Not Your Father’s Data Center - #Hire the person, not the paper

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

Carrie Goetz, Chief Information Technology Officer at StrategITcom, International Keynote Speaker, STEM evangelist and podcaster, turned the tables on host Raymond Hawkins by dubbing this podcast episode “Not Your Mother’s Data Center.” And, in honor of Goetz, a long-time Mississippi resident, Hawkins unveiled his first-ever trivia contest.

Welcome to Not Your Father's Data Center podcast, brought to you by Compass Data Centers. We build for what's next. Now here's your host, Raymond Hawkins. Welcome again to another edition of Not Your Father's Data Center. I am Raymond Hawkins with Compass Data Centers, your host. And today we are joined by Carrie Goetz, my friend from Jackson, Mississippi. Carrie, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. How are you?

I'm awesome. Thank you so much. And what happened to Not Your Mama's Data Center? Hey, I think we ought to work that in. That's a great question, Carrie. We're going to make that as a challenge today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Today, not your mother's data center. February 3rd, we're recording today. The planet's still incredibly distracted by a global pandemic and how it's changing our lives. And Carrie and I

were talking before the show, love the idea that there's not a new normal, that there's a new odd, there's just a new strange. Hey, and we've already got the first offer from my dog on the show. So, Tiger, the world is listening. So, well, Carrie, thank you for joining us. I know you have your own podcast. I know you know how to do this, you know, probably better than I do. And would love it if you'd take a few minutes here at the beginning, if we could just talk about you and your career and where you're from and how you got in the data center business and what you're passionate about. And my hope is that we'll, as we talk through you and your history, that we'll end up, you know,

switching over and talking to the idea. I love the phrase, your hashtag, hire the person, not the paper. You know, just your passion for careers for women and the trades and vets in technology. So that's really what we'd like to talk about, but we'd love to hear about you before we do. So where are you from and how'd you get in technology? Yeah, I totally fell in with both feet, actually. So I started out with a degree in architectural design, and then I started teaching that in college. And right about then, of course, I'm really aging myself now, AutoCAD came out. And so I started teaching the computer aided engineering side of things. And as part of that, AutoCAD was looking for developers

and programmers to help write in a program called Lisp, which is a whole lot of open parentheses, closed parentheses. But anyway, so I started writing programs for them in between class. And then there was a project to tie together several different colleges. And at that time, nobody knew what networking was. It was all frame relay there in dial-up modem. And we didn't have all these fancy fiber and highfalutin lines like we have now. But anyway, because I wasn't scared of a computer, they asked if I would take on that project. And so I jumped in with both feet.

And then from there, I went on and worked as a consultant for quite a started networking divisions at a couple of consulting firms and then decided to get off the road and, you know, ended up being a CIO and worked at a couple places there, you know, or what the equivalent of a CIO is now. And as part of that, I started running data centers and taking care of all the IT equipment and everything that was there. And then so that kind of morphed into consulting in the data center industry. And so Carrie, Carrie, I got to ask, you said what that thing that became a CIO, I go back as far as to remember when we used to call him the manager of data processing. I always thought that was a great term or MIS director. That was another one. Those were some the early days. Yeah, I was the director of MIS slash IT. So our department was known as MISIT. MISIT, that's right.

Management Information Systems. I use those terms around my kids. And they're like, Dad, what are you talking about? MIS, what's that? What are we managing now? And now we have things that manage literally everything. We manage power and cooling and floor space and orchestration and artificial intelligence. And yes, you can manage anything with a computer these days.

That's a little bit of your technology journey. Do you mind even going back before that? Where's home? How'd you end up in Jackson? By the way, I'm going to use Jackson as a launching point for a new thing here. So we want to hear from the folks that listen to our podcast. And so we're going to today, for the first time ever, do a giveaway. We're going to give away Amazon gift cards for, we're going to actually have a drawing for Amazon gift cards for everyone

that answers our three Mississippi themed in honor of Carrie, not your mother's data center podcast guest. We're going to ask three trivia questions around the great state of Mississippi. So give us your history and then we'll do question number one. How'd you end up in Jackson? An ex. All right. I think the same way a lot of people move. Yeah. Here, here. I was, yeah, I'm a Midwestern girl. So I was raised in Michigan, Illinois, lived in California for a little bit. Then we moved to Tennessee and I moved here with an ex and kind of stayed here. So how long you been in Jackson?

Yeah, for 30, well, almost 40 years now. So I love Jackson. What a great place. Yeah. I know, Carrie, that we'll get into the technology stuff, but I know in some of your background, you were you were part of Gannett for a while, the USA publisher. Do you want to take two minutes and talk about that side of the business, the publishing business or any of that as well? It was still IT. So, you know, the difference is when and I think it's important for a lot of people to know that there's a ton of similarities with these different companies and what's going on from a technology perspective. But then there's also very different things.

So, you know, one of the things with publishing, it's a manufacturing house, right? Because they make the papers and then there's also news and advertising. And one of the cool things that I worked on was a large geocoding project that went to, you know, that went out and really looked at all the subscribers and figured out where they were. We updated all of the different systems for the advertising side. And that was all on Mac. And then the rest of the house was on PCs. And it was a board position. So one of the cool things when I was working there,

speaking of Mississippi trivia, is when I was working there, they actually opened the sovereignty commission files from back in the old civil rights abuse days. And the publisher there had to have a hidden passageway from his office out the back because there were so many death threats and everything coming into the paper, which was a little crazy. And of course, they made that movie Mississippi Burning, which they highly embellished, by the way. It wasn't really that bad. But yeah, very different times. And publishing is definitely a cool thing. And then from there, I went to work at a company called Wireless One. And that was a really cool project. I ran IT there as well. But that also included seven states.

Now, Wireless One, is this an early cell provider, Wireless One? Well, no, actually. So Wireless One owned the BTA, which is Protected Spectrum in seven states. And so it's broadcast spectrum. What we did was we had line of sight that went to a whole bunch of areas for people for internet and television. I got one of the first ones that kind of put that together, but in Protected Spectrum, which is very different than Wi-Fi and unlicensed. In Protected Spect of the first ones that kind of put that together, but in protected spectrum, which is very different than wifi and unlicensed. In protected spectrum, you own that, nobody else can transmit it in it, but by law, you have to transmit it 24 hours, seven days a week. And it was line of sight technology, right?

Yeah. And so, and we, I was, you know, there when we were converting everything from analog to digital and some of the early FCC meetings, you meetings, they said, well, you really can't do that. You can't do internet over broadcast spectrum because broadcast spectrum is rated for entertainment and there's no entertainment on the internet. And of course, now what the shit is. How things have changed. It's like, have you looked out there lately lately there's a lot of entertaining stuff so yeah anyway that uh that ended up getting bought by worldcom at the time which is now i guess mci but it was a really cool project and you learned some weird things like we had one area of the

delta that kept going down and we couldn't figure out why and we had these brilliant engineers come out there and look at it and really try to figure out what it was. And it was just random and very, in the summer, you know, at one, two, three o'clock in the afternoon, it would just come back. And we had spectrometers out there. We had all kinds of stuff, temporary antennas. And it turned out it was heat inversion off the catfish ponds because catfish is Mississippi's number one cash crop. And so it got really hot. It was enough that it deflected the signal off the line of sight, and then when it cooled down, the signal came back.

But, yeah, talk about some trial and error to sort that one out. But, yeah, it's just fun. To me, that's the best part of tech is that things change all the time. Gary, I wish I was in the meeting when that finally got realized and the guy comes in and goes, okay, I figured out what's disrupting our line of sight transmissions. It's the catfish ponds. I would have loved to have been in the room to hear that one get talked out. Are you sure? Yeah, it is.

Yeah. That was a first for me. I hadn't heard that one, but I absolutely get it. I could see how the thermals coming off of it would change everything. Absolutely. Unbelievable. Good stuff. All right.

Well, this leads us into trivia question number one. You want to answer the trivia questions? I know you can Google it on the internet, but I'd love it if you do it on your own. So send your answers to me, rhawkins at compassdatacenters.com. In honor of Kerry and this great state of Mississippi, trivia question number one, what year did Mississippi become a state? So that's your first trivia question. There'll be two more over the course of the show. If you answer all three of them correctly, we'll put you in a drawing for the $500 Amazon gift card. All right, Kerry. So going from Wireless One, let's take the next step. When did you get to Siemen?

How long after Wireless One? Oh, that was a pretty good while. I wrote a software package and ran that company for a little while. And then Siemen, I started their data center business and started that division and took it global, which was pretty cool. You know, that was the benefit of going over there was being able to work into a global position. And, you know, I've got 4 million miles under my belt doing projects literally all over the globe. And I have extended family all over earth, which is really great. You know, you meet lifelong friends doing that.

Yeah. And wow. Being at the beginning of the data center business and watching it transform and watching us not just transforming what's in the data center, Kerry, but where the data centers are, who owns them, how they operate, how they've changed from an efficiency perspective. Sounds like you and I have so much of a similar background. I spent many, many years putting equipment in data centers and watching the equipment in there change and transform and get smaller and get more efficient and figuring out how do we cool it? How do we connect it? It's been an incredible ride. I think one of the things that to me, Kerry, is still just amazing is that still two-thirds of the global compute sits in a corporate-owned on-premise data center.

And that our industry is still, you know, I think everyone believes everything's in the cloud. Everything lives in GCP and AWS and Azure. And in reality, that's only about a third of the global compute today. And how much still is going to convert and change and modernize and upgrade? There's still a lot of work to be done out there. That changes, right? Because the needs of compute change. And, you know, the data center as an industry has changed a lot.

But I think, you know, that two-thirds is going to stick around. And I'm going to say, you know, this is a reason why I think that everything in IT is a tool in the toolkit, right? So, you know, I'm kind of a data scientist really by schooling. But if you go and look at what's supported and what you need, it's going to be different for every organization. It's going to be different for every IT department. You know, when cloud first started and people first started doing anything in the cloud, you'd read these press releases, you know, so-and-so company went to the cloud. But it didn't mean they moved all their stuff to the cloud.

They did a software as a service application. They implemented, you know, Salesforce or one of those. And so I think there's going to be a need for those cloud-based applications. But the trick is you have to figure out what you're doing. So these companies that go cloud first, it's a big mistake without really analyzing what applications you're going to use, what those applications need, and what the long-term costs are. Because, you know, it's a tool in the toolkit and you don't use a hammer when you need a screwdriver and you don't use a screwdriver when you need a hammer.

And you have to figure out for sure what you're going to do. And realistically, there's a big blend. So those two thirds of corporate data centers doesn't mean they don't use the cloud. It means they have their stuff corporately, but they may do DR in the cloud and they might do Salesforce in the cloud and they might have components in the cloud. So the location of their physical data, you know, for what they have, sometimes for compliance reasons, sometimes just because, you know, they want to keep it close and not built across the United States. All of those things are considerations that really have to be evaluated without just saying this gut first, you know, oh, you need to do this or,

you know, you need to have a cloud first mentality without really looking at what that cloud first mentality is and putting dollars and cents and figures behind that. And I think that there's a balance, you know, there's room for all that stuff. But Gartner, I read a thing yesterday that said 75% of all data by 2025 is going to go through an edge data center. And those edge data centers can be those corporate data centers. They can be ones sitting at cell towers. They can be ones out in the middle of nowhere. They're supporting precision agriculture and some of those kinds of things and helping cross the digital divide. So I think there's a mixed bag of tricks for data centers, for sure. Hear, hear. Boy, Kara, that was a great description and explanation at Compass and me personally.

Couldn't agree with you more, right? Where data sits, what it does, where it needs to sit, where it needs to get chewed on, right? Where the processing actually happens. That's moving, right? That's changing. I've been around the technology business long enough to watch us distribute compute and then consolidate compute. And then we distribute compute and then we consolidate compute. Both of those cycles, those cycles happen. And edge computing is clearly

distribution, right? We're distributing compute out to the edge. And I liked your agricultural example, right? Smart agriculture. And the idea that we can drive tractors around fields with a GPS is just fascinating as well as collect all that data. And then we get into metro areas and how we have smart cars operating in a metro area doing deliveries. I mean, it's just there's so much coming and so much changing. And I agree with you that I think there's a lot of folks that think as we, you know, big picture numbers, two thirds on prem and a third in the cloud, that that third in the cloud is going to 100 percent, that on prem is going to zero. And I would agree with you. It's not. There's going to be an on prem component. There's going to be an edge component and there's going to be a cloud component. And I think those three will continue to survive for a long time in the compute business.

Yeah, they're absolutely complimentary and it's absolutely iterative. What you do in the cloud today, you might not, you know, I know one company that's spending $8 million a month on the cloud and they're in the process of taking everything back. Because, you know, you grow, your business needs change, your business demands change, your customer base changes, all different things change. And so, you know, I think

the best advice you can have in this industry is be iterative and don't ego play any of your decisions because a great decision today could be a not so great decision tomorrow, you know? Yeah. Here are the justifications for going or coming back from the cloud, change as your business changes and it needs to be held loosely and optimized for the needs of the business today. Completely agree, Kerry. I think that's great insight. Well, Kerry, let's take a turn a little bit if we can. I love your hashtag, hire the person, not the paper, as we switch and talk about some of the things that are passionate or that you're passionate about in your life, hiring women, hiring tradespeople and hiring vets into

the technology business and a little bit of the misperception of what it takes to get into technology and get a tech career. Can you take us, how'd that become something that you're passionate about and tell us a little bit about the hashtag, your podcast and your background there. I am a woman in the industry, so that starts it, right? There you go. That's number one. But, you know, I've raised 16 kids that aren't mine, plus my kid and a couple of stepdaughters and a stepson and almost all of those kids, except for two, were young ladies. And here's the deal. You know, I think that as girls come up and kids come up, they picture what they want to be when they grow up based on what they see. And the data center industry, we kind of

shot ourselves in the foot there for a while because nobody wanted you to know where the data centers were. They were these big, ugly, nondescript buildings hidden somewhere. And, you know, people just knew they did stuff. And when kids turn on phones, they just, they know their application is going to be there, but they don't know where that thing sits or, or how it exists. And so I think it's definitely evolved. But one of the problems that you have with women in tech is the attrition rate and 67% of women drop out of tech completely. Like they don't just leave their job, they completely leave the industry. And to me, I think that's horrible. I also think that, you know, these antiquated things, we've really started putting more value on somebody, you know, on somebody's

degree more than what that person can bring to the table and the skills that can bring to the table. And if you think about it, it really defeats things on a few levels. One, it's discriminatory. So, you know, women by and large are the first ones that drop out to become a caregiver if that needs to be, usually because they make less money and because culturally that's just a thing. Now, they might have dropped out one semester shy of their degree, a year shy of their degree, but then they have four years of work experience on top of that, and HR will pass them over because they don't have a degree. So, Carrie, one second, I just want to clarify, when you say dropout, you're saying they're in process of working towards a degree,

and that schooling could get interrupted for, more likely interrupted for caregiving than a male student. I just want to make sure I'm tracking with you, right? Sure. Okay, got it, got it. And even, you know, in some of the curriculum, you know, it's the way that it's taught, the way that the schools work, you know, it just kind of works that way. And sometimes, you know, if you take disadvantaged kids, you know, it ends up being an economic thing where they just need to go work. They can't afford school. And so they're working, but they get experience. And I'm going to tell you, I haven't hired and fired a lot of people. Well, no, hired mostly, I very rarely fire, but having hired a bunch of people in the past,

I would rather have somebody with four years experience than a four year degree because they figured it out. You know, they've worked on it. But if we talk about diversity, to me, diversity is diversity of thought, right? So it could be male to female, it could be gender identity, it could be old to young. It could be learned in college, didn't learn in college. It could be any of those things. And I think that that really

kicks that problem solving thing in. So good example, I was on LinkedIn and I posted a study on diversity. And this guy got real snippy and said, why don't you just hire whoever you want to hire and let diversity fall where it may? What does diversity actually bring to the table? And I said, well, are you married? And he said, yes. I said, have you ever lost your car keys and you couldn't find them and you asked your wife

and she went right over and picked them up? That's what diversity brings to the table. You know, it's a different way of looking. It's a, you know, I knew where you were last. You might not remember, but I did. You know, that kind of thing. But I think you have to have all of those when you start doing problem solving. And I think I kind of got a lot of this from writing code because there's a lot of different

ways to come at a problem. And being able to brainstorm those things really does some of that cool stuff. And I know, you know, Nancy works for you guys. She's certainly a champion in this industry and she's one of the best. But that's how I met Nancy was on one of these women panels years and years ago. So, you know, there really is a lot, I think, that can come to the table and there's a huge skill shortage in this industry. And they say within five years, 30% of this industry is going to gray out and retire. I would love to be one of those, by the way. But, you know- I'm good on the retire part. I'm not sure on the gray part, Kerry, but yes. Well, you know, I think we can help solve a lot of this problem if we just really drag HR out of

the dark ages. And so that's why we have the hashtag hire the person, not the paper. And think about it. You know, we've gotten rid of trade schools. And for some reason, it's sort of gotten to the point where, you know, if somebody went to a trade school, they were they were less than amazing. And there's a lot of reasons that people don't do well in college. You know, sometimes it's because there's requirements for subjects that they just don't get. Sometimes it's, you know, it's a clash with the environment at school compared to what they're used to. I mean, there's lots of different reasons, but without trades, none of us would have a job because nothing could get built. And so I really think that we've done this horrible job in the U.S. and I'm sure, you know, colleges have had a lot to do with that, you know, kind of putting down trades and people that learn in alternate methods. But only 35 percent of adults, men and women, 34 percent of men, actually 35 percent of women in the United States today have a four year degree. And if we're going to try to solve all of the shortages in the industry with the same 35 percent of people, it's never going to happen.

And then we can't cut two-thirds of the pool out of the considered exactly solutions and hires that's a such a great point and and carrie i think that um in in in that same vein i and i'm going to get a little political here and i apologize for that i'm not not in any way intended to offend anybody but as we see the divide between the highest income earners and the absolute elites in our society and everyone else, I think people see that education as, oh, that's how I leap over that divide. And the reality is that there's just a bell curve is a real thing, right? Everybody can't be in the top 10%. That's the top 10% for a reason. So when two-thirds of

the country doesn't have a college degree, there's a lot of work that needs to get done and a lot of income and a lot of value that the rest of us can deliver that don't sit in that top 10%. And this idea that a degree is the only way to get there is just not true. It is absolutely not true. Look at companies like Apple, 50% of their workforce is non-degreed right now because they value skills and they're willing to up-train. And Amazon is doing a lot of the same thing. You know, they're training their workforce. And here's the other thing too, from an employer perspective, you know, if you lose somebody, it's about $100,000 to recoup that loss and retrain somebody else and get them up in a position. It's even more in sales, depending on some of the work cycles that you are. But if you take somebody that is massively overloaded in debt,

why are we forcing our kids to go in debt? You have companies that will pay for a four-year education. But if those same companies will only hire people with a four-year degree, that is such a lip service benefit. And so why are we looking at that as the only means? Like, you guys do a really cool thing. I was talking to Nancy with some of your project managers where you have people that aren't degree, but they go around and they walk project sites, they take pictures and you talk about the pictures and that becomes part of their learning process. And some of those cool things, I mean, people used to learn in internships and apprenticeships all the time. And apprenticeships, you come out without $100,000 in college debt. And college has gotten

to where it's so ridiculously expensive for so many people. And there's only so many scholarships around. And that's another thing we talk about on the podcast is, you know, anytime we find scholarship money available, we do a podcast on it because, you know, there's just no reason that, you know, people should think that that's their only option to be a productive grownup is to go into massive debt. You know, there's other ways of doing things. Some people want to go to college, you know, for PEs, professional engineers, things like that where you have to have the degree. That's certainly one path, but not everybody wants to go that path. Your 65-35 point is so valid. It's so, so, I mean, two-thirds of this, of our working class don't have a degree and there's so much value coming out of that group.

Oh yeah. And honestly, you know, if somebody learns trial by fire, let me just tell you, that is a much better lesson than usually in school or even in a lot of the certification classes, you know, they sort of teach you this ideal world where nothing really goes wrong. than usually in school or even in a lot of the certification classes. You know, they sort of teach you this ideal world where nothing really goes wrong. And then when something goes wrong, people get all discombobulated and they don't know how to fix it. That trial by fire where people have just jumped in and worked on projects where they had no clue and they had to just sort of figure it out.

That is absolutely amazing experience. And I want them on my team all day, every day. I want that problem solving, jump in, roll your sleeves up, kick in with both bare feet. That's what you want on your team because they're the movers and shakers that make things happen. It's more valuable, Kerry, right? I mean, which would you rather have? A CCIE who's been in the field solving problems for a decade that doesn't have a degree or a CCIE who got out of school, went and got a certification and he's 18 months on the job.

I mean, there's no question the person that has been there at two in the morning when nobody can figure out why the network's not working and to solve that problem, right? That's the person that's so much more valuable. It is, but you know, honestly, it really takes HR stepping up to the plate. And there's so many companies where HR is just unbending. You know, they would rather have somebody with a degree in music theory and put them in tech than somebody with four years experience in tech and three years towards a degree or no degree. Now, Kerry, how did you know what my degree was in, Kerry? That's incredible.

While we're talking about university, we're going to get trivia question number two. Remember, all the correct answers get you in a drawn $500 Amazon gift card. In honor of the conversation we're having, tell me the three largest universities in the state of Mississippi. If you include Carrie's hashtag in your email, hire the person off the paper, you'll get extra entries into the drawing. How about that? We're promoting the hashtag. Let's go. There you go. All right. One of those is hottie-tottie. That's right. That's right. That is exactly right. That's the best football out there.

Best football. Hear, hear. Hear, hear. All right. Well, let's keep rolling on. So I love the diversity comment that you made, Carrie. I think most people hear the word diversity and they hear, oh, that means that we have different sexes and we have different races. And I think that you raised the comment young and old. You raised the comment different gender identities. I think those unique perspectives, I liked your keys example, but in our in our business, right, we try to be diverse across where people grew up, like people that aren't from the United States. Their cultural differences offer an incredibly unique experience. You go to a meeting and you talk about a problem

and they hear it from a totally different perspective. And having that in a room and having that focused on problems, having those unique sets of life experiences, those unique cultural backgrounds, those unique perspectives, absolutely helps solve problems in ways you'd never think about solving them

in a room full of guys that look like me. Yeah. Well, so, yeah. And to your point, though, you know, and I can tell you this from having been all over the globe, we are, you know, we assume about other people what we see in the movies and on TV. And when you start going to those places and even what people think about us, you know, think about Americans, you realize when you start talking to them, we're not anything like what's depicted about us on TV. I mean, there's a few people, but it's all sensationalized. It's

all for a headline. We're just like most the rest of the planet where we all want to provide for our kids. We want a safe home to raise our kids. You know, we all have kind of that basis of information. And I think that's, you know, that's important to bring to the table when you can have people from all different backgrounds working towards a common goal and trying to sort that goal out. Plus, I think it helps people just to have that different thought, right? So you might have somebody from a very disadvantaged country and they're going to think about ways to do things

that are a little scrappier, I guess, for lack of a better term, than somebody that has had everything at their disposal. You just go hire somebody and do something, right? So every time that you find somebody with a different background, I think it's hugely, hugely important. You know, Kerry, this is maybe a stretch or a silly analogy. You know what this makes me think

a little bit of is that movie Slumdog Millionaires, where the young man answered the questions. He didn't have this incredible education or incredible experience, but the questions they asked him in the movie fit pieces of his life story. And it was this perfect connection, but it was a unique perspective. And that, I think that's what we're talking about is, is that folks with a unique perspective come in and offer ways to solve problems that I may never have thought of, or you may never have thought of. So, so yeah, I like your phrase, diversity of thought is what we're looking for. And that often comes in diversity of background and diversity of appearance and gender and sex and all of those things. Completely agree.

It's part of solving unique problems in unique ways. Absolutely. Well, do you mind, Kerry, telling us a little bit about your podcast and what it's called and where we can find it and what you guys talk about? I'm guessing it's a lot of this, but we'd love to hear you talk about that a little bit. Yeah. So the podcast is Careers for Women, Trades, and Vets in Data Centers and Tech. And it's on all the platforms. There's also a link to it off my website. If you go to strategiccom.com slash podcast, it's on there. Matter of fact, Nancy's episode is up there. She was gracious enough to grant me some of her time. But yeah, that's really all it is.

Nancy Novak, our chief innovation officer at Compass. I know we've been referring to her by first name, but just so everyone knows what we're talking about. She's awesome. But yeah, so it really talks about diversity, inclusion, how to bring kids up with exposure to all these different careers. And so really the kind of take that I took was I just want people to be exposed to the type of careers that there are, because there's this huge misnomer that you have to write code to be in tech. And I'm one of those weirdos that actually was on the coding side and on the networking side and on the management side. And so I've done, you know, and I work for a manufacturer and then I work for distribution. So I've really kind of done more in all the hats in the industry. But a lot of people don't really see tech as a viable option because they don't realize all of these careers that touch tech, like the trades and, you know, bringing vets back.

I'm married to a vet and, you know, bringing vets back from service and helping them find a great career. There's wonderful organizations that do that. iMasons, who does a lot of work with Lee Kirby over at Salute Mission Critical, who's really made this his mission to bring vets back and get them trained up and get them great jobs and careers. And he does an awesome job. He's also on that podcast. But the idea is just to really bring that exposure.

And it's totally an outreach project. We don't get anything off of it. And it goes, you know, we try to encourage people to share of people that want those. And even not just scholarships for college, but also where there's scholarships for certification. So a lot of people that are in a data center working or in an IT department working, maybe they want to do something different. Like my old secretary wanted to be a coder. I sent her to coding school. I had an operations person that wanted to become Cisco certified. I sent him to Cisco certification. And so these certification programs, I think, are amazing because it's a great way to learn a new skill and also to get badged for it. Right. So people understand that you have a command of that skill, whether you maintain that certification or not is certainly up to you. And there's a cost to do that. But I think just understanding that people have that basic knowledge is great.

And it's a good way for people to jump careers and do something different. And as we start growing our workforces to try to fill this horrible talent shortage, people need to see what's out there and they need to understand that in tech, you know, if you don't like what you're doing, don't just leave tech, try to do something different in tech. Look at a, look at something that's supporting that, you know, maybe, maybe try sales if meeting people is your, is your thing and work on selling a technology,

maybe try coding if you haven't tried coding and you think, you know, you like to solve puzzles and solve problems. If you like being outdoors, maybe work on getting a project management job for a construction company or, you know, doing something along those lines and see all of the different options that you have out there because, you know, these tech is not going away. It's like medicine. It's going to be here forever. And there's no shortage of jobs.

And I think we just have to expose people to those and help them really understand. So anyway, that's kind of the mission behind it. No, we love that. And your comment, tech's not going away, couldn't agree with you more. I didn't say it, but I heard someone say it about three months into the pandemic. They said, we've seen three years of digital transformation in three months. And, you know, now we're nine months later from that even. And I think that all of that, when we hear the words digital transformation or digital infrastructure, all that's technology. And it

is not going away. It's only growing. It's only expanding. It's only influencing more industries and more ways to improve our lives and change the way we work and communicate and even entertain ourselves. I love the quote that there was no entertainment on the internet back in the 90s. That's such a good reference point, Kerry. And it has everybody flocks to the internet and have to stream everything. Exactly right. I love that perspective. Kerry, it reminds me of a funny story.

So I like what are old movies to my children now, and I make them watch movies with me. And we were watching Karate Kid. Now, this is years ago now. And if you remember, Danielson is wanting to learn karate. He's wanting to go to a school. And he's moved from New Jersey to California because his mom's gotten a new job. And she's working in a restaurant waiting for the new job to come up. And they're sitting in the restaurant. She goes, hey, I've got great news. This restaurant has offered me an assistant manager's position. And Danielson's like, wait a minute, mom. I thought we moved out here for a computer job.

And she says, no one makes any money in computers. She was more excited to be the assistant manager at the restaurant than get into computers. I was watching that with my kids and I paused. I was like, wait a minute, what did she say? Let's back it back up. That that was generally acceptable, written into a script. No one makes money in computers. And I don't know what year that movie came out, but it was the mid-80s.

And just think about how our world has changed in 35 years, how technology has changed the way we do so many things. My favorite old movie quote was in Jurassic Park when the little girl hits the computers and she goes, oh, this is Unix. I know this. But no. I love that. I love that.

It's so good. Oh, so, so good. Well, Carrie, thank you so much for what you're doing in the industry, for what you're promoting. I loved you mentioning Lee and Salute and Heart for our vets. That's so important. But just the diversity in data center and technology for women and for the trades. You're coming earlier too, right? All this happens in a building and we need the trades to build those places. I mean, you're right. None of us have anywhere to go to work. None of those computers have anywhere to live without the trades. So, so, so vital. So love getting to chat with you today. Love sharing your heart for the industry and for people and diversity

and how important it is. And for our final trivia question, I wish I had one that was better suited to what we're talking about, but give us the two sitting senators for the great state of Mississippi where Kerry joins us from today in your email at rhawkins at compassdatacenters.com. Kerry, thank you for joining us one more time.

Hire the person, not the paper, and go listen to her podcast, Careers for Women in Trades and Vets in Data Centers and Technology. Did I get that right, Kerry? You did. You did. Thanks. All right. Kerry, thank you so much for joining us. We really, really appreciate it here February 3rd as we try to get to the other side of this global pandemic. Thank you for joining us, everybody. Thank you.