooked on computers and figuring out how to build them. We moved on from there to a Commodore 64 to play tech mobile and used to have tournaments, you know, and kind of crown our champion for the day. And as games continued to improve, as graphics continued to improve, so did the desire to have a better computer, a specific component that could seamlessly run the new games that were being made available to us. And as a kid, when you build a computer from scratch, there's almost no greater accomplishment. So as I got older, that memory sort of stuck with me. It took me a little while to get there, admittedly. I actually went to school, my original intent, was pre-law, and I took the LSATs, passed the LSATs, was gonna go to law school and decided that I hated everything to do with it. So I started over and went into computer science because I harken back to the time where I love to play and I love to kind of figure things out. And this seemed like the perfect transition into that realm. We may need to throw away the script here, Jamie, because I just want to talk gaming and Dungeons and Dragons for the next hour, which will really annoy Jamie to no end. But let me ask you before we go back to script here, what was your favorite Dungeons and Dragons character? Because you kind of look like a level 10 wizard, but I don't know, maybe, am I wrong? So a funny thing I mentioned, I just came back from a trip, on that trip, I had a beard that actually would have fit the, you know, Gandalf would have been proud because it was down to my belly button. So I had to cut this. Get new beginnings, kind of thinking, going, hey, the pandemic, we're reaching the new world order, it's time for me to change as well. All right, well, you're back to a level two wizard. So Jamie, why don't you get us back on script here? This is really going off the rails. No, no, I mean, I love it. And it's so amazing too. You took the LSAT, you instead of came to an awakening that you wanna figure things out. So you came back to our world, our neck of the woods. And boy, you had a phenomenal career here before coming, of course, to Infinite. You worked for Xeo, where you were in charge of all the network infrastructure for data centers across the U.S. and Europe, not a tiny job, a lot of responsibilities. But what was something surprising you learned through that experience? You know, what's interesting is when you go into a bigger company like that and they had over 3,000 employees, you would think going in that the documentation was really, it was there, it was set up so you could achieve everything you needed to. So while the company was impressive with their change control policies and procedures, the lack of documentation was a detriment. So what that meant for someone like me is taking the extra time to prepare when we were doing an upgrade since only a subsection of what I needed, the information was readily available. So to make the changes that we were making, we had to formalize some of those processes to ensure the decisions that we were making were thorough. So it's almost we had to build things on the fly. As an example, I was someone who was responsible for pitching to some of the larger companies. So we would get a large company who wanted to go into a data center that I've never been to. So I will add that fact, but I have to figure out all of the components that are in that data center, including in some of these big clients who are looking for their own fiber strands coming in from the street. So as the example, I would go and have to talk to a lot of different people to get pieces of information that I could kind of fit into this puzzle in order to make a Visio documents so I could present to a client, hey, here's why it looks, here are our fiber carriers who are doing diverse entry and even inside the building, here are the meet me rooms. Here's what the meet me rooms look like. Here's where a particular provider comes in. He's also over here on this other side and the other meet me room. So you can have two diverse paths into your particular space. But it was really kind of that piece of information together was going to different geographic people who knew but didn't centralize that documentation. So I would say from a surprising aspect, that was definitely one. So you came up through the network engineering side of the house, obviously, to run network engineering. What are some of the experiences, best practices or learnings that you brought with you into your current role that maybe you could share with the listeners? I mean, everything starts and ends really with security. So if we come with a security framework in mind and we have the idea that this is going to be prevalent in everything we do, then that can filter down to the rest of the organization. If we come and that isn't the main component of what we're trying to achieve, then that gets sort of pushed to the side and the stakeholders within the company don't understand its importance. So really the first thing I would tell anybody in IT is come with a security focus. It doesn't matter if you're a network, it doesn't matter if you're in systems, it should be the same because then we're bringing that strategy always forward with us and not having to sell somebody on it. And that's a good transition to my next question. Security being so critical, is that one of the things you look for when you go to hire IT talent? What type of backgrounds you're looking for, teaching, training, skills? So I would tell you that I am a little bit different than most people as a hiring manager. When possible, I am not a fan of looking at resumes. It changes when I'm the initial screener for a job, but if I'm not the initial screener and somebody else has looked at a resume, I don't wanna see it because I believe that gives me a preconceived notion about the person and I'm already making a judgment without talking to them. So I want them to tell me the story. They're the person who owns that story that they can share in the way only they can share. And I'm gonna learn a lot more about them going that route. But from a skills perspective, I'm looking for someone who has an eagerness and a willingness to learn. Essentially, I would call that an energy that's kind of apparent, sitting on the edge of their seat, their engagement level because in this particular industry, understanding that I may not know the next technology to come out. We're gonna have to figure it out. We're gonna have to learn that technology. So having that as that primary thing and again, energy is so important to me will tell me a lot more about a person than if they're a little bit more stoic and they keep things to themselves. The second piece of that would be communication. Communication is in everything we do and talking to customers and talking to our internal teams, making sure that they have the awareness of how to communicate effectively and speak intelligently about something and in layman's terms. So if you can take a concept of IT that's a little bit more challenging and break it down into smaller steps that anybody can get, that will be key for me in the hiring process. Best answer I've ever given. Greater advice. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if I actually ever need to hire someone I think I'll take some of that on board. So you've gone from a big distributed global multinational data center company to boutique specialist IT solutions company. How would you compare and contrast those experiences? Do you have a preference for either of those experiences? And what did you learn along the way? So I'll tackle the preference first. I would say the answer is yes, that I do have a preference to be on this a little bit of a smaller side. You really get to know the people you're working with. On a day-to-day basis, you're constantly interacting with them. When you have a company that's 3,000 maybe I met 200 of those through all of my interactions but you don't get the same kind of feel of home-ness I guess would be that word I'm looking for. So definitely prefer a smaller. I understand the bigger and I can play in that realm too but definitely prefer the smaller. As to the second question, kind of what did I learn and the differences and similarities? I think the key differentiator is the notion that in a bigger company people should be more siloed. So you're focused on your area and your area only when you're in a bigger company. There's good and bad to this. The good is you're developing your skill set as a true subject matter expert in that particular discipline. The bad is you don't necessarily have the full context of how to help someone. In the more specialized IT solution space there is a need to know how things interact with each other. This is sort of an essential component to business in understanding your customers. So what happens if I need to let's say patch a machine which requires a reboot? How does that impact the machine that's sitting next to it? Perhaps I'm about to reboot a web server that relies on a database connection and another server. So now I'm potentially breaking two and I have to be cognizant of that to ensure that that comes back as well. So it's the breadth and scope that we have from a smaller, I guess kind of, you said specialized boutique allows us not to sacrifice what is best for the client. If we look at the other side we do have to sacrifice a little bit of that knowledge because we're focused on the single discipline. And I may not know how that interacts with something. So we take it back then more maybe on the specialized IT side I lose a little bit of the in depth knowledge by being more of a generalist but I also understand that customer's environment better. I understand the point of view they have and we don't have to make a decision within a silo that could have a greater impact on the customer's environment without that fore knowledge. So we've been able to combat that a little bit by having some specific SMEs that, you know they would be the leads of a particular place but they still need to know what's going on with the rest of the business. And I'll give you just kind of another example to really highlight this. If I'm upgrading a firewall, we as a network person and if that was only thing I knew and did then my only focus is as soon as I bring that firewall back online because I patched it to the latest and greatest iOS or code, I'm done. In our case, we need to know what lies behind the firewall so we can perform tests. We can make our own checks and balances that say, yes I upgraded the firewall also all the rule sets that are making the web server accessible to the internet still work too. We didn't break something else along the way. So that in that smaller setting gives me perspective that I don't think I necessarily had in some of the bigger world. Well, I'm calling you after the show I'm having some issues with my Comcast router. So I really need some deep expertise, but. I'm not sure if you can afford level 10 wizard retail. Hey, I was downgraded. I own only level two. So, you know, I heard that too. I was like, wow, just cutting the beard. That's harsh. Talking gaming and getting back to the personal by the way, so well said, you know someone who's lived in both small and large companies and obviously being an entrepreneur and running our own business here at JSA. It's like, yes, yes, yes, you know we need that flexibility, that insight. If you're salad off, you still need that, that general awareness. I was getting very excited listening to your response. Thank you, I appreciate that. Now getting over to the personal. We know that of course you're a gamer but you also, you're a sports fanatic, huge football and baseball fans that we're hearing here. So tell me, are there like tons of sports analogies flying around your virtual office? What are some lessons you learned through sports that really help you apply to the IT business world? So that's funny, because I don't generally use any sports analogies at all. And, you know, when you're in the IT space for long enough and especially in San Diego, you recognize that not everybody has that level of sports that you do. And I have five kids. Not a single one of them is a sports fan. Now, I may die hard in hockey, football, baseball. And to throw those analogies out, it just, it doesn't play well in the tech space generally. Because, you know, some of the language out there about us geeks and nerds is probably true. You know, so we have to keep that in context. I think from the lessons learned, however, there are a lot of lessons that can be learned through sports that you can take advantage of. And probably the first thing, the one thing everybody learns through sports is that there is a support system. So no one is in a loan because you have a team that's supporting you. And I played hockey at the minor league level. So I was actually pretty good. And one of the things in not knowing whether you know hockey or not, you can't as a single individual go through an entire defense in hockey. You can every once in a while, and it's just like life. Every once in a while, you can do something alone and you're gonna succeed. But most of the time we need other people who can help us. Having the right people in that right spot, right person, right time, we've all heard that saying. So hey, I don't know, that's not a sports analogy, we'll use it as an analogy. That in the trusting of other people is gonna make your job that much easier. It's gonna give you tricks you didn't know yesterday, just like we can pass along the knowledge we have of playing this game, this game of life now, we can pass along the things we've learned and help someone else grow. So really it's that team concept, it's the support system that we're looking for. Because again, we can't do it alone. We need other people. That answer really knocked it out of the park. That answer was a total one. Oh, and then. That's great. Hey, was that because Jamie used to do this alone and she's thinking. Well, it might go back to that. So, you know, we gotta be careful. Any more of those cracks, yeah. But actually, I'm pretty famous here inside JSA is trying so hard to make a sports analogy work, but being so poor in my sports knowledge that people are like, you know, hockey is on IceJay, not a field. And I go, stop, stop. And I go, right. Luckily, I don't interview a lot of sports celebs. Phew. But anyway, that brings us to our rapid fire section. Evan, you wanna take it away? Yeah, so tell us. You came up through network engineering lots of long nights and I bet you even had a pager at one point. So you are, are you an early bird or a night owl as working work goes? I am a night owl, morning suck, but having said that, I hate traffic so much that I will get up early to be traffic. Oh, yeah. What world do you live in that you have traffic? Come on, this is the one bonus of the pandemic. You don't have traffic in it. That's perfectly true, Evan. And of course, as we're all in COVID craziness, we're all at home Netflixing. What's your last great movie you watched? See, now you're making me miss the midnight screenings that we used to go to, all the great things about getting out into the world. You know, honestly, the last great one, I would probably say is Avengers Endgame for me, which it was 2019 now. That was two years ago. And again, we went to the midnight screening, yep, spoken like a true geek and nerd, Avengers Endgame. I thought you were gonna say Lord of the Rings, but that's okay, we'll go with another one. So what was your first car? You know, as a kid, teenager, college student, whatever, what was your first drive? All right, so I know this is rapid fire, but I have to explain. My first car was the Blue Beru. It was a blue Subaru. So this car in particular was so beat up. I mean, it had dents everywhere. So I bought a rubber mallet. And before high school games, everybody used to come with the rubber mallet, with the role was you can't hit the tires, you can't hit the windows. Don't hit anything that I need to run the car. But they would take the rubber mallet and actually smash the car with the rubber mallet. One smash and you move on, you pass it off. And yet again, showing your sports fanatic side of you. It was the Blue Beru, it was the symbol of pride and joy. It's amazing that car moved at all. And it revved up the fans before the big games. That's right. I'm talking sports, but what would you compete in if you were in the Olympics, hockey? Absolutely hockey. Yes, got one. Got one. Great. So we're all cooking at home, a lot of us, or at least eating at home. What's the best meal you know how to cook personally? Beef Wellington. Wow, it's fancy. It also happens to be my favorite thing to eat. So I had to learn. I took Gordon Ramsay's recipe and I think I've perfected it. I'm pretty good at it. See, I usually get them pre-made and just pop them in the oven and pretend like, wow, I've done so much of that in my case. So much work. No, I mean, I got the whole thing. I make my own duck cell. I do perjudo raft. Finding perjudos is one of the hardest things, funnily enough. Yeah, it's aged, cut thin. Yep. Oh yeah. Perfect. And what is the coolest city you've ever traveled to? Santorini, Greece, without a question. As you go up towards Santorini, especially if you're taking a boat in, it's like the old Princess Bride movie where behind you are the cliffs and insanity. So it's amazing. It's absolutely and they have the best food too. For you fried cheese, you have me. I mean, you have me. My husband is definitely our honeymoon. If I totally, totally recommend. So now I have the travel bug and I'm hungry and I don't know like, but thank you. Thank you for joining us. Really interesting, you know, bio and I learned a lot about hiring and the data center world from an insider perspective. So, yeah, I look forward to meeting you in person someday soon. Likewise, Evan, I appreciate it. Yeah. And what a lovely trip down memory lane on all those early gaming consoles as well. I loved it. All right guys, if you enjoyed Data Movers podcast today and I'm sure you have, I certainly enjoyed it. Be sure to check out jsa.net slash podcast for upcoming Data Movers episodes releasing every other week on Wednesday mornings, as well as other JSA podcast series that you can pick up there. And be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jay Scotto and Evan Kirstel and check out my new personal cryptocurrency, dollar B2B on rally. So, look forward. Twitter grouper or something. What's the purple dot again? Everyone's talking about it. Twitter Spaces, so yeah, catch you on Twitter Spaces, Clubhouse, the whole nine yards. Nice seeing you. Thank you so much, Evan. Thank you again, Dennis and everybody out there. Stay safe and of course, be networking.