From Art Student to IT Manager with Mike Green | Ep057

Manuel 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 was a layoff. Was it just different circumstances? Were you getting bored? Was it trying to move up?

Mike Green: I would say there were a few … I’ve been laid off, I would say, three or four times at least. Then, there are a few times where I was actively looking for another company to help move up and accelerate growth. One company in particular, I had been there a year and a half. I knocked it out of the park. I had made some changes with a critical application that helps not only save them… time and money, but also helped increase their revenue. Then come review time, they’re like, “We think you’re awesome. We think you’re great, but we can’t afford to pay you more.” I’m like, “But we’ve done a lot of … We’ve done so much.” To me, it was more of like, “Show me that you appreciate me.” The pad on the back is nice, and everybody likes that. At the same time, you know, proved it.

Manuel Martinez: Especially in a scenario like that where you can really easily show the outcomes of the work you did. Saying, “Not only did I save you money, I helped you make more money, but you can’t pay … ” Again, it probably wouldn’t have taken much. I think a lot of times they might think, “Oh, I’ve got to pay this person an extra $100,000 a year.” Probably wouldn’t have taken much. It’s something to show that, “Okay, you appreciate it. I can grow, and I’m valued here.”

Mike Green: I’m not expecting my salary to double, but I do some … I always … I did expect some sort of investment in that to show that I have value there.

Manuel Martinez: So then you get this first start. You get your internship. As part of that cohort, did they teach you also interview skills, or is that just something that you got better? You mentioned always keeping your resume up to date and being ready to interview. That’s one of the things that I would say that I feel more comfortable interviewing than probably the average person, because they’re probably staying around in a role a little bit longer. Even … I’ve talked to a couple people, and I was lucky early enough in my career. They’re like, “Even if you’re not looking, if you’ve been there for a while, go apply.” An interview. That’s a skill that … We can mock interview all day, but it’s not the same as actually going and doing the real thing

Mike Green: Putting you in the uncomfortable hot seat. This program … It did partner with a recruiting company, but there wasn’t any kind of focus on resume building or interview building for those things. I didn’t actually put that together until just now. I mostly got that from, I would say, a few key mentors in my early 20s, as well as, like I said, my parents, my mom in particular, were really good at that, and she understood that.

Manuel Martinez: That was just probably from her experience being in the workforce talking to other people that, “Hey, this is a skill that …”

Mike Green: Yeah. I think, for me, I built it up over the time, but one of those things I always try to … If I see it in other people, and I always try to give them guidance, not like in an overbearing way. A lot of times I’m just like, “Do you want my help?” I think we could get you to the next level if you’re applying for jobs if you want. A lot of times they say yes, and it’s a way for me to just pay it forward. I don’t say I’m a genius or anything. I’m like, “Really, this is my experience. This is what I know. Take it or leave it,” kind of thing.

Manuel Martinez: Right. I like that, especially in this type of format. A lot of the reasons that I bring people on to share their different experiences you can share something, again, your experience, and people who watch and listen, they can take it or leave it and apply what they feel is relevant or important to them.

Mike Green: Just pull out the little nuggets, yeah.

Manuel Martinez: Exactly. Then you get laid off, they help build your technical skills. What is it that you decide that you’re going to keep doing? Even during that little bit of time, did you say, “You know what? I like this career. This is something that I can continue seeing myself doing.” At that point now, it’s apply, apply, apply.

Mike Green: So… Yes and yes. My roots in IT was, I would say, networking, configuration of switches, routers, systems administration. My first systems administrator job was working with Novell, so I know Novell Netware In 2000, when Microsoft finally came up with Active Directory, it was a shift from NT. I was in one of the first training groups. My company actually fortunately paid for that, so I knew Active Directory right from the get-go. I was really heavily into systems administration. I worked with just building servers… for application purposes, database purposes, mostly just servers in general.

Manuel Martinez: Kind of around that time frame, building these skills with network, Active Directory is first coming in, you’re going through the training. Did you find it was easier to find roles at that time? Because again, it wasn’t IT. It was computers. Yes, there’s systems administrators. It might have been harder and easier. Harder in the fact that you’ve got to go and find them. It’s not like they’re just all over the place, but then easier in the fact that there’s probably not as many people. It’s not as prevalent of a career as it is now.

Mike Green: My first IT job was a contract, and then they hired me on full-time after a six-month contract. Then a year later, I was laid off because it was a global telecom company, and they were just acquiring and spinning things off like crazy. Then I was actually unemployed for about six months. It took me a while to find my second job because I had some experience. That first job, although I got a lot of exposure to Novell and even Unix whole period I was a contractor was really just data entry. I wouldn’t say anything overly technical. It took me a while to transition from that first job to that second job. It’s funny because my unemployment was I could have extended it or let it run out after six months, and I didn’t want to sit around anymore. I literally took a job doing night stock at a computer store that doesn’t exist anymore, but I was just doing night stock. I worked there for a total of three weeks because I was still interviewing on the side for actual IT jobs. I worked there for one week, found out I got a job in actual IT back to where I was at, and so then I put in my two weeks. I felt really bad about it, but at the same time, I’m like, “This is my career, not just a job.” I did take a night stock job just to pay the bills just because I didn’t want to sit on my rear just waiting for something to happen. The next job was I think it was there about four and a half years, and after that second job, because I had been there for a significant amount of time, coupled with I had over five years experience at that time It became a lot easier to find positions. I had a level of experience that could get me into a lot of IT positions, and maybe they weren’t super high level positions, but I didn’t have to really … I could find work pretty easily after that. Got it.

Manuel Martinez: During that time, apart from the experience, so you mentioned you got your first certification. Is that something that during that next five or six years, did you continue doing certifications? Did you see, “Hey, this is helpful,” or “I’m just so busy with work and trying to learn what I need to do to progress my career that I don’t have time to study?” The reason I ask is I’ve heard numbers of stories. I’ve talked to all kinds of different people. They’ll start that way, and then they’re just so focused that they probably could go take the exam, but they’re buying the books, but to read and know what they have to do to do their day job. Other people are like, “Well, I think I’m figuring this out. I have the extra time,” or “They see the value,” or “I don’t see the value,” because a lot of times, especially in that period, there may not have been as many requirements to say, “Well, we’re looking for somebody with a CCNA or an MCP,” or things of that nature.

Mike Green: Some of those certifications existed at that point in time. Novell and Microsoft, CCNA, CCNE, MCSE, MCSA, they were coming out with these things. CompTIA was just getting started at that point, building up their certifications and these things that held way aside from a college degree, which I didn’t have at that point. Even with work, it was tough for me to get them to pay for these boot camps and these certification tests. If I didn’t pass in the first time, what then? I had a few certifications at the beginning there, but then there was, I would say, a large gap in between, but they did do a tuition reimbursement, so I took some classes on the side to work toward a degree. I started IT in 1998. I didn’t finish my associates until 2009, so it was a very long road. I worked for a school district in New York for about, I would say, eight years. I had a good mentor there who was just like, “Let’s just get you some more certifications under your belt.” So he really pushed me. His philosophy was like, “Schedule the test, and then you’ve got a deadline that you’ve got to meet.” I was like, “Okay, so schedule a test.” He’s like, “Don’t put away out there.” He’s like, “Go six weeks out, and that’s it.” I scheduled a test for my CompTIA A+, and this was back in 2006. He helped me study. I bought a book. I did practice tests, and this was all out of my own pocket at this point. Nobody was paying for it, but I liked what he taught me. Nothing motivates people more than a deadline. Just set the date and get to work kind of thing.

Manuel Martinez: With setting that deadline, and one of the questions I was going to ask is, with regards to the way you study or what motivates you, I know this is a little bit off topic, but I wonder if there’s a correlation. I know that you also played competitive volleyball. A lot of people that I have met that played a sport or did something where there was that structure or having to go to practice, I’ve seen kind of the full spectrum. There’s people that have that built in, and they’re like, “Okay, I’m used to a schedule. Practice every day from this time to this time.” They take that same approach when they go to study. Like, “Okay, I’m going to go study this time to this time. This is my practice time. This is my lab time.” There’s others that are like, they had that rigidity similar to sports or the military. They had that where they break away. I would say I was probably somewhere in the middle. There’s times where I had to break away from that rigidity. So when it came to studying, the only way that I found that worked for me was similar to what you said is I had a friend of mine who said, “Just schedule the exam.” Because I was like, “Oh, I’ll study and I’ll make the time.” But until you have a deadline or a date that’s coming up, it made it tough for me. At some point, I’ll take it at some point, but until it’s written down and scheduled, it was tough.

Mike Green: I’m the same way. I’m very competitive by nature I would say. I play sports. I definitely play to win. I always try to really do whatever I can to make sure I’m in the best place I can be to compete. I found, this is what I talked about, just taking night classes and things like that. I realized that for me, I don’t do good without a lot of structure as far as getting things done, I would say. Because I was taking classes and they had just doing some distance learning classes. I was doing that remotely and I didn’t do so good at those classes. Then I got laid off because I was going to school for my associate’s degree and I was going to night classes actually on campus and part-time. They couldn’t hire me on because they didn’t have an associate’s degree. That was the only reason. I was like, “Well, I’m just going to go back to school full-time and if I do that, I can finish my associate’s in two semesters.” That was my goal. I took 18 credits in the fall and then it was really tough. I took 22 credits in the spring and I had to get special approval from the dean to do that and she’s like, “Are you sure you want to do this?” I’m like, “Look, if it’s just three months and I’m done, I could do it. I could just put the blinders on. I can go be on campus.” I was on campus all day, every day. I made sure to do all of my homework while I was on campus because I know if I left campus, it was going to get done. I was like, “I’m just too distracted.” I stayed there where I had the structure and I had the environment that was best suited for me to getting things done. I figured out that’s how I work best. That environment, that structure that you’re talking about when you’re competing, you’ve got a regimen. That was how my mind prepared itself to work.

Manuel Martinez: And with that, like so In that environment, and I’m sure that the situation changes, but did you work better studying and doing work with other people, by yourself? Mixture of both?

Mike Green: It was a mixture both. It really just depended on what was going on. I definitely would collaborate and talk to my peers, especially if I was struggling on a homework assignment. I’d be like, “Dude, I don’t get this. Can you explain to me?” Because I didn’t feel like the professor explained it in any way, shape, or form that I could understand. I learned to reach out to people and resources as just like, “Help me figure this out because I’m not getting it.”

Manuel Martinez: That ability or … I’m going to call it ability or skill to go ahead and ask for help. Is that something that you felt comfortable doing just because you were so determined to get that result? I need to finish and get this associate’s, or do you think it’s a combination of just kind of growing up with sports? The reason is because you and I have talked on the side. For me, working on team sports and I’ve done the individual things, but with a team, you learn to work with other people. You learn to identify strengths and weaknesses. At least me personally and some of the other people I’ve talked to is like, “Okay, hey, you get this, you’re better. I’m not going to get this,” or, “Hey, I’m trying to improve in this area. What should I do?” I didn’t have a problem doing that because again, through sports, through coaching, that made it easier for me to go through. I played basketball, baseball, soccer, all these things, and especially in baseball. That’s the one where for me was the toughest because it’s so regimented. You just have to go through them. I’m not getting it. If you’re not hitting the ball square, what am I doing wrong and people will go through I was okay asking people because the only way I’m going to get better. Obviously, I can’t … Like you said, I’m not getting this. I can’t figure it out on my own. Hey, can you help me or what do you see that I’m not getting?

Mike Green: Yeah. I mean, it was just making friends with your classmates and then not just, “What did you get for answer four?” It was more like, “Hey, let’s go get lunch.” In between classes, we both had a break at the same time, getting to know them. I knew if I needed help with something, they were there and I could ask them comfortably, “What am I doing wrong?” The same goes for them, not that they always did it, but some friends would come to me and like, “Hey, I’m struggling.” I learned to be very open with information. I want to share as much as I can because if they help me be successful, I want to help them be successful. But it was a friendship. It wasn’t like a professional contractual agreement. It was just something that my friend, of course, I’m going to help them out. But at this point, like I said, I was going to school later in life, so I had already been in my professional career eight to 10 years. I had already learned how to do networking and going to conferences and things like this. I’m almost 30 at this point. I’m going to college on campus with students who are in their early 20s. Although there was an age gap, I still felt like we could connect because I could give them experience and wisdom from my point of view as far as what to expect in the job force and help them to either resume build, interview skills, things like that, and they can’t help me out with my homework. Because I’m like, I don’t get things anymore.

Manuel Martinez: Right. Okay. So then I’m assuming during those two semesters you were able to go through and finish your associates?

Mike Green: They were… the spring semester where I did 22. (credits) Man, that was really rough. I don’t recommend that to anybody, but it was like if I got it done in that spring, I was done with the associates. That was it. I didn’t have to wait for like a summer. I didn’t have to wait for like a fall semester. I could just get it all over with. And interestingly enough, so I was a contractor for the school district and they laid me off because I didn’t have my associates. I went back to school full time in those two semesters and then they hired me on full time back at the school district.

Manuel Martinez: Really? After having the associates

Mike Green: Yes. 100%.

Manuel Martinez: So that was really the only…

Mike Green: That was the only thing.

Manuel Martinez: Wow. And it’s funny because I think at that point there was a lot more. They were a lot stricter with stuff like that. I remember some of the roles that I would apply for it or people would apply if you didn’t have an associate, if you didn’t have some sort of degree, it automatically disqualified you. That still exists today. Not so much in private sector, but in public and the education sector I would say it definitely still exists. Right. And for certain roles, I think, I would say kind of under…

Mike Green: Educational medical, legal, I think it makes a lot of sense. But for IT it made less sense

Manuel Martinez: Yeah. And that’s what I meant. Like within the IT field. Yeah. Other ones, yeah. I want to make sure that I have a doctor that got his degree and didn’t just… Didn’t just figure this all out on YouTube. There’s certain professions that were like, “That’s not going to slide.” So then they hired you back on and then kind of what happens at that point?

Mike Green: So it’s interesting. So I was working there and things were good for awhile at the school district. But I got to say I got complacent in my role. I was like, at that point, I just kind of said, “You know, if I did this for like 30 years, I’d be okay with that.” But I met my wife at that point in time and she’s like, “Oh, no, that’s… This is all you want to do.” So she helped me see a larger picture. And then I guess I got a little bit of ambition on that side. I was like, “You know what? She kind of put it in me that I could do a lot more. I didn’t have to just be a network technician, not that that was anything bad, but I had a lot of potential that I could do a lot more.” So that’s actually when I went to my next job and that was the job that I knocked out of the park and then a year and a half later, they’re like, “Oh, you did great, but we can’t do anything for you.” And so then I went on the active job hunt and I found that was my first IT manager position with a nonprofit legal aid. And so just that was like a really big… I think that was the first time in my career that I wasn’t just looking for a job because I was let go. At that point, I was like- I was looking for a move up. And I found it, like a really big move up. So that job I was at for a year and a half was like a shipping transportation company. And I was a supervisor there. It wasn’t a very big company. I was like, there was a supervisor of like, I would say three or four people. But then I got to the law firm and that was like an IT manager. I started working more with the budgeting and planning side of things, like contracts. And it was a very big door that opened on that one. Then I was actually laid off Like a year and a half after that one, so I’m just like back out. An interesting thing happened from that job …as I had done networking at this particular convention that I went for like legal aid to New York. And I met the president of like an MSP service provider, IT provider. And I just had this feeling like, “I need to know, I need to get to know that guy and I don’t even know why.” I was just like, “I need to” know that guy. He seems like a really knowledgeable guy. He knows a lot of people. I just need to figure out- So for one way or another, I managed to finagle like an intro and then get myself invited to like dinner afterwards after the convention. And I was like, “Yeah, I’ll totally go.” And so we went to this Ethiopian restaurant in New York City. We had really good food. And there were a lot of like big power players in that space that were there. And I didn’t know at that time like how that would impact me. Fast forward six months, I get laid off from the law firm because they’re dependent on grants, and grants had dried up. And so I don’t fault them for that. But like the first phone call I made was… This guy’s name is John. And I’m like, “John, they just laid me off.” And he’s like, “Well, that was dumb of them.” And I go, “Do you have any opportunities?” And so then he hired me on as an IT consultant. But that was the first time I’d ever gotten a position based off of networking, like completely off of networking. I didn’t… I obviously applied for the position interview. There was like a whole process behind it. But I just called somebody I knew that had a company and I just said, “Do you have anything?” And the opportunity worked out. So sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction, how these things play out.

Manuel Martinez: And I know you mentioned that something drew you to kind of go and talk to this person and go through and… You mentioned you had gone to conferences before. I’m sure you’ve had networked and met people. What is it about that interaction? Because again, it was only six months, but it was enough… It was short enough to where he obviously remembered you. But even during that networking interaction, was it the conversation? What is it that made him remember you? Because for him to go through and say, “Well, that was dumb.” Obviously you left a good impression, right? Because there’s times where people are like, “Oh, hey, Mike. Oh, who?” Like, “Oh, that was dumb.” And they’d be like, “He could have been like, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” So there’s something, so I’m just curious, like your take on networking and… what your approach is, especially like in that situation.

Mike Green: So it’s pretty interesting because when I talk to people that I mentor now about this, I’m like, “You can go to conventions and you can exchange LinkedIn information.” And that’s fine. That’s good. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you really want to network with people, go eat food with them. Go do something more social with them and get to know them as a person.

Manuel Martinez: And a little bit more intimate. Yes. Talk to them about what do they do, like when they’re not at work, what do you like, and conversation and so the way I describe networking is just making friends at work. And so I learned to talk to him about things that maybe weren’t work-related. And we talked about like, “What kind of food do you like?” And let’s go here. This seems really good. And although I had never done any business with him through the company I was at, the building we were in had lots of legal aids that would talk to each other. And he did do business with some of those other legal aids. So I would see him periodically in town when he would come in town because he was based in New York City. So I would see him and we’d say hi. And we would just talk about stuff. sometimes it was about the pain points, the problems of the day or the month that was going on. If somebody got- hacking happened back then, somebody clicked on something that happens still today. But we talked about the cybersecurity, we talked about case management systems. But we would also just like, “Hey let’s go get food.” And I knew he played tennis. I played tennis JV, Varsity So we just found common ground at a personal level. And so for me, I feel like that makes a difference. Knowing people at a professional level is fine. It’s awesome. You do need to know about how to interact with things. But if you really want to get people to have them as a resource to call or if they want to call you, you get to know them as a person. And I’ve often told people at this point in my life, at the end of every technology solution is people. That’s who we’re ultimately trying to help. And there isn’t a single technology solution out there that doesn’t end up with, “How are we helping people?” And that’s what it’s really all about for me.

Manuel Martinez: So then obviously he hired you on and now you’re going through and doing work for him for this MSP, what were you doing for them there?

Mike Green: So with the MSP, what was I doing for them?

Manuel Martinez: For him, because he hired you on.

Mike Green: I had, at that point in time, Azure and Office 365 was emergent technology. People were starting to move to cloud and SaaS products. But there wasn’t a whole lot of AI today. There wasn’t a whole lot of experience or knowledge in that space. And one of the initiatives that I was working on was getting us from an on-prem exchange server as well as a case management platform to a hosted system. And I also did an on-prem network drive kind of migration to a SaaS model hosted document management platform. he was looking for a consultant because he had projects that were coming up that involved physical to virtual, P2V. So that’s one of the big reasons he brought me in and those are the projects that I worked on. Additionally, because I had experience in the nonprofit legal aid space and I kind of knew what a, I could walk into a situation and I knew what a good environment and a bad environment look like. I would do technology assessments for other law firms and legal aids. And so they would, and it was a little bit of like a get your foot in the door with the company to build that relationship. We’ll do a technology assessment. We’ll tell you where things are going great. We’ll tell you where there’s some challenges. And then we kind of come up with like recommendations and like where like an executive, there was actually two parts to it. One was like an executive summary for leadership to know where to focus at a high level where to put money. And then there was like a very, I would say a tactical report that I would give to like an IT leader in the organization. So they would know more specifically what items, maybe what were the low hanging fruit items that they could fix pretty quickly, low to no cost. And that were some like a bigger ticket items that maybe needed a lot more money and time to kind of plan out, but where we have a lot of impact.

Manuel Martinez: And a lot of these executive reports, a lot of these assessments, things that you’re providing and… having the executive summaries and then also like the more tactical, that’s something that I’m sure you just kind of developed over time, but how did you kind of build that skill? Are you learning from other people? Because again, I’m going back to like that timeframe. Sure there’s probably more leadership books, there’s resources, but it’s not as abundant as it is now. So is it just… Are you figuring it out as you go? Like you’re writing the summaries and like some of them are hitting some of them.

Mike Green: So a hundred percent, it was, I learned a lot there about how to write better. And I tell people like that of all the courses I took in at college, the two most valuable to me was public speaking and English, learn how to speak well, learn how to write well. And the first, I did over 25 assessments in the like the four and a half years I was with them and I would I know I can say I can say this now, I was not very good when I first started them. The first couple of assessments that I did on my own, like John took a look at it and he called and all the other leaders and I got, you know, and it basically like shredded like we got to redo this and I was like, I thought I had this great polished product and like, here you go, John, take a look. And he was like, we got to talk. So I would say that probably the first two or three were not that good. And I know why now, but then I had some other good people like the consulting director and then the engineering director, like I worked really good with them and they, we would talk about the language that we would use and the types of recommendations we would do. And by the end, it was, I knew what my process was. I knew how to like, here’s a draft, take a look at what do you think? But you know, there were less and less revisions as it went along. There are always things, but there were a lot less. And then I kind of knew how to say things towards the end in a way that was very professional, impactful, concise, not using colloquial kind of terms. And it taught me a lot about how to write well, I would say.

Manuel Martinez: Like those first couple of ones, like for them to call you in, like again, you don’t have to tell all the bad things, but like, what, what is it that was so terrible? And the reason I asked is cause I remember as you start kind of moving up and you’re getting in more of those leadership roles where you have to send out information, like even just write in an email. Like a lot of times I would just type what I was thinking and I would kind of read it like, okay, you’re checking for misspellings like, okay, it’s good as misspellings, nothing overall. I get it. But the message might’ve been lost. Like you mentioned being concise, finding words that were impactful. Like if you tell somebody, hey, your environment’s a mess, right? There’s a lot to fix.

Mike Green: It doesn’t really tell them where to go.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah, like where to go or, I get you’re trying to summarize it for a leader, but say, okay, based on, you start to learn to use words like based on the current state of the environment, this could lead to potential revenue loss. It could lead to down, like understanding those types of words. So is that kind of what you had to focus on?

Mike Green: A lot of it was word choice, not using, I would say plain language in a lot of ways, language that was more professional. Sometimes I would use colloquial phrases that I understood, like kick the bucket, something to that. And it wasn’t that, but it was things like that where there’s like an inferred meaning, but it’s not a professional way to write things. what they gave me was like a visibility into what I was doing. And like, oh, I see that now. I get why that I shouldn’t put that word or that phrase together like that. And then I’m always thinking like, how else could I say that? They would give me some suggestions. And then as time grew on, it became more like the wordsmith myself. And so then just like by the end, I felt really strong about how I could say things and then people would start to come to me, you know, what do you think of this? And they’re asking me like, what do I think of what they’re writing? And like, is this a good way to say it? And I would say, and then I would give them recommendations. And so it was like kind of flip-flopped it in a, I would say a really positive way. But yeah, it was just a lot about, I would say word choice. It was about how to say what I mean. It wasn’t what I was trying to say. It was how I was saying it. My recommendations were fine. They were just like, we got to find a way to say it so that it’s going to make sense to like an executive leader or like an IT manager and it can be actionable.

Manuel Martinez: No, that’s good. And I like the fact that at first you were getting the recommendations and at some point, you know, now you’re giving the recommendation. It’s just, I think a lot of times people think, well, I’m not good at that. Okay. But if you, I’m assuming you put in the work, right? Because you have to keep doing this, you’re doing more. So it’s just a matter of, you know, continually- continuously looking to improve and okay, how can I write better? And you get to the point where you’re doing less and less revisions where they’re like, oh, well now I’m going to come to you.

Mike Green: Yeah. It became more just like, you know, this word or that word, it could go either way. And then, you know, I learned about the process of writing that I don’t write in a vacuum. And what I mean by that is like, it’s not, it’s a collaborative space. There are other people that have different ways of thinking about how to, about how to say certain things, how to write certain things. And I trust the process that like I can come up with a draft, but then I want to make sure that there’s, that I’m on point with what I’m saying. So I always, and I do still do this today. I always put it to somebody that I trust that I know also has a good, you know, wordsmith writing ability and it’s, is this, this is look good. This is okay. And I’m not looking for a yes person. I’m looking for someone to tell me like, to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong with it. Because I know ultimately that’s how I make it a better polished product. And I teach this to people that I mentor today. I’m like, this isn’t personal. And then the first couple of times when they roasted me, I took it personally and I, my boss is like, you take the afternoon off. And I was like, yeah, I’m just gonna, I need to take a walk. And it was a very personal, like, you know, I just took it that way. And I learned that it’s not personal. At the end of the day, we all just, we, you know, if I’m customers are paying money for this thing, they need the best possible product that, you know, the report needs to have an accurate reflection of, of what we’re, we’re trying to recommend, we’re trying to say as good, we’re trying to say as bad or needs to be remediated. And it has to be a good reflection of the company itself, because this was like the entryway into a lot of a lot more business with that company. So it could make or break future deals.

Manuel Martinez: So then now you’re, you’ve gone through and you’re getting well at, you know, writing these assessments. You had done a lot of this, you’re picking up, you know word skill or writing skills, you know, becoming more of a wordsmith. And this is all still happening in New York, correct? Or on the East Coast. So then what progresses that eventually gets you to kind of move and then head over towards the West Coast?

Mike Green: So my, my wife was a GM of a hotel over there. it was like, I wouldn’t tell like a big, it wasn’t, it was a privately owned hotel. It wasn’t like a big chain hotel, but then they sold it off and there was new ownership and the new owners were, were going to turn it into like a, like a chain hotel, which is fine. But they, I would say they were, their management style was very different than the previous one and it was, it was a lot of tension on that. So things kind of get very uncomfortable for her and her work situation. And I think we knew at some point, like all of her family was out in the Western States. I had family scattered all over the US, but I did have a brother in Utah and a sister in Arizona. So Vegas was kind of a midpoint between them. So I think that made a lot of sense. And so when things got really kind of uncomfortable for her, I was like, let’s just, let’s just go. Well, you know, there’s you’re, you’ve been a GM of a hotel. I’m pretty sure there’s a few hospitality like jobs in Las Vegas, right?

Manuel Martinez: There might be a couple.

Mike Green: So we, we made the jump and we made to move the move to Las Vegas. I didn’t actually change jobs. I stayed working for the job for the company based out of New York city because I was a full remote position. I was working at home, which is weird because I just talked about like how I didn’t like being remote, right? But I was full remote for four years and I can say I, this is where I learned to hate working remotely and I’m sorry for all the people who love working remotely.

Manuel Martinez: And what is it that the, what is it about working remotely that you didn’t enjoy?

Mike Green: Um, so I, I’m a very distracted person. So when I’m, when I was at home, like I was just my, there’s a hundred other things that my mind was like, Oh, you know, I should, you know, clean the house, uh, you know, do stuff outside. Um, you know, I have a hobby with like Legos, you know, you know, I still, I still played, I still gamed with friends. So there’s like all these other things that were just distracting me. And it was just kind of, I needed to, uh, an environment that I could put the blinders on to kind of get into my work mode. And I was looking at, you know, the like renting an office space, something like that, just to kind of get me out of the house. I had a little bit of cabin fever as well. And I was just like, I do not want to be in this, this same building all day.

Manuel Martinez: So then maybe it’s easier for you to come to, you know, and continue working. And then I’m assuming now you’re starting to not enjoy this remote work. So then you decide, all right, it’s time to start looking for something where I can go into an office.

Mike Green: So, so yeah, so that’s part of it. And the other part of it, you know, the cost of living in Rochester, New York is much less than Las Vegas. So I moved from Rochester to Las Vegas, but I’m still making a Rochester wage. And I was just hurting financially. And I said, I need to make a change. So to find something that is going to pay what the cost of living here is going to demand. So that’s why I started looking around for places. And again, because I, you know, had, I didn’t like working remote as much as I thought I would. I was specifically looked for something that was like in office, 100%. And that was how I ended up at, I would say at Clark County. And I had, because of my experience with, with inner, with applying for the school district in Rochester, I knew how civil service jobs worked. I knew how to get them to send me alerts instead of me having to apply for just like every opening. And it’s not something I would, it’s not a secret, but it’s not like also like advertised either like how to do that. Because I found like some, I just went on their website and I found like civil service lists and I looked at their job descriptions, things that I felt like I would, I could do. And I got on three civil service lists. And so then now I know that they’re, they’re emailing me for every time there’s an opening for that job listing, I got an email. And so I, I probably interviewed, let’s say four or five times before I finally found the job that got me into Clark County.

Manuel Martinez: And going through kind of the interview process, right? Like interviewed and you went through four or five there, you’ve gone through some of the other ones, kind of looking back now and eventually what got you into Clark County. So what are some of the things that you feel are good interviewing skills that you’ve picked up or that you, you know, if you don’t want to give away all your secrets, that’s fine, but just, you know, what are the things that, you know, you mentioned that you help other people and you’ve given through just kind of looking back now, similar to you, like I’d go back and I’m like, Oh, this worked well. This didn’t work well.

Mike Green: So I was, these aren’t secrets by the other night, trade secrets. I, I, I, I’ll tell anybody who, who wants to know, but I, obviously you want to, you want them to make an impression, right? You want them to remember you. And when I, when I go into interview, I’m always trying to think of like, you know, what can I either, even if it’s just like a conversational kind of item, you know, like you got Lego flowers here, just something that we can use that. And I enjoy playing, you know, building with Lego, just a recreation. So I could use that as a, as a conversational piece, but it was always like, what can I bring to show that, that I’m, cause you’re interviewing now, like I’m not, I don’t want to be a candidate. I want to be the candidate. So I need to show them that I bring value. I bring energy. I bring like, I have a spirit of, of learning, collaboration, growth. And I, I have a good work ethic. I’m going to be here when I say I’m going to be here. I’m going to bust my hump to get the job done. And I, you know, I will do everything in my power to ensure success. So I think those were like the big things that I always try to do is like, I want to make sure that I make an impression both like as a, as a person and being genuine, not just trying to come up as a, as fake, as well as just show them that I’m, I’m here to add value for their organization as well.

Manuel Martinez: So then now you get into Clark County and you did, you’re not in the current role that you kind of started there. So then what’s that, what’s that progression? I mean, was it, was it just kind of naturally mentioned like every so many years, you know, on average, you know, you’re kind of moving up or switching roles and switching jobs. So then once you get in and you kind of get your first taste of Clark County in this role, where you’re like, okay, I like it here. I want to keep moving up. Or you know, after a couple of years, you’re like, okay, I’ve, I’ve mastered this skill or I’m pretty confident in this role. I want to try something else.

Mike Green: So I wouldn’t say that this is my first job in Clark County. I’ve seen people either in this particular environment, they would either struggle or they would thrive. They knew how to adapt. I mean, we’re working for elected officials. And that’s, that’s different than just working for like a manager or, or, you know, a director. So I was, I was essentially a supervisor over the, the IT group in this department. And because I had enough experience under me, and I would say political clout just because my mom was actually an elected official. So she retired, you know, having served in a public office in a never different capacity. She was on the school board. She actually signed my high school diploma. She was the town clerk. She actually signed my marriage certificate. So things like, but so I learned some things about how, how it’s different for working for an elected official than just working for a regular manager. And I was able to adapt my approach for how I interact with people. And in a way that I was able to thrive. And so that, that was kind of like my, my, my experience. So I was, I was, I was able to build, uh, work trust and rapport with the leadership team there. In fact, that was, I was part of leadership team at that point.

Manuel Martinez: you brought up an interesting point there is you were able to adapt, but still remain who you are. Right. So I think sometimes certain people think that, you know, if I have, I don’t want to change who I am. Right. I’m like, Oh yeah. I want to be my authentic self. And you can do that, but when you say adapt, what is it that you mean? Like I think I have an idea. Like for me adapting is okay. I have to understand how, how I interact with these people. Right. And it’s not, how do I become fake and try and come off as a persona of somebody that I’m not, but it’s more, okay. I understand that this person, I need to be more direct with them or with this person. I need to really be careful of how I choose my words or Hey, they like things done a certain way that maybe it’s not the way that I’m used to. So is it things like that that you mean?

Mike Green: It is, but there, I’ll tell you where I kind of got this from and it stuck with me. So there are different kinds of like personality assessments out there to talk, to tell you like how, how you are. So that shipping and transportation company wouldn’t work for one thing they did is put me through like a leadership, uh, like I would say, I guess a workshop. It was like a series. It was, I was like over the course of like six months or you’d meet every month and they did a disc assessment and it was really cool. And I, I still have the packet from my original assessment today on what it was. And it taught me a lot about like what my personality style is, like how I operate. And then it didn’t just tell me what I was, you know, um, I could kind of guess what, what kind of personality, but it also talked to taught me how it’s like, if you’re this type of personality, you have these kinds of personality traits, this is how you would deal with people with different personality traits. And so that’s what really gave me an edge with, with working with people. I could then see them and I could see their personality styles emerge as I would talk to them and get to know them in the departments. And so, you know, when I first got into Clark County, I could see these different personality styles and, and I could see, so for me, it was just like adjusting how I would communicate and interacting with them to adapt to their personality style, how they absorb information, how they like to work, you know, I, you know, I’m like very much like idea, like free thinker in my head. I love, I love change. I love new things, but then very like opposite for someone who’s just like, I, you know, I like process, I like procedure, I don’t like to deviate from process and procedures, so that’s very opposite from the way I am. So I had to adapt. And I know this is all like, what you said you liked, like you regimented and you like to go, you had to learn on campus and stuff like that. But it was because I was such a free thinker, I had to put myself in a structured environment to force myself into, into a mold that I could, you know, win or succeed at. And so I learned to adapt how I interact and communicated with them to what was going to be successful there for their communication style. So I would say that was the big differentiator.

Manuel Martinez: Interesting. And that’s part of that assessment is where they would teach you about others because I’ve had those disassessments, like I went through on it and employer where I was at, but it was really just to tell me about me and so that they knew how, how I worked and what motivated me. But I never got the part of, okay, well, what’s, you know, this is, what’s Mike’s? Yeah, because you’re this, we know that you’re going to, and they did really good because out of that they, they realized that what drove and motivated me was kind of learning and constant change, you know, similar to you like that free thinking. So as part of my contract with them, it was, Hey, if you achieve these certifications, so I was working for a bar value added reseller, it’s, Hey, I do this assessment. Once I had cut and got the offer and written into there was for each certification that you achieve, it raised my base salary a certain amount. They knew that that was for me, learning. It was a motivator and I was like everything that I did, all these projects, Hey, we have this new project. You want to learn this new? Yes. Because again, they knew how to work with me, but I never knew, you know, what everybody else’s other style was to know, okay, how do I work with somebody that doesn’t have the same motivations that I do?

Mike Green: Yeah. Like I said, like learning about yourself is one thing, but then their side of that, to that same coin is like, you, everybody’s different. And so I need to learn what’s how, and they, and they didn’t go through a disc assessment. They don’t, they didn’t go with the same thing. So they don’t, they complete completely, you know, oblivious to like what all this really means. And, and maybe they butt heads with a lot of other people. You know, I’ve, I’ve interacted with a lot of people and like, Oh man, they’re just, they’re so hard to work with, but I was able to work with them effectively because I knew how to change, to fit, to suit them. And they didn’t, they didn’t even know it. It was just like, you know, Oh, okay. They’re good to work with.

Manuel Martinez: So then that helps you in that role. And I’m assuming a lot of being able to kind of work with other people and it starts to again, probably set you apart from everybody else and make you, you know, I had somebody else, you know, another guest on here that talks about making yourself memorable. You become the person that you can work with anybody. And I, I relate to that because, you know, a lot of what you talk about, like, Oh, that sounds like me. I’m able to work with a lot of people and I don’t know their personalities, but I just know that it’s just, it’s always been a skill that I can get along with everybody. I may not like everybody, you know, I can tell you, there’s a lot of people I had to work with that I just, I did not care for, but I knew how to work with them to get a project done or get an outcome. And then that’s it. We weren’t going to lunch together. We weren’t hanging out after work, but when it came to work, here’s what we do. And I have no problem. I can get along with you. But then that’s it. Yeah.

Mike Green: You know, there, there are those people that like, I’m not good. We don’t have to be friends at the end of the day, but we, we were here to do a job and we need to get it done. So how do we move forward?

Manuel Martinez: So now you’re here in Vegas, you’re at Clark County, you’re, you know, you’re starting to kind of learn there and you’re a part of SIM and then you’re also part of Tech Impact. SIM I know is a national organization. Were you involved with that outside of there or is it here that you start to become involved in these organizations? And the reason I ask is you’re pretty active. I start to see now why you put in the amount of effort that you do with these organizations. Just hearing, hearing your story of how like, oh, you’re a knowledge share and you like to help other people. You’ve had people help you. So it sounds like that’s where that desire, that ability to want to kind of give back, especially, you know, I’ll let you tell it. But hearing your first encounter of going through that, like that cohort with your friend of going through like, hey, I can’t go to college, but here I can go through this, you know, this kind of like bootcamp style. And that’s what, you know, for those that aren’t aware, Tech Impact does something similar for younger people to kind of go through and like, okay, can’t go to college, but we’re going to put you through a, you know, it’s a 16 week program where they go through and they help and, you know, they get that certification. So is that, is that part? is that part?

Mike Green: Now it’s clicking for you.

Manuel Martinez: Now it’s starting for me to click for you. Now I’m seeing it. So, you know, I’m just curious how you, how you got involved in these organizations. And obviously we figured out why, at least for Tech Impact, why you’re so passionate about it.

Mike Green: Yeah. So when I was in the recorder’s office, there was a guy, his name is Chris and he, he had been working with, with Tech Impact and, and he’s like, Hey, you got to meet this guy, Martin, and you know, Martin Bennett works with me on the Tech Impact side with Clark County. And so he, he’s like, you got to meet Martin. I worked with him in the past. He’s a really great manager, people he’s well, he’s well respected. And I think you’d be, you know, you could, you know, you should start talking at some of these events and even mentoring. So he got me mentoring through with Tech Impact and he gave me an introduction to Martin and Martin at this point had been doing this, I would say Clark County, you know, professional development day for, I would say maybe six or seven years already. So he, he really laid the groundwork for that program with Clark County. And I, I started off just by mentoring and then, you know, met Martin and then just, you know, started attending the sessions with him. But I got involved with it because when he explained to me what the program was, I saw me. It was like, that’s, that’s my passion. I was like, I want to help these people get the best start that they can because I had a similar program that I took in New York but I’m like, I looked at Tech Impact and what they have, they had so much more support, so many more offerings. And I was like, this is something that I could really be a part of and feel like I’m, you know, I’ve acquired all this experience. I’ve acquired all this like information and knowledge and maybe not all of it’s useful.

Manuel Martinez: Pick and choose what you want.

Mike Green: There’s a buffet. But I, I felt like I had, it was, I saw myself in, in these students and it was a way for me to really just like to share as much as I can to give them the best start that they, and I was like, if, if what I had, which is, you know, you know, I would say not, not as the program was great, so I’m not going to discount it, but what the Tech Impact is, is here in Las Vegas is heads and tails above it. But I was in my mind, I’m like, 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. And like, how do I build like the next generation of IT leaders and, and in our own community? That’s that. And that’s like my passion, right? I get all choked up about this.

Manuel Martinez: And that’s awesome. And I can, I can see the passion and I guess the question I have from you is that’s not a… common mindset to say, how do I help you be in a better position than me? Like, be farther along. Yeah. When, and this is probably why I get along with you so well is because I feel the same way. Like I don’t have a problem. Like if I can share information with you, if I can help you and you can be better off than I am, like, why am I going to stop that? Or why am I going to not do that for you? You know, like people are like, Hey, you know, like, let’s make a global impact. Well, how about I make an impact here and say, I can help you and here’s what I did. And I had people that helped me a long way. And again, I don’t discount the struggles that I went through. I’m like, man, I wish I would have known.

Mike Green: There’s definetly that

Manuel Martinez: happens, right? I was like, man, I wish I would have known because there’s times where, you know, if I see that same person, I’m like, man, if I had someone like me with this information, I would be way farther ahead.

Mike Green: The mistakes I would have avoided and the opportunities I would have seized it when I, and I would have recognized at those points in my life. Yeah. Like, I would just like, wow, that that’s, it’s a lot, it’s a powerful for me to kind of think about that.

Manuel Martinez: But why, but why, why do you want that? Like what is that just your upbringing? Is that just something that’s always been innate with you to kind of help other people or just, I know that from, I know where I get it from. It’s my mom was always like, help, help, help, help, everybody else.

Mike Green: I definitely learned from my parents and just from the community and church growing up like that service was a big part of my life, just serving other people. And I learned that the best way to get through your own problems is to just serving others. And you know, it, it just helps you feel so much, you know, like without any thought of like, I’m not, what’s in it for me, but how can I serve others? And maybe that’s just, you know, going to a soup kitchen. Maybe that’s just, you know, help, you know, help shoveling my neighbor’s driveway. You don’t have to worry about that here in Las Vegas. But just simple acts of kindness go a long way. And you know, points when I struggle in my life, just forgetting my problems for a few minutes and serving other people helped me navigate my problems better.

Manuel Martinez: It does. And it gives you a different perspective, right? Like one of the things that I’m, I’ve been involved with for a while and it’s tough and I’ve taken, taken my son and we’ve done this for a couple of years now. We took a little bit of break, but there’s an organization called Sleep in Heavenly Peace they’re nationwide organization. And what they do is they… Here in Vegas, they do it twice a week. So like on Wednesdays and on Saturdays, they go and they- people sign up, and it’s a nonprofit and they build beds for kids that either don’t have one or are sharing one. And you know, and I kind of, I don’t remember how I even heard about this or who told me about it. And I was like, oh, this, this sounds great. But you’re right. Like there’s times where you’re, I mean, we all know that. We all have struggles, but I think it helps put it in perspective. It’s like, I go to some of these houses and you know there are people that you can see that they’re trying, they’re, you know, they’re struggling and we’ve all been there. And it’s just like, how can I help you? Like me spending an afternoon with my son, you know, building these beds together and they have this patent for it. It’s just, it’s very simple, but you go and you put it together and you’re just like, oh my God, like helping somebody else. It does. I’m not doing it to help to make me feel better, but you’re just like, well, what can I do to help impact somebody else in my community? Help them get, get some- By bringing up the people that, you know, need it most. You know, Richmond, Richmond has brought it up together. Like the community, the building, like, you know, the rising tide lifts all boats, right? Like if I’m moving away and just only focusing on me, like, well, that, that doesn’t do much. Right. But if I can make an impact through, you know, through tech impact, through Sleep and Heavenly Peace through all these organizations to say, Hey, you know, here, spend an afternoon or spend, you know, 16 weeks. I mean, I just, I don’t think that we talk about that enough. And I think within the tech community, I think a lot of us are, we are in a much better position than most people. So you know, if you have that little bit of opportunity to go through and help somebody else and lift up that community, I mean, it just, it only makes it better for everybody.

Mike Green: Obviously that’s where my, where, where like, I guess, I think my passion, the core of my passion is. And so that’s what a big, big driver for me. I know you mentioned just the other. “Sim?” So I got involved. So I heard about SIM when I was, when I first joined Clark County, but the department had to see the value of it at that point in time. So I didn’t join SIM. And then when I, after I would say three and a half years, when I finally made the jump from the department to the central IT, then Bob was the CIO at that point, who is our chapter president right now of SIM. And I told him the story. I was like, look, I wanted to be in SIM. I knew about SIM, but there was no buy-in from the department head. And he’s like, let’s make it happen. So I was like, all right, let’s do this. And then at that point I was just, you know, joined as a member. But as time, you know, as the chapter grew, there was a need for more, I guess, involvement and leadership. I remember, like, you know, I had asked Bob one day, I’m like, what do you need? Just what can I do? And so he kind of just told me some of the things that the chapter needed now that they’re kind of growing by leaps and bounds. And I’m like, you know, put me in the game, coach.

Manuel Martinez: I’m ready.

Mike Green: I think marrying the two, marrying might be a strong word, but what I didn’t know at that point was that Sim sponsored Tech Impact. I found that after the fact. Because I’d gone to a Sim event where they, you know, basically they ordered a check and donated money towards Tech Impact. I was like, oh, these things are connected. And so that’s when I started really kind of putting some pieces together and leveraging those connections, along with other, like, relationships to help grow the program that Clark County had, not only with Sim, With other other parts like the Lego community that I’m a part of. And I also like the volunteer opportunities there, just to kind of grow it on all fronts and then strengthen those partnerships. So it was really cool.

Manuel Martinez: And… You’re getting different value from both of these organizations, right? Because Sim, we’ve touched on it a little bit, it’s more on leadership or, you know, and kind of network building within people that are in the industry, whereas Tech Impact is people that are kind of starting. You see the relationship now, but from kind of your standpoint, what are, like, the benefits? And I’m going to focus probably a little bit more on Sim, right? It’s, you know, as far as the networking and now you kind of being involved in helping wanting to grow this. And I’ve had Bob on here and he talks a little bit about, you know, kind of breaking down the silos between the different industries and also within the different organizations that are here, right? Sim is not the only tech organization. It’s not the only tech professional one. Like there’s, you know, we’ve talked about a lot of these and there’s collaboration in between the two. So do you see, I guess if someone were to say, well, why should I join Sim or why should I join one of these other programs? You know, maybe not to start, you know, like, hey, I’m not ready to volunteer yet, but maybe I want to, you know, join AISSA or, you know, Sim or one of these other ones. Like what are the benefits that you’ve seen and, you know, I guess go through and kind of pitch it.

Mike Green: Yeah. So for, uh, since I’m not like a member of some of these other organizations, I couldn’t say like about them, like what their, you know, pros cons, goods, bads are. But for, I think for SIM specifically, um, I’ve seen, uh, so we’re talking about IT leadership, right? We’re talking, I’ve seen opportunities for me to meet and engage with a lot of other IT leaders and, and, uh, company owners that, you know, they’re self, they’re entrepreneurs, right? How to, so some of them are self-made, you know, building companies from scratch to ground up and just seeing their success and building those relationships. And again, this, this kind of goes back to, you know, instead of not that conferences and meeting people like at the, you know, at the expo holler is bad, but this was like a next level way to meet leadership, people in leadership who have, um, had struggles with building a business, who have had struggles with, you know, in, in leadership as far as like finding good talent, retaining good talent, dealing with like budget constraints at, you know, from, from at a kind of company level, there is, there’s all sorts of walks of life and experience that I felt like I could draw from as well as contribute to at this point in my, in my career. So I was like, there’s, there’s definitely like a healthy give and take, but then to realize that they’re also just people just like me. You know, I think I saw you talking like Bob and like Rishma and there’s like, you know, they’re afraid, people are afraid to approach them because of their, their, their position and their title. And so this for me helps break down some of those barriers as well to get to know them as, as people and to understand that they also have strengths and weaknesses and challenges and good moments and bad moments and, and a little bit of a support network to help each other through those moments in life and being, you know, one of the, I have lots of isms or sayings and one of the ones that I use is “What’s understood never has to be explained.” There are some things in life that are beyond words, that words don’t do enough justice to explain what, what you’re feeling inside. Right. And, you know, a lot of those are like emotional kind of moments, things that are like when challenges are hitting me hard, like I, I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where to turn to sometimes. So when I find people that have gone through similar things, I don’t need to explain to them or try to explain to them what’s going on inside me. They already know they’ve been there. So that’s like what I, when I go back, like, so understood between us, I don’t, we don’t have to explain it to each other. Right. We just know and they get it. And that way we can, we can help support each other in those things.

Manuel Martinez: And that’s good. And it’s not just networking to try and find jobs. But again, there’s information sharing and it’s really building connections and building relationships with people. Right. Like we talked about it like Angie and you know, and Bob and all these people. It’s not just because, oh, well, they’re a CIO. I want to talk to them or hey, I see that they’re a person or maybe I can get a role. But sometimes it’s just, hey, you have probably a skill set that I now just talking to you and getting to know you. Like I can reach out to you because I have a question and they will respond. So if I were to go through and if I send you a message, hey, now that I know your words, hey, I, I’m looking, you know, I wrote this paper, you know, I’m trying to express something. Can you take a look at this because I know that you are better and can you give me some pointers or like point me in a direction, give me a book, give me something again. Yes, I might be looking for something, but then at the same time you might call on me, which you kind of have. You’re like, hey, Manny, I know that you do a podcast and you do this filming. Would you mind taking some video for us? Of course. Right. Like that. I think that’s that reciprocal nature.

Mike Green: And it’s not a, it’s not a transactional relationship. Correct. Like I, I paid money for something, a service, a good, you know, a product. It’s not transactional. It’s very, you know, personal. We have a connection and of course I’m going to help out my friends, right? I would, you know, what do you need? I’ll get it. If I don’t have it, I mean, let me, I know a guy, let me make a phone call. Right.

Manuel Martinez: And I think that’s the stigma that maybe sometimes people get like networking that it is, it’s transactional. Yeah. It’s transactional if you make a transaction. Correct. But if you do it, if you approach it the right way and really like, I want to get to know Mike and learn a little bit more about him. Okay, cool. Sounds great. I might never have to reach out to you, but when I do see you, I know that I have that relationship and I can talk to you and you know.

Mike Green: That causes people to be like genuine or authentic with people. Be real with them. Don’t just have like a facade because people can sense that. They know when you’re, you’re just trying to sell them something or you’re just trying to, you know, get in good with me so you can start to meet like other people. Right. So people can tell usually when you’re genuine and when you’re, when you’re just looking for a transaction.

Manuel Martinez: So we’ve gone through a lot of your career. You’ve shared a lot of information about, you know, how you approach interviews, just a lot of skills that you’ve learned along the way. Is there anything I haven’t asked you or anything that you want to touch on that maybe we didn’t cover that you’re like, oh, you know what? We and I really want to talk about X.

Mike Green: Only that, you know, we talked about like where, like where it started and kind of how things progress. But one thing that I always try to teach to people that I’m mentoring is like, think about- where you are is great, but you need to always think about where, where you, where do you want to be? And it’s not like I don’t think about it in terms of like from three to five years because it’s like a typical interview question. Where do you yours up like five years? Like, I don’t know Starbucks. But it’s more about where do you want to go with your, with your career, but for sort of for like a personal growth, I would say, if that makes sense. But so I always ask him like, you know, try to think about where you want to be. And then it’s almost it goes a little bit like the project management background my boss and I was the two cardinal questions you ask your department is before you talk about any kind of product is like, what are you trying to do? And what does success look like? So similarly, when I talk to like, you know mentees about like, about their own personal growth. I’m like, I kind of flip flop the question like, what is what are you trying to go? What does success look like for you? And then and then what do you need to do is like the one chain and what do you need to do to get that and not that you’re gonna you know, I’m gonna go from you know, a systems admin- or systems technician to like a CIO overnight. And I don’t need to think about like, yeah, you know, like, every four years I gotta I gotta have a move. But it’s really more like, okay, I need if I need to acquire like, I need a lot of learn how to write well, I need to and then just look for opportunities and people throughout your career. Like, and when you certain people I believe you’re maybe I don’t fate or destined to meet you resonate with certain people. And for you and me, it’s like one of the like, we just like met when I’m like, hey, let’s do stuff. And you when you resonate with certain people, and you just like, you know, I want to learn more about what they do, I want to learn my experience from them. And then I’m kind of like building up not just a network, but like, also like my personal growth, my skill set, like, I know they have certain skills and attributes that I want to emulate. And so that’s me just kind of like getting to know you like, how do I start like learn that process? How do I start to emulate what what you do and start to ask those questions and not from a transactional perspective, but from like, just like, let’s build a relationship together that that’s meaningful. And so I’d say I, I was I’ve been able to do that. And that’s what I’m all additionally and for the students that I mentor you, I’m always trying to teach them to think about themselves like down the road. And don’t go too, too far, don’t zoom out. So you can’t put a plan together, but go out just just far enough to like, okay, I might try to stay two steps ahead, I would say one step is, is just enough to kind of keep pace, but two steps ahead, you can kind of get to see opportunities and get ahead of the game. That’s my point. That’s my take on it anyway, Maybe I’m wrong.

Manuel Martinez: No, I mean, and I agree with with a lot of what you said, there’s bits and pieces like it, it resonates because I think about earlier in my career. I didn’t really have that plan. So there’s a lot of that where I was just like, Oh, well, the next opportunity or hey, I want to do this. Oh, this I can do the same position for a little bit more money. Okay, you know, kind of jumping around or like, I’m bored with this. I just want to go try something. Yeah, again, there’s nothing wrong with that because I gained a lot of experience going and doing this. But then I think at the same time, kind of like we talked about looking back, I would have been much farther along or had acquired a lot more skills had I put a little bit more thought process into what do I think? Again, I could have been completely wrong, but what do I think I want to do at least in the shorter long term? Right. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your journey and a lot of the kind of lessons that you learned along the way, similar, a lot of- Oh, yep, I remember going through similar things. So yeah, it was definitely appreciated.

Mike Green: No, this is great. I, of course, I appreciate you. I appreciate your time and your program and what you do here. So I’m just grateful and thankful to be a part of this.

Manuel Martinez: Thank you again.

Mike Green: Thanks a lot.

Manuel Martinez: And for everybody that’s watching and listening, thank you again for taking the time to again, learn from all the different guests that I’m able to, you know, convince to come on and share their, their knowledge and their experiences. So please continue to plug in and download the knowledge. And until next time, thank you.