Career Downloads

Show NotesHis father got tired of him playing video games. So he threw a book at him.

Manuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about how they’ve managed their career over time. And today I have with me Dennis Moriarty. I’m excited because he and I have crossed paths back when I used to be a VMware SE. He’s moved up into leadership roles and just the way that he went through and just, like I tell people all the time, there’s no one way to get to a specific role and just the way that you go about getting there, the things that you learn along the way. So Dennis has a very interesting story. So I’m excited to kind of go through and dig in a little bit more into that. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Dennis.

Dennis Moriarity: Hello everybody, Dennis Moriarty, Chief Information Officer with Link Technologies.

Manuel Martinez: So like I mentioned to people before, so you’re CEO with Link Technologies. So if you don’t mind just kind of telling us a little bit about kind of your current role and responsibilities and then we’ll kind of start the story at the beginning and work our way to how you actually got to where you’re at now.

Dennis Moriarity: Yeah, in my current capacity, really what we try to do is we’re gonna come into your place of business or whatever, and we’re gonna try to help you identify any gaps you may have or if you have a specific project in mind, how we can help you execute that project. I also help Link internally, right? With the technologies we’re choosing on how to grow our business, how to service our clients even better.

Manuel Martinez: So now we’ll kind of start the beginning. So if you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually what got you either interested in technology and if you didn’t start in technology, kind of what you thought you were gonna do and how you thought you were gonna start your career.

Dennis Moriarity: All right. So from California, LA area, how did I get into technology? My father, my father was a mainframe programmer, assembly language, all that. He came home one day, he got tired of me playing video games and threw a book at me and said, “If you wanna play these, then learn how to make them.” And it was… Learn C in 24 hours or something like that. And I did, I read the book, I did everything and I fell in love with it. And I think the first program I wrote was a full blown email program that the book kind of helped you write. And from there, there was no turning back. I just loved, I fell in love with the process of programming and how to look at the world differently from a programmer’s lens and what I could affect through programming.

Manuel Martinez: And if I remember the way that you’re, kind of like that exposure, like you mentioned, like programming and building something, was it the process of seeing something that you’re writing and basically in words and letters to seeing something that’s functional, like you said, the email program, like building it, testing it and saying like, “Oh, this is what I can do.” And if I build it this way, here’s how, this will affect the way it looks, the way it operates. But then also I’m sure there’s that challenge of, because I took a couple of programming classes and at the time I was like, this is n...

Show Notes

Bri Haralson wanted to be a chef. Sixteen years later she’s the Director of SLED at Cribl, one of the most connected people in the Southwest public sector tech community, and about to step into her next leadership role.

Nobody mapped this out. That’s kind of the point.

Bri grew up in Arizona, one of the rare native Arizonans. She started college for culinary studies at Northern Arizona University, transferred to Scottsdale Culinary, and then got a conversation that changed everything. Her restaurant manager pulled her aside and told her she wasn’t Mary Poppins — meaning she was confident, aggressive in a good way, and built for something beyond the kitchen. She didn’t fully understand it at the time. She went out, talked to people, and landed her first job as a sales training and hiring manager at a startup consulting company during the B2B SEO boom. She had never done it before. She acted as if. Within three years she had helped companies go from zero to seven figures and built sales floors from nothing to 75+ people. She started her career in leadership.

From there she took a step back into an individual contributor BDR role — 120 cold calls a day — specifically so she could practice what she had been teaching. She was promoted to first-line leadership within two months. She went on to field sales, won Sales MVP, joined Gartner as one of their youngest field sales reps, and eventually found her home in SLED (state, local, and education) where she has been for 13 of her 16 years in the industry. She calls it her civic duty without civic pay.

WHAT BRI HARALSON DOES NOW:

KEY INSIGHTS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:

Do the work, but make it intentional

Sales is project management

Always Be Recruiting

Burnout is about misalignment, not volume

Lead without the title

TOPICS COVERED:

WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:

CONNECT WITH BRI HARALSON:

ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:

Connect with Career Downloads:

TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest. For today’s episode I have with me Bri Haralson. I’m excited because I’ve met her, like we followed each other on LinkedIn for a little while. Eventually we got to meet in person for the first time through a SIM event, which I’ve talked about quite a bit in the past about that organization. I was just very interested in a lot of the work that she’s done. She’s also very involved in, you know, organizations like SIM and seems like she’s very much willing to kind of help out in leadership roles within these different organizations to kind of, you know, help give back or, you know, uplift the community, whatever that might be. So it’s going to be a lot of good insights that I think we’re going to get out of this one. And with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Bri.

Bri Haralson: Hi, thanks for having me.

Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you spending the time to kind of come down here because I know that you’re not from Vegas. You’re based out of Arizona.

Bri Haralson: Yeah, but I’m out here often. I feel like Vegas is my second home.

Manuel Martinez: And that was… It took me a little while because you’re here all the time that I was like, “Oh, she’s here in Vegas.” And you’re like, when I asked you, can you come on? And you’re like, “Yeah, of course.” You’re like, “But I’m out of Arizona, so it might take me a little bit.” And I was like, “Really?”

Bri Haralson: Yeah, a lot of people actually think that I’m local because I am out here so much. It actually started when I was a kid, my parents liked to gamble. And so I’d come out here a lot, like five times a year, and it really kind of became my second home. And then once I got into my career, I’ve always supported Nevada, specifically here in Las Vegas. So spending maybe two to four days out of a month here. So yeah.

Manuel Martinez: So if you don’t mind telling us a little bit about what your current role is and kind of some of the roles and responsibilities that you have as part of what it is that you do.

Bri Haralson: So I’ve actually been in tech sales for 16 years, so a little bit different than an actual technical practitioner. So with that, I sell technical tools to state, local, and higher education clients. Again, I’ve been doing that for 16 years with 13 of those years dedicated solely to supporting the public sector. I am getting ready to transition into a leadership role, supporting a team of sellers that support the public sector here in the West.

Manuel Martinez: That’s awesome. And I’m excited to kind of learn a little bit more when we get to that point, kind of what ultimately led you into kind of wanting to get into a leadership role and some of the things that you may or may have not done yet to kind of prepare for that. Now, you already kind of gave us a little bit that you come here to Vegas a lot, but if you won’t mind telling me where you kind of grew up and then eventually kind ...

Show Note

Ever wonder how someone goes from desktop support to protecting a professional sports team’s entire digital infrastructure?

Andrew Ferrall’s career path shows that there’s no single route to landing your dream job in technology. As IT Security Architect for a professional sports organization, Andrew protects one of the most recognized franchises in professional sports from cyber threats. But his journey there involved building gaming computers in middle school, grinding through help desk tickets at Shuffle Master, taking on MSP work that stretched his abilities, and moving into systems administration before specializing in security.

WHAT ANDREW DOES NOW:

KEY INSIGHTS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:

Comfort Zones Kill Career Growth

Your Career Story Lives on LinkedIn

Imposter Syndrome Often Starts Earlier Than You Think

Learning Never Stops

CAREER PATH TIMELINE:

TOPICS COVERED:

WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR:

CONNECT WITH ANDREW FERRALL:

ABOUT CAREER DOWNLOADS:

TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I bring on a different guest to really learn more about their background and their experience to try and gain any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. I have with me Andrew Farrell and this is a pretty interesting conversation. So back when I first started the podcast and was looking for guests, I really just started looking on LinkedIn to try and find people that were local to the area that had a career trajectory that looked like – you know there’s motion, maybe they had moved around, just something where I thought, you know, would bring about interesting conversation. We reached out – or sorry – we reached out to him and, you know, had a little bit of back and forth and eventually we were able to kind of get the scheduling worked out so I’m really excited. One of the benefits of again doing this is getting to know somebody local and kind of know more about them. So with that I’ll go ahead and introduce Andrew.

Andrew Ferrall: Hey, thanks for having me Manuel. Really appreciate you. You’ve had a lot of awesome guests on your podcast and I just want to say you know it’s flattering that you’ve invited me to kind of be on here. You know I’ve learned a lot listening to some of the insights that your other guests have had and I hope I can bring the same for your audience today.

Manuel Martinez: I think so and I appreciate you kind of coming on and you know you mentioned you know listening we did have you know conversations offline about some of these people and the other cool thing is I think one of the benefits for me, right – and again, I do this to try and help share information for others but then I get to meet local people and again through the conversations we’ve had, you know, we found common ground we were both you know Dodger fans, so that kind of helped connect us, and I think it really does a good job of, you know – through this medium and – help people understand that like we’re just people, right? Like yes we have a career yes we can learn from each other but at the same time like – I can call you up and like, “Oh, did you watch the game last night? Did you hear about this?”, you know so that’s part of the fun thing for me so again it’s not just – oh my gosh, it’s not just your title but who you are as a person that I think I really try to kind of pick my guess based on that.

Andrew Ferrall: Yeah.

Manuel Martinez: So if you can tell people who don’t know who you are kind of what your current role or position is and then kind of some of the responsibilities that, you know, you do – You know I don’t need your day-to-day stuff but just kind of a general sense of it.

Andrew Ferrall: Yeah, so I am the IT Security Architect for the Las Vegas Raiders football team here in Las Vegas and I’m kind of the lead person when it comes to cyber security initiatives, whether it be day-to-day, you know, defense, compliance, evaluating new initiatives, making sure they’re secure and okay to roll out and really just making sure we’re playing our best defense on the “cyber gridiron” if you will. So yeah, really awesome, work with a great team. I rely on a lot of folks that are you know, more subject matter experts in different parts of IT, specifically networking. Or even certain system stuff that I may have not had much expertise on in my upbringing and it’s a really really cool job and it’s definitely one that I don’t take for granted.

Manuel Martinez: So I’m excited now because you and I have talked in the past and I kind of know a little bit of kind of what you do now, but really understanding kind of where you start and kind of what got you there – so if you don’t mind telling me or telling us a little bit about you know kind of where you grew up what kind of sparked that interest in technology and you know eventually what you decided or at least what you thought your career was gonna start with, right? Because maybe you thought like, “Oh, I’m gonna be – I’m gonna be in IT from the get-go,” or you know, like, “Hey, I’m gonna be a firefighter,” and kind of pivoted that way.

Andrew Ferrall: Yeah, so I actually am lucky enough that, you know, late middle school early on in high school I kind of found out I was into technology and potentially wanted to have some sort of career in it. Back in eighth grade I had a friend who was like really into building computers.He built computers for playing video games, I think Half-Life and Counter-Strike were the big games at the time, and you know like everyone at that time – this is like early 2000s late 90s – everyone’s getting their first computer in their home and you know AOL was the thing and – you get your disc in the mail and all that good stuff. So you know we had a family computer and I would tinker with it try to find ways to make it better. Sometimes I would break things and it would be at the time where I wasn’t supposed to be using the computer so I was like, “Alright, better fix this before I get in trouble.” right like double trouble you know breaking the computer and you know not being on there when you’re not supposed to. So I kind of just was starting to pick up like you know different skills with computers at that time and there was also...

Show Notes

Sometimes the career you’re meant for finds you through the most unexpected path.

Art Green III, Senior IT Workforce Programs Instructor at Tech Impact, joins Career Downloads to share his journey from college athlete to tech instructor helping disadvantaged students launch IT careers. His story is a masterclass in resilience, adaptability, and finding fulfillment through service.

Guest Background:

Today, Art leads Tech Impact’s IT Works programs in Las Vegas, teaching students from challenging backgrounds the technical and professional skills needed to launch successful IT careers. He also supports instructors across Tech Impact’s locations in Philadelphia, Delaware, and Nashville while developing cutting-edge curriculum including AI training programs.

Episode Highlights:

Accidental Entry Into Tech

The Power of Being the Worst

Finding Purpose Through Teaching

Nonprofit vs. For-Profit Education

Tech Impact’s Mission

Student Success Stories

Authentic Recruiting Philosophy

Key Takeaways:

About Tech Impact:

Connect with Art Green III:

Continue the Conversation:

Subscribe to Career Downloads

TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to share that with you so that you can gain valuable insights into how they manage their career and what worked or didn’t work for them so that you can can apply or not apply or not apply as you’re managing your own career. I’m excited for this conversation. It’s with Art Green III and he and I have kind of crossed paths through mutual contacts, got to know a got to know a little bit more about his career and I think there’s a lot of valuable information that he’s going to be able to provide and also talk a little bit more about what he’s doing now. he’s doing now. So with that, I’ll introduce Art.

Art Green: Hi Manny, thank you for having me here today.

Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you coming on and being open to kind of sharing your experiences and talking a little bit more about kind of what led you to where you’re at now and why. So I know you and I have talked about why this type of work really brings you fulfillment, right? A lot of times people get into the tech industry because they hear something that sounds cool or because of, you know, they hear high salaries but yes, it’s nice to make money and be able to pay your bills but a lot of times we try to find something outside of that that kind of fulfills us which is why I’m excited to learn more about, you know, what you’re doing.

Art Green: Absolutely. Well Well again, thank you for having me. for having me. It’s It’s an honor to be here. As far as my current role, I’m the senior IT I’m the senior IT workforce programs instructor instructor with with Tech Impact, specifically their IT works programs which is kind of all-inclusive like a pathway to middle skills for up-and-coming IT minds, so to speak. speak. I know you’d I know you’d met with one of my former students Paola before so I’m not sure how much she told you about that. As far as what I As far as what I kind of do in the organization, obviously I lead the Las Vegas classes, those cohorts, but I also help with some of our other instructors who are some of them across the country. We have sites in Philadelphia, we have Delaware, we just brought on Nashville. So I really help to try to guide them to help them with their instructional delivery, come up with curriculum development as, you know, new things come about. Obviously AI is a big thing now so that’s kind of the project I’m working on now is putting together a new AI curriculum for our students. Outside of that, just really just just really just managing day-to-day around the office, around the office that kind of thing, and helping the students in their careers.

Manuel Martinez: Just talking a little bit more about you know that clock, that cross-collaboration, you know you’re all working for the common good, but you know having different, you know, being spread across the U.S. and then also being able to kind of share experiences from each one of you because it’s not just you kind of helping guide working for the them, but I’m sure they’re also providing feedback, you know, and kind of working together and really developing something that is going to be beneficial for you know, in this case the end customer, which is really your students.

Art Green: Absolutely, and I’m real big on that, you know, I’m pretty candid with my fellow instructors and my team and stuff and like, you know, if that slideshow I made is terrible, just tell me it’s terrible, you know, and I’ll go back to the drawing board. You know, I don’t want to force feed anything and I want it to be a collaborative effort because that’s the way that it’s going to end up being most successful because everyone has different tastes, different likings, and specifically with the students, different learning styles and things like that. So I’m always open, I love collaboration with everyone, even with the students, you know, I tell them all the time, like you know if that was bad just let me know, and that’s kind of one of the reasons why I’m working on the new AI curriculum because they they weren’t really feeling it so

Manuel Martinez: So then now tell me about where you grew up and then eventually kind of where you thought your career was going to end up going and then, you know, how you eventually ended up moving into the tech space.

Art Green: Okay, well I’m originally, well I was born in Kansas City, Missouri but moved to Texas when I was about five, so I was pretty much raised in Texas. Grew up there, it was really great experience, I miss home, I love Texas, but you know, for me as far as, you know, if you had asked me the ques...

Show Notes

Mike Green didn’t start out planning a career in technology. As a passionate art student in small-town New York, he faced a tough decision: pursue a field he loved with uncertain job security, or pivot to the growing computer industry. He chose computers, and 25+ years later, he’s never looked back.

Today, Mike manages the Digital Services Division for Clark County, Nevada IT, leading four distinct teams that deliver enterprise platforms and applications. His journey from a 16-week network technician program to IT leadership wasn’t smooth. It was filled with layoffs, career pivots, and hard lessons about professional communication.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

One of the most memorable parts of Mike’s story is how he learned professional communication the hard way. His first few consulting deliverables at a shipping and transportation company were torn apart by his manager. He was using colloquial phrases, plain language, and missing the professional tone clients expected. The feedback stung, but it transformed how he wrote and communicated with leadership.

Mike discusses the value of personality assessments, particularly DISC, which helped him understand not just his own working style but how to adapt to people with different personality traits. This skill became crucial when working with elected officials and diverse teams at Clark County.

His commitment to giving back shines through his work with Tech Impact, a Las Vegas organization where he mentors students entering technology. His perspective: “If what I had then got me to where I am now, if I help them with this program now, they will be so much farther ahead of me by the time they’re my age.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

ABOUT MIKE GREEN:

CONNECT WITH CAREER DOWNLOADS:

TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome, everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to help you gain some actionable advice as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode, I have with me Mike Green. Him and I met at a couple of networking events through SIM, which I’ve covered before in the past. That’s the Society of Information Managers. We got to talking about just some of the video production and have since collaborated on a number of different projects. Got to know a little bit more about his career, a little bit more about him as well. I’m excited to share a lot of that information with you. With that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Mike.

Mike Green: Hi.

Manuel Martinez: Appreciate you coming on and similar to what I do for all the guests, if you don’t mind telling me about what your current role is and some of the roles and responsibilities.

Mike Green: Sure. My current role is IT manager for Clark County, Nevada IT. I am a manager over the Digital Services Division, which is… our primary focuses, enterprise platforms and applications. I have four teams underneath me and they do very different things, but we all try to work very cohesively together as a larger group. That’s what I do by day.

Manuel Martinez: I know that you’re also involved in a lot of like SIM and Tech Impact, a number of organizations outside of work. That’s part of the conversation. We’ll get to that and understand how you got into that and why you decided to be involved in these organizations to the level that you are, you’re not just a member or somebody who shows up like you’re actively involved in these organizations. To get started now, tell me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually what led you to get your interest in technology and eventually start your career. I don’t know if you were one of those that right away got into tech or if there’s a lot of twists and turns along the way.

Mike Green: There’s always twists and turns along the way. I grew up in a small rural town in New York, Palmyra, New York. It’s close to Rochester so that when people ask me that I say, “Oh, I’m from Rochester, New York” which is like a Western area. people will sometimes call it upstate. If you’re talking about the nuances of New York, upstate’s like the Adirondacks and we call it Western New York, which is like your Rochester and Buffalo area. My graduating class was barely over 100. You knew everybody in your class. It was just like a very, I would say small town environment. Then I was originally a big art student, art person. That was going to be my career of choice. I was very much into drawing. I loved painting with acrylics. Sculpture really was something I enjoyed, both subtractive and additive sculpture. I really enjoyed that and I still do. I came to a crossroads towards the end of high school. Something else that I actually really enjoyed was video games. I played Nintendo, I played Sega Genesis. I really liked computer games and things like that. As I’m nearing the end of high school, I’m thinking about what’s my career path going to look like if I continue down the art. I’m like, “Well, it’s probably only like a one or two percent of the people out there that do art that are really successful that can make a good living at it and everybody else is like an art professor and art teacher.” That’s not to discount it, but I felt like, “Is that going to give me job security long-term?” For me, I didn’t see that for me. The other avenue was like, we didn’t call it IT back then. We just called it, the career counselor’s like, “You should look at it for a job in computers.” That’s what it was. I was like, “Okay, you’re right. I think I could do that.” I said, “If I could make a decent living at computers, I saw that only growing.” This is like the mid-90s at that point. Then I could make a decent living and I could do art on the side if I really wanted to. I never looked back and I don’t regret that decision. I was 18 years old, about a year out of high school. I wanted to just dive into a career in computers. I didn’t go to college until later in life, so I didn’t have a college degree. I was like, “How am I going to do this?” Then a friend of mine is like, “I’m going to this program. It’s a 16-week course.” At the end, you get a certification for a network technician. I was like, “That sounds really cool. Obviously, he’s my friend too.” We took the class together and the same cohort or group. They had a two-week internship at the end. It was unpaid, but it got you some experience. They partnered with a recruiting company to help place you at the end. I got placed at a telecom company. Eventually it became part of what’s known as Verizon, but at that point it was still early in the when local companies had their own phone business. That’s how it started. I just got work experience as I went along and layoffs happened. I looked back, so I’ve been doing IT since 1998. On average, I changed jobs every three years. I looked back and I’m like, some obviously were longer than others, but I was just like, “Wow, in IT, that was something I got used to.” It was always keeping my resume updated, always making sure that I could interview well, knowing how to write a good cover letter, knowing how to interact and speak with people. I learned that from my parents as well. My mom was always like, “Always keep your resume updated,” kind of thing. That really resonated with me. I gleaned a lot of good wisdom from her on those subjects.

Manuel Martinez: With regards to similar to you, looking back, I think we were about the same. I averaged about three years, somewhere longer, somewhere shorter. Before we get into specifics, is the moving around, looking back now, what do you think the reason … You mentioned that one, it w...

Show Notes

The Week That Changed Everything

Today, Ray is President and Chief Strategy Officer of RTS Premier Solutions, serving government agencies with AI and cybersecurity solutions. His story isn’t about avoiding failure, it’s about what happens when you refuse to stay down.

What Makes This Episode Different

But he also shares how those experiences built the resilience, communication skills, and leadership mindset that drive his success today. You’ll hear about getting fired from AT&T for challenging leadership and then being called back by the CTO who vindicated him completely.

Key Takeaways

On Resilience:

On Leadership:

On Communication:

On Goal Setting:

On Business Ownership:

About Ray Freeman

His journey from sleeping in his car to leading government technology contracts proves that setbacks don’t define your career, your response to them does.

Connect with Ray on LinkedIn or learn more about RTS Premier Solutions.

Listen & Subscribe

Visit careerdownloads.com for more episodes and resources.

TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences to help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode I have with me Ray Freeman. He and I have met at a couple different networking events. We talked a little bit about his career. He’s got some very interesting stories and even inspiring, just understanding the different things that people go through. This one’s gonna be really fun for me and hopefully, you know – like I mentioned, inspirational for everybody else. Ray is very open and he’s gonna tell us about some of the struggles and everybody always likes to kind of talk about the successes but he’s very interested in talking about some of the challenges that happened along the way so that you can go ahead and hopefully relate to them or like I mentioned get a little bit of inspiration. So with that I’ll go ahead and introduce Ray.

Ray Freeman: Thanks for having me.

Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you coming on. It’s been interesting and fun talking to you, getting to know a little bit more about not only what you’re doing now but just what it took to get there.

Ray Freeman: Yes, yes.

Manuel Martinez: And if you don’t mind just so that people get in a sense of who Ray is now, tell me kind of what your current role is and some of the responsibilities of what it is that you do for this role.

Ray Freeman: Sure, sure. So my name is D. Ray Freeman. D is for Donald but I just go by my middle name by Ray Freeman. I’m originally from Texas but I’ve been here in Las Vegas for about five years and I’m a co-owner of RTS Premier Solutions. We do all kind of IT work and you know AI and cyber security around the public sector. I’m also co-owner of a company out of Atlanta Georgia called Win-Win Operations. My partner Shayna Benjamin is there in Atlanta and together. We have about 30 OEM partners that we we work with and about 15 teaming partnerships with other small and medium-sized businesses and we just bring together some of the best technology to the public sector. We serve federal government and state and local and education as well

Manuel Martinez: Awesome. I’m excited as part of the conversation to learn a little bit more of kind of what brought you to want to serve the public sector, right?

Ray Freeman: Yes, you know when when I first met my my business partner she actually reached out to me on LinkedIn. I was serving as a career advisor and business advisor and she found me on LinkedIn and was like hey I’ve won these government contracts and I’m not sure I know exactly what to do but I’ve won them and I’m starting to service them and I’m like well I’ve started this company and I have a 20-year background in technology and I’m actually going to some of these networking and meetups and I’m not sure exactly what I’m gonna do but I’m making a lot of connections in the public sector and we’re like well why don’t we try to work together? So we decided to partner up and become partners in each other’s business and figure out you how can we work together to serve not only the market that she had already but then the network that I was starting to build here in in Las Vegas and so we ended up closing more contracts and building more together and it’s just been a great partnership and you know so she really got me into a public sector environment that was already established. I just helped to grow it.

Manuel Martinez: Got it, okay. So now, as we kind of lead to what you’re doing now, tell me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what got your career started because I know that you didn’t necessarily, I mean there’s some technology in there but you know we talked about kind of that fork in the road where you kind of had a couple decisions so you know just tell us a little bit about that.

Ray Freeman: Sure, sure so I grew up in Fort Worth Texas you know just outside of Dallas there and you know as a little kid I used to always say I’m gonna go to night school and I’m gonna learn technology and I’m gonna do some kind of job working during the day. I was probably six years old and I was saying that but you know as I grew up of course I got into music more and started playing piano and trumpet but eventually I started making just music just beats for people you know R&B hip-hop music that was just going out and people were getting my songs and starting to use them in their own productions and so I was like forget about this tech stuff I’m gonna be a music producer man that’s where I’m going and I thought that’s where I was gonna be and actually when I was in college I was on a music scholarship in Weatherford College in West Texas I was playing trumpet and a really good jazz band there and some guys I had made a track for, they got signed to a record label in Houston their manager came and he gave me a wad of cash and said “Hey, we want to buy this song from you,” and I was like, “Where’s the pen?” – No lawyer no nothing I signed over and you know gave him that and I immediately thought I’m rich you know I’ve got some money I dropped all my classes left school went and got an apartment in Arlington and blew through that cash in about a month really smart for a 19 year old but I started working during the day I was working on the back of a you know one of those recycling trucks where you buy aluminum cans and stuff like old stinky trucks buying basically garbage from other people I was doing that and I had a little bit of little bit of cash left and I enrolled in a computer class at night so it’s kind of like what my six-year-old self said I would be doing but it was just like a plus stuff just weren’t learning to work on hardware things like that but from from there I just kind of had a knack for computers and technology and I couldn’t really afford to just buy a computer

Show Notes

What happens when a drummer who played for 10,000 people realizes the music business won’t pay the bills? Rebekah Panepinto shares her unconventional journey from Nashville musician to successful Account Executive, proving that your next career move might come from the least expected place.

This conversation goes deep on how relationships trump resumes, why being visible matters more than being perfect, and how asking better questions opens doors you didn’t know existed.

Guest BackgroundRebekah Panepinto is an Account Executive and podcast host who has built her sales career by prioritizing authentic relationships over transactions. After pursuing music as a drummer for Grammy-nominated artists, she pivoted to tech sales where she discovered her talent for building partnerships. Her journey from healthcare IT to global software consulting shows how following trusted relationships creates better outcomes than chasing job titles.

Episode HighlightsThe Pivot MomentRebekah earned just $150 playing drums for 10,000 people while getting paid more per day as a nanny. That moment at 21 forced her to Google “best jobs in Nashville” and discover healthcare IT—launching an unexpected career path.

Zero to Sales HeroWithout any sales experience, Rebekah got recruited by a bandmate who saw intangibles in her that she didn’t see herself. He taught her the fundamentals while she brought natural relationship-building skills that can’t be taught.

Female Drummer AdvantageBeing a female drummer in a male-dominated music industry prepared Rebekah for tech sales in ways she never expected. It taught her to believe she could do anything and to never back down from male-dominated spaces.

The Everyone’s-a-Prospect TrapEarly in her sales career, Rebekah believed everyone on every flight and elevator was a potential customer. Learning to properly qualify prospects saved companies from bleeding money on bad-fit customers.

Podcasting Beats NetworkingTraditional networking events create forgettable exchanges. Podcasting builds authentic relationships where people share vulnerable moments and create lasting connections.

Continuous Learning PhilosophyGrowing up homeschooled taught Rebekah how to love learning as a lifelong journey. Now she dedicates an hour every morning to podcasts and audiobooks, absorbing insights from business leaders while working out.

Key Takeaways1. Follow relationships, not job descriptions. Every one of Rebekah’s career moves came through trusted connections2. Personal branding is non-negotiable. Being visible and consistent makes you memorable when opportunities arise3. Quality relationships beat transactional wins. Nobody should dread your outreach because you only call for the check4. Learn from everything. Even finance podcasts teach you about newsletter strategies and content creation5. Going all-in creates mastery. Whether it’s scuba diving or sales, full commitment accelerates learning

Resources Mentioned– Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory Podcast– Ramit Sethi’s Money for Couples– Antifragile by Nassim Taleb

Listen to the full episode to hear how Rebekah builds multi-channel touchpoints with prospects, why she’d choose relationship quality over quota-hitting, and what she learned from being capped at her first sales job.

Released: January 13, 2026

Subscribe to Career Downloads for weekly conversations with tech professionals sharing their career journeys.

TranscriptManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to help you uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode. I have with me Rebecca Panepinto, and she is she’s an account executive, and she does a lot of, she also has her own podcast, she’s a drummer, so there’s a lot of information there that I think, it’s not just focused just on her career, but a lot of the skill sets that she has developed outside. Talked about it in a couple other episodes, some of those transferable skills. So I think this is gonna be a really good one to kind of, for those people who are like, well, I don’t wanna be just career oriented, I think she gives us a good mix of kind of both realms. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Rebekah.

Rebeka: Yes, thanks for having me.

Manuel Martinez: I’m glad you were able to kind of make it, being from New York, right?

Rebekah Panepinto: Yeah, it’s like, hey, I’m gonna be in Vegas, let’s do a show.

Manuel Martinez: That’s awesome.

Rebekah Panepinto: Excited, I’ll have you on the show here soon too, but it will be virtual, not in person, not as exciting. It’ll be fun. Yeah, we met through just LinkedIn. I saw what you were doing with your show, and I said, hey, I wanna know you, and understand how you’re doing this, the impact you’re making, and learn a little bit more. So here we are now.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah, I like it. And I’m glad you did reach out, because again, I saw that you had a podcast, and kind of what you were doing, so it wasn’t so much career focused, but more around digital transformation, and the different people that you have on. So I have watched a couple of those episodes, and I got some good insights from just, I like hearing how different people think, and then also, I think you do a really good job of kind of asking those good questions, right? And then you got a lot more episodes than I do, but that’s a skill that is helpful not only here, but just in general, just being able to ask better questions, you get better answers.

Rebekah Panepinto: Yeah, and just building relationships. There’s something about this that builds a relationship that’s truly authentic, and almost experiential, and like a moment that is shared together, versus just like bumping each other and networking event, you know? And like you quickly forget somebody’s name, or where they’re from. But the way you can build a relationship through podcasting is just a game changer, especially when you’re a salesperson. I’ve always tried to be a salesperson who is not seen as just somebody coming after the next sale, but instead more of a trusted advisor and somebody who wants to build relationships for the long haul, and have a repeat customer when the CIO goes to another company, et cetera. And so by having a conversation, even though typically mine are virtual, you’re able to open really cool doors and get people in a really good place where they feel comfortable to share their career, their advice, their principles, whatever it may be, to be able to be really vulnerable, so.

Manuel Martinez: So can you tell me a little bit more about kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got your career started? You know, what kind of go from there?

Rebekah Panepinto: Oh, it’s been an adventure. So I was actually one of those weird homeschool kids, was born in Phoenix, and started college at 16. And so that had me finishing my undergrad at 19, which is a really weird stage in life to be basically like, what do you wanna do for the rest of your life? Because you don’t have a clue at 19. But that was the place I was in. I was like, well, I guess I’ll just get a business degree. And back in the back of my head, as you mentioned earlier, my drumming, is I wanted to be a big drum star. So Nashville was calling my name. So I took off halfway across the country, actually be a live in nanny to start. It got me to Nashville, and I was able to finish my undergrad online while working in the music business on the side, and actually providing for myself through being a nanny, because that’s a pretty good gig in the Nashville area, if you have the right family. And so big drum star was the dream at first. I spent two years, so age 19 to 21, going pretty hard after music. Until 21, I played a show for 10,000 people, and I got paid $150, and that was it. I was like, music business is not gonna happen for me. I love it, great opportunity. I remember I was signing autographs till 2 a.m. that night, just like this is it, and then had to go get in the car, drive through the night to wake up a nanny the next day to get paid more per day as a nanny than that gig even paid. And the craziest part, even that gig, the people I was playing with had paid for the spot, and it was just like, it was insane to see the reality of this is not gonna be financially feasible at all, especially as just the drummer. But hey, I got to feel like a rock star, I got to taste it, and it was fun. Artist I’d played for was Grammy nominated, and it opened some cool doors. It was really fun. I still have some YouTube videos out there somewhere. But I woke up that next day, here 21, just finished my undergrad. I was like, I gotta do something else. This is not it, and I’m not gonna be a nanny for the rest of my life. And so I kid you not, I Googled best jobs in Nashville, Tennessee, and it was healthcare IT. I was like, okay, I think that’s an answer. HCA, number one employer in Nashville, I was like, I guess I should go work for HCA, like the overconfident 21 year old I was. And I applied for a paid internship at HCA, and I got it, I was shocked. Well, here’s the funniest part of it all. The guy who hired me, his son was a drummer. He and his son had been doing drum covers in their little home studio they have similar to yours, and had offered through the interview process even, I wasn’t even hired yet, if I ever wanted to come record, like he had a studio, his son wasn’t really doing it much anymore, and he loved it, like help...

Show Notes

Breaking into a major tech company requires more than submitting applications online. Chelsey Bonilla shares how strategic networking, intentional preparation, and genuine curiosity helped her land an account executive role at Gartner, despite not having a traditional technical background.

Guest Background:Chelsey Bonilla is an Account Executive at Gartner, one of the world’s leading research and advisory companies. A Las Vegas native and UNLV double alum, she built her career through operations, IT staffing, startup experience, and project management before finding her current role. She’s an active member of SIM (Society of Information Management) Las Vegas, where she volunteers and builds relationships within the tech community.

Episode Highlights:

Non-Traditional Path to ITChelsey’s career didn’t follow the expected route. Starting in operations and moving through various roles, she found herself drawn to IT despite lacking technical credentials. Her willingness to ask “I don’t understand” became a strength rather than a weakness.

Strategic Networking That WorksWhen Chelsey became obsessed with working at Gartner, she didn’t just apply online. She researched everyone attending a SIM networking event, showed up early, and made genuine connections. That preparation led to a phone call about an opportunity that wasn’t even posted yet.

The Power of PreparationBefore networking events, Chelsey researches attendees on LinkedIn, follows them strategically, and comes prepared with questions. She calls it “cyber stalking”—and it works.

Surviving Seven Rounds of InterviewsLarge organizations have rigorous interview processes for good reason. Chelsey shares what it took to get through seven interviews at Gartner and why each round reinforced that she was on the right path.

Key Takeaways:

Connect with Chelsey Bonilla:https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseybonilla/

Listen to Career Downloads:Available on all major podcast platforms

TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode because I have with me Chelsey Bonilla and her and I have, over the last, probably close to a year now, have developed a both professional and personal relationship, just kind of getting to know each other. And ike I’ve mentioned before, there’s different areas of technology. So she didn’t feel that she works in technology, but she really does. So again, I just kind of want to help, I hope that her story kind of helps dispel some of those myths. And we get to learn a little bit more of how she’s navigated it, and hopefully find some things that will be helpful for you. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Chelsea.

Chelsey Bonilla: Thank you, Manny. I appreciate all the time and consideration and overthinking that you’ve allowed me to have over the last year.

Manuel Martinez: And I appreciate that it kind of, it took time because you’re not the only person that, it takes a little bit to be like, “Well, wait a minute, why me? Why my story?” it’s not something that you do all the time, right? I don’t see you on podcasts all the time or kind of speaking out publicly. So I think this is good because I’ve had a couple of guests like that. And it it helps other people see like, “Okay, it’s not just me.”

Chelsey Bonilla: Right, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we met for coffee, you emailed me questions, we had in-person conversations. So on the scale of overthinking, I think I’m on the high end. So I appreciate you indulging me throughout the year.

Manuel Martinez: No problem. So if you don’t mind as we get started, if you just kind of tell me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what led to you starting your career.

Chelsey Bonilla: Absolutely, so I love the story of where I grew up because I actually grew up in Las Vegas. So born and raised never left. And I like to say that because growing up in Vegas, born and raised here, not very far from where we are right now, I’ve kind of seen the growth of the city, seen the change of the environment, but I’m also a double alum from UNLV. And I knew coming out of high school that I wanted to go to UNLV. And when I went back to get my MBA, I knew UNLV was where I wanted to go. And that never left, not to say if someone leaves there’s anything wrong with that, but a lot of people that I grew up with left to UNR, left out of state. And I just, I truly have an affinity for Nevada. And I knew UNLV was my school. So that’s kind of my education. And then starting in my professional career, I started working at the young age of 15, which is crazy to say. So I started working at 15. I worked for a small mom and pop shop here in Vegas, a school uniform company. And I was the right hand to the CEO. So I would do everything from payroll to training, to hiring, to operations, to, I was the controller. I would do bookkeeping. So it was this amazing experience to get exposure to business. 15 to 17, I was basically supporting and helping from a business perspective. So then when I started at UNLV, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life? I naturally gravitated towards a business degree. So I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business. And it was amazing because I would take these concepts from class, I would come back to the business and say, “Hey, what if we tried this? What if we created a social media account? What if we did marketing campaigns? What if we changed the way our strategy looked?” So it was this amazing playground where the CEO would let me come back with concepts and kind of grow those organically within the business. And then when I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, working through the entirety of my bachelor’s degree, going back to school, I knew I wanted to get my MBA. So I went through the executive MBA program at UNLV, which was great because it was unique to the standard MBA tract because I was with a cohort. So I was with 18 other individuals who are still friends to this day, seven years after graduation. And it was just such an eyeopening experience that really led to my journey and the evolution of my professional career.

Manuel Martinez: What is it about that CEO? And do you think it was just them kind of seeing you grow up and knowing that you’re pursuing this business degree, that they gave you the ability to kind of implement a lot of these changes that you wanted to go through because sometimes there’s business owners or just maybe the businesses, it’s so established that they’re like, “No, we’re not gonna do that.” Or, “Hey, that’s great in theory or in a classroom that would never work in an actual business setting.” So is it you communicating, not just like, “Hey, we should do this,” because I’m sure you weren’t just like, “Let’s implement this.” And they were like, “Sure, let’s do it.” You had to kind of build a business case. So what was that kind of interaction like?

Chelsey Bonilla: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I love the term business case because I think as IT professionals, we use that all the time. And thinking back 15 years ago, I didn’t even know I was building a business case to why should we do this? So there was a lot of trust that the CEO had in me I think because I was with the business for so long. So I ended up working there for 10 plus years. And just over that time, it allowed me to build that trust with her. So I could come and I could say, “Here’s an idea. Here’s what I’d like to implement.” She was great at building the business, but she didn’t have the college education. So me coming with, “Hey, this is what I’m learning at school. I don’t know if it’ll work, but maybe we could try it.” And there was a lot of freedom for me to kind of try different things and work with the team and say, “Hey, let’s try this. Let’s see if it works.” So like building employee manuals was something that I had so much fun with. And it was the first time the organization ever had an employee manual. So it was like that compliance and that documentation was things that I was learning that I could bring back and then were valuable to the business. And she saw the value as I would execute on those things.

Manuel Martinez: And my guess is though, that not every idea was a success.

Chelsey Bonilla: Absolutely.

Manuel Martinez: And when it didn’t, how did you Did you take it personal or kind of, it sounds like you had a good relationship so that when it didn’t work, how do you determine, “Hey, this isn’t working as opposed to, we just need to keep trying harder.”

Chelsey Bonilla: I’m definitely the beat a dead horse. Like there’s nothing I can’t try hard enough to accomplish. But I think the older I’ve gotten, the better I’m at at taking constructive criticism. But there were multiple times where I was like, “Well, maybe we just tweak it slightly, or maybe we try it differently.” And I...

Show Notes

What happens when you stop planning your career and start asking better questions?

Ruben Sarino didn’t set out to co-found an AI security company. The path from military kid bouncing between six countries to RiskHorizon AI co-founder included selling car parts, packaging California honey, working Apple retail, cold calling at CrowdStrike, and several stops in between.

None of it was planned. All of it mattered.

What You’ll Learn

Growing up in Japan showed Ruben what technology could do when it actually worked. Tapping cards to ride trains and buy things felt seamless. Visiting developing countries showed him the same problems without the same solutions. That contrast planted a seed: technology should solve real problems for real people.

But Ruben didn’t study computer science. He studied business. His first exposure to entrepreneurship came through a car parts manufacturer where he learned the difference between pushing products and solving problems. Then came a honey business he fell into by chance, where terrible packaging met great product. Apple retail taught him how great companies operate. CrowdStrike as an SDR gave him front-row seats to hypergrowth and mentors who showed him what came next.

Each stop built skills that transferred to the next one.

Key Insights

On Getting Started: “If you know too much, you will never start.” Ruben talks about the danger of over-researching and why ignorance sometimes helps you take the first step.

On Career Direction: His annual self-check-in doesn’t ask “what do I want to do?” It asks “how do I want to feel next year?” From there, he works backward to figure out what needs to change.

On Problem-Solving: Whether it’s car parts, cybersecurity, or AI, Ruben looks for the underlying problem before building solutions. Not everything needs AI. Some things just need better execution.

On Mentorship: The CrowdStrike account executives who took time to show him what happened after the handoff shaped his trajectory. He didn’t formally ask them to be mentors – he asked good questions and stayed curious.

On Risk: Being comfortable with change helps, but it’s not required. What matters is believing you can course correct if things don’t work out the way you planned.

About Ruben Sarino

Ruben Sarino is co-founder of RiskHorizon AI. His career spans car parts manufacturing, honey business, Apple retail, cybersecurity sales at CrowdStrike, workforce intelligence startups, and healthcare technology. He’s comfortable with change, believes in transferable skills, and thinks most people overthink their next move.

Connect with Ruben on LinkedIn:

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TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest, to learn more about their background and their experiences, to really help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode. I have with me Ruben Sarino, and him and I met at a networking event. We got to talking, just learning about kind of what he’s doing. He was asking me what I was doing. You know, we connected on LinkedIn, got to know each other, our backgrounds. And I think he has a lot to offer, and there should be a lot of good stories, a lot of good information that people can use, you know, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in the field for a while, you know, and are looking to make a change, either to a different area or, you know, maybe even promotion-wise. So with that, I’ll introduce Ruben.

Ruben Sarino: Hey, how are you?

Manuel Martinez: Good, appreciate you coming on and being willing to share your experiences and your story.

Ruben Sarino: Thanks for having me.

Manuel Martinez: Of course, if you don’t mind, what I tell all the guests is if you want to start off and just tell me a little bit more about you and kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got you kind of interested in technology.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, that’s a long story. So I think this is the perfect venue for it, right? So let’s see, where I grew up. So my dad was in the military. I was born here in Las Vegas, and right at five years old, moved to about six countries, including Japan, England, and got to travel around, all around Europe, and ended up back in the Philippines for a little bit. Ended up in college in California, went to school in the Bay Area, San Jose State, and then have since moved all around the US as well. So now I’m back in Las Vegas, and that’s where we met.

Manuel Martinez: And what is it that kind of got you interested in technology, doing all that? Because I know that you spend a little bit of time in Japan, the Philippines, and I’m sure living in different countries also gives you a different perspective on not only how different countries, not just culture-wise, but the things that they value, don’t value, and like in Japan, like technology’s a big thing. So I’m assuming that had some influence, possibly on what you ended up doing later on in life.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, I think, as a kid, I was always into video games, always looking for ways to beat the system in the video games, and then I moved to Japan, and here during the 2000s, everybody had these amazing cell phones, and everything was so digitized, and the experience was so seamless. And I remember thinking to myself as a kid, Japan has figured it out, and has solved a lot of our day-to-day problems to make living a lot smoother, right? Let’s say commuting to work or buying things. And again, early 2000s, so ordering from an app wasn’t really a thing then. But then I got to travel also to third world countries, developing countries, and seeing those same human problems without those same solutions, and thinking to myself, there has to be a better way. And so technology has always, I’d say, fascinated me because at the end of the day, we’re ideally using technology to solve human problems, day-to-day problems, and really to make our lives a lot easier, because why work harder, right? So technology is a great way to help bridge the gap.

Manuel Martinez: And you mentioned day-to-day life. Kind of seeing the differences between a third world country or even a developing country and somebody like Japan that is so technology advanced. Did it feel seamless? Like when you go to Japan, it’s not like, oh my gosh, I have to go and do these things because it flows very well. Like I know people that have gone there, and it just, it seems, and you kind of touched on it a little bit, a part of daily life. It’s not like, well, I have to go out of my way to kind of use technology. It’s built into where it almost feels, I’m gonna say, invisible, even though it’s there.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, that’s the best kind of technology, right? And you hit it spot on. I think, I remember growing up and things were just seamless, right? The way you interact with technology, you don’t think of all of the small systems that build it, but you tap a card to pay. This was, again, early 2000s. So this was like revolutionary, but you tap a card and that’s how you pay for things. That’s how you get into the subway. That’s how you get around. And nowadays that’s, or sorry, traveling to a developing country where I still had to then wait in line to get a ticket, to ride the train, if they had a train in the first place or get a taxi. It was, it’s just mind blowing, right? So being able to see the difference, I would say, like that kind of opened my eyes to like asking, I’ve always been a curious kid, right? Breaking things and taking things apart. And like I said earlier with video games, right? Like I’m always trying to see like, what’s the underlying like technology or system underneath so I can make my life easier, right? So at any rate, yeah, that’s what fascinated me about technology is what’s actually going on underneath that’s helping life become seamless. And then kind of seeing that contrast early on as a kid made me realize like, wait, we can apply probably the same systems to a developing country or to our day-to-day lives or at work. And that’s again, what’s fascinating to me about technology.

Manuel Martinez: You kind of grew up, you bounced around and what is it that eventually got your career started? You know, did you think like, hey, I’m gonna go into tech or was it more like, I’m just gonna find a job or go to school or, you know, kind of what was your first step?

Ruben Sarino: My first step out of high school, let’s see, travel a lot. So I traveled all over Europe, got to experience a lot of different really cool things. And then I had to reall...

Show NotesSometimes the best careers are the ones you never planned.

Aakin Patel went to school for geology. He spent years studying plate tectonics and doing computational modeling. The plan was academia.

But grad school revealed something important. The academic life he imagined wasn’t the reality he wanted.

That temporary job turned into a 20+ year career in technology and cybersecurity.

In This Episode:

The conversation digs into the skills that matter most: problem-solving, communication, and the ability to bridge technical and business worlds. Aakin explains why being able to “dumb things down” is actually proof you understand something deeply, and why teaching others became crucial to his leadership success.

You’ll also hear about the day his boss literally put him on a plane to management training, why he initially hated it, and how that moment changed his career trajectory.

Key Takeaways:

About Aakin Patel:

Aakin Patel: Thank you, it’s good to be here.

Manuel Martinez: So one of the things that I kind of start with all the guests is if you don’t mind telling me just a little bit about where you grew up, and then eventually kind of what led you either into the technology field, some people, you know, they fall into it later on. So maybe you started in a different career field. So again, just kind of a little bit of that background about yourself.

Aakin Patel: Oh, yeah, so I grew up in the Northeast US in the New York, New Jersey area. I went to college actually for geology and did graduate work in geophysics. And I did a lot of simulation modeling as a part of that because I was studying plate tectonic processes. And, you know, so I did a lot of computer modeling. I got very skilled at like, you know, like Unix systems and like Linux systems when they started coming out and doing some on the programming side, doing some computer modeling. And at some point, I realized that I didn’t want to go into academia, which is where my degree was leading. And kind of as a stopgap measure at the time, I decided to just go out and get a job as a Unix administrator while I figured out what to do with my life. And that’s kind of how I fell into the Unix side of things and kind of grew into cybersecurity as natural evolution roles from that.

Manuel Martinez: And when you went to school to kind of study geology, obviously you didn’t want to go the academia side, but what is it that you originally were kind of that attracted you into that field and thought, oh, I want to do something in this area?

Aakin Patel: So I’ve always liked like the earth sciences. Like I find them fascinating. I actually very much thought for a very long time that I do want to be a research scientist. So it was like the realities of grad school and seeing like the in-depth look of how that worked and what my long-term, how my long-term career would play out that I realized it wasn’t the path I wanted to proceed down. It was the way it played out in reality. So like I don’t regret doing it. Like I really liked studying that. And it’s kind of like a great like set of background knowledge to have. But like once I realized it wasn’t for me, like I pivoted to something that I could do. And that worked better for me.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah, that’s a good point because a lot of times, I mean, especially when we’re that young, right? Or when we’re starting our career, I’ll say, we think that it’s going to be one where we have this grand idea of how it’s going to be and it doesn’t turn out that way. And understanding it’s okay to kind of pivot. So then you decided, okay, I want to do something in the meantime. And you got into Linux system administration. And obviously you didn’t think like, oh, I’m going to make a career at this, at least not at that point. So what is it that you started doing there and kind of start to build that skill set to say, okay, I’m going to at least for now be a good Linux sysadmin?

Aakin Patel: So I had to learn Linux system administration and Unix system administration to do the simulation modeling I was doing in grad school, right? Like I worked on Sun Spark stations and then DEC alpha workstations to do a lot of computer modeling. And the DEC alphas ran Linux and the Suns ran Sun OS and then Solaris. So I became good at Unix just as a part of that. So it was like an easy, I could put that on a resume really easily saying, hey, I’ve done all this stuff and get a job doing that. So that was kind of like an easy transition for me while I was looking to go out and kind of figure out, like a stop, I actually just figured I’d be doing that for a year or two, then refresh and then come back into academia. And I just, after a year or two, I was like, I don’t really want to go back. So I didn’t.

Manuel Martinez: Did you think that, okay, maybe I’ll pivot and go somewhere else as opposed to staying as a Linux sysadmin? You’re like, okay, I don’t want to go back into academia. That’s not the area for me. Did you think, okay, let me kind of see what this Linux administration does for me or were you kind of exploring other opportunities?

Aakin Patel: I wasn’t really sure I was keeping an eye out, but like my first job, like when I switched out was working just off Wall Street in New York City, working on like bonds trading systems. And while a cool job that paid fairly decently, it involved like a two and a half hour commute each way just because of the traffic around New York City. And I rapidly realized that I was doing like 15 hour days that I didn’t want to be doing. And then I got like a different job and I kind of lucked into a job at Brookhaven National Labs, which is one of the department energy national labs, national labs. And they did a lot of very interesting like research projects and like, it was like a very cool facility to work at. And they hired me interestingly because of my mixed background, right? Like they wanted someone with that academic background who was also skilled in technology because it was like a science and research facility and they kind of needed someone who could bridge the two worlds, like the worlds of the academics and the scientists working there with the technology needs and the technology directors of the IT department there that served those scientists. And that’s kind of how I landed in that role. And that was a cool enough job and a cool enough place that I was actually pretty happy staying there for a long time.

Manuel Martinez: And it sounds like it probably kind of met a little bit of, like, hey, I’m doing this Linux administration, which you seem to kind of like, but it also gave you some of that research that while you didn’t want to go into academia, it sounded like initially like, hey, this fascinates me. I want to kind of do a little bit more of that research, but not really be like a full-time academic researcher.

Aakin Patel: Yeah

Manuel Martinez: And having both of those skillsets and being that bridge, one of the things that you kind of told me is there were areas that you weren’t proficient or knowledgeable enough. And it was kind of, you know, you were thrown into this role. So kind of tell me a little bit more about that.

Aakin Patel: Yeah, so when I first started, like in the technology field, it’s very weird....