From Secretary to Cloud Director with Rhonda Lemke | Ep063

Manuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences to help you find some actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. For today’s episode I have with me Rhonda Lemke. Her and I were connected through Chelsey Bonilla who I’ve had here on the podcast before. Rhonda and I got on a couple calls. We hit it off great. I learned more about her background and was just excited for her to talk about all the things that she’s done, the things that she’s accomplished. So with that I’ll go ahead and introduce Rhonda.

Rhonda Lemke: Thank you Manny. Thank you for having me here and this is quite the honor because usually I’m having people on my real estate podcast so it’s great to actually be the guest and share my information.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah and I’m excited especially when we talked a little bit about the things you’ve accomplished throughout your career. It was very – I found it fascinating. So – and you shared a lot of insights with me that I know that if we go in a little bit greater detail, you know, it’s going to be very helpful for other people so that they can kind of go through and say, Oh I didn’t think about it that way or, Oh that’s how she you know, how she goes and handles challenges that come through and you know – things that a lot of times we may not think of in the moment but later on you might be – Oh wait a minute, this scenario is familiar. I remember somebody – and hopefully they’ll remember – Oh, I remember Rhonda had gone through this type of scenario, or had to make this type of decision and I can use some of what she did in the past to kind of help me.

Rhonda Lemke: And I think that this – so today one of the reasons I chose today as my podcase date is because today is – one year ago today I was laid off from Caylent, and Caylent is an AWS partner and it was probably the best role of my entire career and it’s been one year of just complete pivoting and after almost three decades in technology I said well let me try real estate I’ve always wanted to sell real estate in in Las Vegas you know like selling real estate in an international tourist destination it is a blast and – but I will also say, the job market and the real estate market in 2025 have been soul crushing, and so I’d love to just kind of share my experience, because it’s not easy. It’s not easy, you know, you watch the LinkedIn feed, and you see everyone, I’m open to work, can anyone help and make a connection, so I just want to be out there, like I understand it and I can also help make connections.

Manuel Martinez: Right, well that’s awesome. So if you don’t mind kind of start and tell us a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually what you thought you were going to do for a career and then what actually got your career started.

Rhonda Lemke: That is so interesting because – well first of all growing up in the 80s you know we had the best music and I’m sorry they’re remaking our music now and you know like Tracy Chapman and her Fast Car song like that was our that was our childhood and so I grew up in a town called Lansing Illinois and it’s a south suburb of Chicago. Blue collar community, kind of tough you know, I got beat up a little bit here and there. And so growing up when you say what did you want to do like you know what was your career, I didn’t know like honestly at 16 years old I was working at McDonald’s thinking oh maybe someday I’ll be manager and at the time my second dad he said well Rhonda if you would like to go to beauty school or secretarial school this is a thing so college wasn’t really like – my brother and I are first generation college graduates and both of us have our advanced degrees you know masters and whatnot. So growing up in that environment it really – what influenced me is when I got – so I said well I’m not going to go to secretarial school I was in the work program in high school and I typed faster than anyone – I got a job as a secretary at Arthur Anderson before Enron ever happened right so I was 18 years old commuting downtown Chicago. I had mentors, right, that taught me how to commute that said well Rhonda why aren’t you going to college? And you know my peers and so there was sort of that pressure from my peers to actually do something more than the Lansing, Illinois environment if that makes sense like Chicago you know commuting downtown Chicago you are exposed to to everything, right? So that’s kind of where I started.

Manuel Martinez: And that’s interesting because again not knowing and having those mentors and having people that said hey you can do more than this right so a lot of times some of us may or may not have that so I know for me I went through and we’ve talked about this a little bit in the past where you know my dad was in construction and you know I struggled I went to college came out and was like oh man this is it people are gonna want me and it wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be so I had to work for my dad’s construction company for a while and at some point I thought well maybe this is what I’m going to do I’m just going to take over the family business and I had people that worked for him that were like no you went to college you can do more than this again nothing wrong with that type of living but they were like you didn’t go to college to come back and do construction work so but that’s great that you had somebody that said hey do more so then you decided okay secretarial school is not for me. What did you decide to pursue at instead?

Rhonda Lemke: So as I was that you know, secretary, and then they changed the title to be executive assistant, I was working for a woman who I’m still in touch with today she’s a CMO for a very large company in Chicago, Unisys. And anyway her name is Teresa Poganpole. This woman said why don’t you quit your job and come move in with me and go to college. So she saw something in me – imagine a boss telling you at 19 years old you know I’d been working with her maybe a year at that time, that you could do that? Like that kind of – that really is impactful. Years later I’m like, wow, she saw something in me. And so anyway from there I was you know – because I was working in – it was in the 80s, it was Wang word processing, there was you know different technologies and then there was Lotus Notes, well I loved me some Lotus Notes, so I was creating databases for the marketing department and you know like contact databases things like that, and t was the manager of the LAN/WAN team, Gary Buchanan. I’ll never forget Gary I called him Red. and he asked me if I’d be interested in building a help desk for the marketing department and that was probably probably mid 90s you know and so I became Help Me Rhonda, young people don’t know this song, but that was my mantra every time I answered that phone, so I was building – you know I was building an ITSM system in Lotus Notes right? But it was – all it was was a ticketing database to track the work that the team was doing and that’s how I got into technology

Manuel Martinez: Wow, and that with you building that and kind of playing around with that was it – what was it about the technology that kind of interested you – before being asked, I mean – you know, was it just because – like you could have easily, and I’ve seen people that just go through and you were doing the executive assistant and typing really fast and doing that and saying okay I’ve done my job and I’m done. You and I have had conversations in the past and I know why, but what is it that really said, Well let me play around with this and learn more. And obviously they saw something again in you to say, Would you want to build this for me and you said yes instead of saying, No, I don’t want to do that. So what is it that really sparked that interest?

Rhonda Lemke: Well it’s funny, because I didn’t have the confidence at the time. You know I definitely didn’t think I was qualified because I didn’t have a degree, right? I had come out of high school to work for Arthur Anderson and so I was taking classes at night but I just – I thought I wasn’t good enough because I didn’t have that degree. So I think that now you know looking back at my younger self if I would have had more confidence I probably – I don’t know what I would have done differently but I think what they saw was my communication skills, my follow-up, things that you just need to make sure – and your understanding of translating the technology to the business. Marketing people especially at that time, they didn’t understand, they had to log into their computer and use email. I mean at the time when I was working for Teresa I told you, literally it was a time I would print out her emails and bring them to her, like it was a different time right so they just needed someone that could help them you know come along in the digital world and you know help them to be successful and that’s what I did at that time.

Manuel Martinez: And is that what sparked that? Was it helping somebody else do something that that really said, Well I like this technology thing and I can help people and you know being – it may seem a little cliche but a lot of times like hey the younger generation adapts to you know new technology, social media, you know things like that, do you think that might have played into the fact that you’re like, Yeah I can do this, or you know – they obviously saw something in you, but also there’s something in you that said, I like this and I can do it.

Rhonda Lemke: I think that – I didn’t believe I could do it but – because I remember always going back to Gary and asking him questions. You know I didn’t understand drive mappings, wrapping my brain around drive mappings at that time was hard and I remember doing, I don’t know if you remember DOS, but I remember doing a DELTREE on someone’s Windows folder, that was terrible. So, completely wiped out somebody’s computer. So I made a lot of mistakes, so I wasn’t the most technical person in the room but I was the person that wanted to learn anything I could, I was just like you know teach me everything and I would – we didn’t have the internet, it was one of those things that you had all those, you know, Novell books and things at your desk and you had people around you that just – that helped.

Manuel Martinez: So then you became this help desk manager, and then what kind of transpires from there? So did you continue to build up this help desk team and then you know it got so big that you kind of move your way up, did you move out?

Rhonda Lemke: So it’s funny, I became the supervisor but then we had different buildings and then and it became Accenture and thank god because Enron and Arthur Anderson are no more right so I transitioned over to Accenture and – I’m trying to think – we had multiple buildings in Chicago it was just a massive hub for us and they were closing down my building it was right around – probably around the dot-com days, and they’re – and I’m like, Oh my gosh I’m losing my job. So I go and I work you know in this other building and I was like I have no idea what I’m doing and then I go work for this group that was remote and this is in like 2002. And they said you’re going to get this ITIL certification I’m like, Okay. I don’t know what ITIL is, no idea. But that kind of put me then on the – now I’m change management, I’m incident management, I’m just figuring it out, so when I look back there was never a five-year plan it was just like you know what? Your job is being eliminated, but if you’re the top performer you’re always moved someplace else, so that’s kind of what happened to me and I was at Accenture for 15 years probably some of the best years of my career because at Accenture when you’re at a big company you have so many options, you get bored in this role, and you’re recognized, you moved to another role, so then years later I went back and actually did consulting. Now if I could do a career all over again it would

be: Start as a consultant, because you are just thrown in the water and you figure it out. But what I learned in consulting is it’s not about how smart I am, it’s about how smart all the people around me are, and I can get the answer and come to the client and look like the smartest person in the room, not because I am but because I have the the – I think they called it the secret sauce or, you know, the machine – I had the machine behind me.

Manuel Martinez: Right, and you mentioned being there for 15 years and kind of going through and the time that you started there weren’t a lot of females in that industry. I mean even now like we’re starting to see more and the same thing it’s just that they’re starting to be a lot more diversity a lot more different people different backgrounds and it’s making it better but at that time was it the fact that you had these people that saw something in you and kind of you know pushed you – and it sounds like you had a little bit of you know self-doubt you know I’ll call it self-doubt is – hey, can I do this? But you still kind of get pushing on – and I’ve had different guests that have different experiences like some people that was a motivating factor for them that like – I’m the only one and I’m going to show that I can do this – for other people it’s like – well, people are believing in, me I’m going to go through, and for others it’s like, hey I’m gonna – people think I can’t do this, right? Because you probably run into some of those people where they weren’t as encouraging. So I was just curious like – what was that experience at least at that point in time?

Rhonda Lemke: So I don’t think – I think in the help desk realm there are more women so I’m trying to think back – I left Accenture after 15 years because I capped out – there were no internal promotions to manager at the time because internal IT had – they just had a budget right? They had restrictions, so to get promoted I had to leave the company and you know I had I interviewed, I had a couple of people that I followed around so there’s a colleague of mine, Dan Anderson, this guy was phenomenal, he’s brilliant, and he’s now at Abnormal which is this security company. But anyway I followed him to like three different places so he brought me and I didn’t have my degree yet so I was so insecure, I don’t have a degree I don’t have a degree. And I interviewed for – it was a book company in Chicago at the time and the director said I love that you came with a plan so I just wasn’t – I was just doing my thing I didn’t – I just was – I was never taught about project management methodologies or Gantt charts I just brought a Gantt chart to the interview I said well based on what I heard you need this he’s like, You’re hired, right? So I was I wasn’t the only woman, I was the only woman in management I guess at the time. I didn’t notice it. When I noticed it was when I became a manager at Arthur J Gallagher, and of 75 people in the department there were like two women because it was you know network operations and that’s very heavy male dominated but I remember the guys that I worked with the manager of systems and things, and we’re still friends today, I remember them saying, Rhonda you complete us. Well why is that? Because I had – I loved to do reporting, I had soft skills, I did presentations, things that they hated to do, and talking to the clients, I would do that.

Manuel Martinez: And I love that you said that you didn’t notice it right, at least not at the time because you were just so focused on probably trying to do your work and it sounds like you were a high performer and a lot of times that – it’s probably a better way to look at it. I mean it at least that – when you’re starting off right, like just don’t pay attention to everything else, just be focused on the job, try and get better at what you’re doing and in that 15 years and – you know as you’re kind of moving on you mentioned you know doing a lot of the reporting and communication skills – is that something just based on your personality – you know I’ve talked about this in the past, like we have a an outgoing personality, we’re a lot more outgoing. The, you know, introvert versus extrovert, right, that – I think people sometimes get that confused, it’s just a matter of what brings you energy – it’s not oh I’m an introvert – you can be an introvert but still be very outgoing, right? It’s just you can’t do it for very long. And if I remember correctly, are you more of kind of like an extrovert and outgoing? So is that kind of what built that skill set up over time?

Rhonda Lemke: I think as I had more confidence I was definitely – I’ve always been an extrovert and outgoing but I think now because I have the confidence I didn’t have when I was younger I’m probably 90 percent extrovert, if I had to put a number on it.

Manuel Martinez: And then so that obviously helped build up that skill set and be able to go through and help build up the ability to again interview and talk to clients and do all this so what other skills did you pick up along the way because nobody probably told you hey bring a Gantt chart to this interview so what what compelled you to do something like that?

Rhonda Lemke: I don’t know, I don’t – I mean honestly it was – I’ve just – I think I was born organized, you know – I remember as a little kid organizing things yeah so I just think – I think I was – that was my biggest strength, because when you’re organized and there’s chaos – I wrote an article on LinkedIn about this – I had – an old marine mentor of mine that was my boss at Gallagher and he said, “I just like how you can sweep things in a pile and just make sense of them so go take care of this thing.” Okay, no problem. So you take the chaos and you know you whiteboard you kind of you know so I just have that structured thinking so I took the, just the natural abilities and applied it and then all of a sudden you’re exposed to methodologies right, you now understand, okay there’s Stephen Covey out there, what’s urgent versus important? And so all the things that I didn’t have any words for as I went along and had you know different management development courses, things like that, and was like, Oh, there are words for this. And I understand this now.

Manuel Martinez: So that person that you kind of followed around different roles was that – you mentioned that was after Accenture – and I guess building – did you look at it as building a network at that point or is it, Hey I’m just meeting cool people and making kind of good relationships because again a lot of times people say you know, Hey, build your network, build your network, but I think it’s more like building relationships, and again, yeah, we don’t do it because now it could lead to a job, but that’s not necessarily the – it shouldn’t be the end-goal.

Rhonda Lemke: No, a hundred percent and I just think I’ve always been the one to round up my friends, round up my people right? So I think I’ve just always been in touch with people and I was thinking you know, when I was going to be on this podcast I thought, looking back at a 30-year career, what’s impactful? Does it matter about the positions you had or does it matter about the people that you met? And it was a little both, because the positions all kind of built on each other, but the people – and it’s a lot of times it’s the people you don’t expect are watching you – and I’ll give you a couple of examples of that – so I worked at University of Chicago and there was this Unix Linux administrator, his name was Mark, and yeah we got along, it was fine, but we weren’t like work besties or anything, and I left University of Chicago to go teach high school, thinking I’m gonna save the world like that’s when I actually got my my first degree was – I was 37 years old. I had been in technology had been a help desk manager and I’m like, No, I’m going to try and teach high school math and computer science, this sounds fun they *said*. And it was honestly – that was probably the hardest job – career – anyone could ever have and – anyway, so it was around the financial crisis, 2008-2009, I was like, I got to get out of here, I need to find a role and well as you know in 2009 it was difficult to get a tech role but Mark I don’t even know how he knew I was looking for a role, he reached and out he said, “Rhonda, I’m telling you come on over to cars.com, we have this NOC position.” I’m like NOC? What’s a NOC? Okay great, It’s Network operations center. And I get to cars.com and I remember being in this interview do you know Linux? No. Do you know Unix? No. But after they had talked to me about you know, sort of my structured thinking and how I would – how I led people and you know whatnot they knew I could follow a run book, write a run book, and so basically I got that job without the tech skills and then I came in and you know – you’ll learn, it’s easy to teach someone to restart an instance, it’s hard to teach someone how to talk to the business. So anyway that’s just one example of how networking you know I mean just keeping in touch with people organically, not like, Oh I need a job, I’m going to reach out to every person I’ve ever worked with, you know you have to – you have to keep in touch.

Manuel Martinez: Well – and there’s two or three things that I want to kind of follow up just based on that conversation. So the other thing is like you said – people you don’t expect right? Again you got along well, that was fine, but he also I’m going to say that the way that you treated that person the way that they saw you interacting, and that was one of the things that I learned early on, you know, working from my dad in construction he told me, because I would see other guys and you know he wouldn’t be there and my dad – they told me at one point because they saw me slacking off right? I’m the boss’s son and I was like – this construction, it’s hard work I was in junior high school, I want to say I was in junior high around that time, and you know you do, you play that that game like, Oh, boss is looking right? Like now I got to do this, and he goes, Always take pride in kind of what you’re – in the work that you’re doing – people are always watching even when you think that they’re not, and it may not be – it’s not always just the boss right? Because your co-workers are looking Because when something comes up you know, and they ask you like, Oh hey how’s Rhonda doing? Man, she’s terrible, like she’s always mean to me. You know what I mean? Like it could have been things like that whereas he was like oh well you know it may not be your manager per se but somebody is always watching you watching the work you’re doing watching the way that you’re interacting with people and it sounds like he was that person that said you know you got along and everything was fine but he saw the work that you were doing maybe the way that you – whatever it might be and said, Hey, you got to come over here, because again, part of it is you understanding the tech skills right? Like do you know how Linux works, and you know, but that wasn’t what they needed at the time. Or you know, I’ve been in certain roles like okay well you seem like the person that is honest and knows, like, no I don’t you could have easily said, Oh yeah, I – you know – you could have lied, and I’ve seen a lot of people where they kind of they’ll put it on their resume and they do things to make it seem like they know when they don’t but you were very 1) honest, and it sounds like at this point probably confident in what you knew and didn’t know, but then also having that person to say, Okay, I’m watching her and going through. And I don’t know if you ever talked to that person afterwards to find out why they recommended you and if it was kind of that reason.

Rhonda Lemke: That’s a good question , I – we do keep in touch – I don’t know – I don’t know why he recommended me, you know we just – we’re still in touch to this day because what I told him he did is he saved me from teaching like I was trying to get a job in a market there were no jobs and not only did he save me from teaching but that set up the next chapter of my career of building out network operation centers because – and I think what they saw in the interview because I thought, Oh, there’s no way I have this job, there’s no way I don’t have the tech skills that they need. When I got the the offer I was like, What? You know and but – I think what they needed is they knew I was going to be reliable. You’re running a network operation center for a dot-com. You have to be Johnny on the spot if there’s an alert, you know, event that happens you need to be the person that’s on it like that and some people are like oh nobody’s watching, am I watching the screens or am I not, you know what I mean? And so that – so that set me up for the next few years of just an amazing adventure building out network operation centers.

Manuel Martinez: I don’t know if you remember or not but are the types of questions they were asked especially when they said, “Well she can run a – build a run book, you know, write it for us, follow it, do it, things like that – ” are these things that you were able to – we’ve talked about transferable skills – like did you attach – did you attack it that way or – I don’t know if attack is the right word – approach it that way and say, Okay, I don’t have these technical skills, but here’s the transferable skills or here’s these other skills that I have developed over time. Sounds like you’re a learner, a hard worker, you know, you’ve experienced a lot of things that – do you think that’s something that in that interview and possibly in other interviews, that you try to consciously highlight?

Rhonda Lemke: I didn’t at the time but I do now because at the time I thought tech skills were the end all be all. You know in technology, when you’re – when you’re surrounded by you know, technical people, you think you have to have all of those tech skills and those things can be learned and so at the time I probably was answering the questions of you know tell us about a difficult situation you’ve been in or tell us about you know your leadership skills. And keep in mind I had been a manager, and that was a step down in tech, but I needed to get out of teaching, so I also had to take a step down to move up, right?

Manuel Martinez: Right. And you were okay with that, is it just because you really wanted to get out of teaching? Because a lot of times – and I’ve seen people where they’re out of the – out of the workforce or maybe they – again, they tried something, they want to kind of pivot back, sometimes we’re scared to go through and take a step back, not realizing that – okay, in the long run, it’s going to be a step forward.

Rhonda Lemke: And I think a lot of people fall into that trap, for one: Ego. Pride and ego can get us every time, right? And I think at the time, for me it was about the money it was like, I just need to get out of teaching and – in teaching I was making $42,000 a year teaching high school in Illinois and so any tech job was going to be more than that 42 grand so I just needed a job. Yes, did I want to go back because I worked hard to become a manager before I had the degree, you know, which was very difficult and you know so that’s – it’s very interesting to think about but I do think ego and pride can be our worst enemy.

Manuel Martinez: So now you get in and you’re managing the NOC, and you mentioned that that built quite a bit of your career, so what were some of the challenges there to kind of building out a NOC, or I don’t know if you were building it out or if you were just kind of taking over, like what transpired there? Were you growing the NOC, was it just kind of – you know?

Rhonda Lemke: It was a small NOC, I wasn’t growing it I was – I was learning, you know? I was learning, you know, how a NOC was run, and I didn’t have any sort of direct interaction with management or whatever I was kind of doing it all on my own and so I was learning about run books and then I was saying okay what – what does my team need, what are the skills – and it was – this was just a natural – from my teaching – so you talk about transferable skills, I have this team and I could see this, person is good at HTML, this person is good at Linux, Unix this person is good at networking, you just – you automatically – and you put together this skills matrix and you can see the gaps for your team, so sometimes I would talk to the night shift people and say, you know, would you like me to teach you a little bit about HTML? Or you know, Hey, would you like to do some cross training with this person who – and then I got my team more well rounded, so I was just kind of – but I was learning about each of those areas. Does that make sense?

Manuel Martinez: It does how long were you teaching high school?

Rhonda Lemke: Almost two years. Almost two years.

Manuel Martinez: Almost two years. Almost two years. what you mentioned – that transferable skills – what else do you think you learned from your experience teaching? Because when I started teaching you know I was teaching at college level you know VMware classes AWS things of that nature, that’s when I learned that I had a passion for helping like I already knew I like to help others but I learned that I really like teaching helping somebody else pick up these skills like you said hey you want to learn this and I think also like leadership skills at that point it’s really understanding how and I think I refined it which helped me later on in my careers that business to tech you know language I thought I was you know we all have they were like oh I’ve been doing this for a while I’ve I’ve taught other people in tech I’ve been able to talk to managers because they were in that same realm but I had students who were just taking college classes, they weren’t doing it for the certification, it was part of their curriculum, who had no idea what a virtual machine was you know with VMware so now having to explain in analogies and I was – like it really humbled me but then I was like oh okay this is a skill that I need to develop I need to be able to be better at communicating and explaining technical technology terms or concepts to someone who doesn’t have that background.

Rhonda Lemke: Yes, yes. And I think about those skills of being able to explain not only to the business like in a help desk role you’re having to translate those technical terms in you know something that someone can understand. Well now you’ve got people with technical aptitude in one area and you know they want to go into another area and so you you know I can open the door it might not even be me teaching them the thing like you were teaching VMware classes you were teaching you know I would be like oh you know hey you’re interested in VMware? Manny would you be willing to spend an hour with Joe to you know explain VMware? Like those are the types of connections that I might make but I will tell you I didn’t think about it until this week there’s teaching there’s technology and sort of you know being a go-between between business leadership and tech and real estate. When you’re guiding someone through the process of buying a home selling a home – like this is contract language that people just kind of glaze over and they’re like just you know – I want to understand what I’m signing and some people will sign blindly. You have to be able to say okay what does this mean in their language so that they can understand what it means for their bottom line, their mortgage payment, their liability, whatever that might be? And so those training skills and translation skills I think have been what have made me successful.

Manuel Martinez: And I love that because I think a lot of times we don’t we don’t – stress that enough or probably we don’t even realize it enough – these transferable skills, these things that we learn through any number of things right – even now like you’re talking about – oh I don’t – remember like looking back you know – it might have been something you encountered 20 years ago that you know in the back of your brain it was like – oh well I experienced something like that you know – back then I didn’t remember I didn’t realize it but that helped me now, or it helped me two years ago and things of that nature.

Rhonda Lemke: A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Manuel Martinez: So then you build out this NOC and you mentioned that from here you kind of ended up going to a couple other places so what was it that made you kind of search for that next role was it hey I’m trying to get to that next level get back to a manager position?

Rhonda Lemke: So I did want to you know, move into a management position, I think I was recovering from the PTSD of teaching, like I literally remember going in the ladies room of the, you know, downtown Chicago building being like, Wow, this is great it’s a big girl bathroom. But anyway so I was recovering from that and then you know after I don’t know it was probably nine months later this woman who I had worked with again at cars.com right she went to Sears.com and she reaches out to me. We need a NOC manager. So I wasn’t looking, I was – yes I was hoping for the next role, but I still felt like I was happy where I was so I was like oh, I have this opportunity but I was scared because the Sears NOC was bigger and – you know what I mean, it was – but that is where I met the best mentor of my entire career, so she reached out to me and then I ended up at Sears.com working for Dennis Foy and Dennis is a marine and this guy was – he was exactly the mentor I needed for my career because he was honest, he was funny, he was tough and he is the one that had to teach me to get comfortable in the uncomfortable which is consulting when you think about it – what is consulting? You are just thrown in the deep end? So anyway I am forever grateful to him.

Manuel Martinez: And what is it – you mentioned you were scared so – scared because obviously it is a bigger environment but you’ve been in you’ve had a long-standing career and I get it at times where was it really being scared or was it more uncomfortable just like because you’re gonna have to stretch and grow?

Rhonda Lemke: I knew that my strength was not my technical skills. I mean the the brilliant people that were working on this knock were literally like one of the guys went I think I think he went to Amazon. Another one of the guys – they built the tool that we used for the NOC – like they had you know what I mean – like built this software, so these were smart people, I knew I wasn’t at their level right so I was intimidated and so that was a technical piece right? I knew I wasn’t going to learn all the things that all of these brilliant people knew so – but I what I brought in was the leadership and the cross-pollination of the skills and things like that right – because when you’re looking at building a NOC you need people process and technology you can’t just have the technology you need, you know, schedules, coordination, you need to understand what are the SLAs that you need to build out, what is the business losing if the shoes are not on the site, you know what I’m saying? So I think that I was scared, I was petrified because I didn’t have those technical skills but they didn’t need me to have technical skills. Leaders that need to log in and do things are not as effective as if they can’t, so the fact I couldn’t help them technically but I understood the concepts technically – you know like if we sat here and talked through – you know – let’s pretend we were talking through an AWS technical issue, and you were whiteboarding, I can totally understand it. I’m not going to be the one to log in, but you need to stay – as a leader you need to stay up so that you can help the team work through the challenges.

Manuel Martinez: As you’re going through and you have to be the person that again coordinates schedules and doing all these things – are these – are you asking a lot of questions to gain a lot of this knowledge? Because you mentioned before like hey I don’t know this I don’t know that. Would you say that one of your strengths is – and you may not have seen it as a strength – is I don’t know, and one of the things that I’ve learned, is that is a big strength for me: Not knowing, but being curious is what really does it for me is you know… and I’ve put a lot of LinkedIn posts of – you know, about this, and it’s like hey, it’s asking better questions that comes with time, it’s not just like man I am fantastic at asking questions, but I am curious to go through and say, Hey, how does this work, how does that work? Was it those types of things, is understanding what they’re doing, or was it understanding what they’re doing and why?

Rhonda Lemke: I think – and that’s a really good question – I think that EQ is super important because you have to be able to read your team and read where they’re frustrated and be able to help them, you know, basically what you’re doing – it’s probably how you are with – as a parent, right? You’re setting them up for opportunities. Okay, so what I’m hearing is you’re having a challenge with a vendor and you’re not getting what you want. Great, let me use my title and talk to their leadership and let’s get this blocker, you know, so it’s kind of – it’s reading the room and even if it’s virtually you know you’re just kind of understanding, you’re watching the Slack messages or you’re watching the emails and you’re like okay let’s stop I can see where the challenge is whether it’s a technical or it’s a process issue or it’s a people issue because you have all three of these challenges so – so when you say asking questions I think it’s first reading the room, always reading the room and knowing where I can help because I don’t want to be a helicopter leader, I don’t need, you know – you let people do what they’re doing, but – I’m there to get rid of the blockers. “Oh, you know, the client doesn’t understand this and I don’t want to step on their toes and tell them that you know their architect is wrong in their technical design.” Okay, tell me more about that. And then they can say well they think that we should go this route and they think we should – you know what I mean traffic should be this or that and then maybe I can whiteboard this right, maybe – I love whiteboarding in person, that’s a lot of fun – but maybe it’s just like, okay, explain it and maybe they can whiteboard it digitally, whatever it is, not a problem, and maybe I have to be the person to tell the client that their baby is ugly in the most gentle way so that they – because sometimes the client leadership isn’t technical enough – they trust their architect right they trust him but you know maybe there’s just a way to do that. So yes, it’s questions, reading the room, all that. Does that help?

Manuel Martinez: It does but reading the room – how did you develop that skill because that’s not – we talk about EQ that is not always an easy skill to pick up and sometimes it can – it’s not like a technical skill

Rhonda Lemke: Yeah, no. Manuel Martinez: right? Like a technical skill, like

Manuel Martinez: okay, I don’t – I’m building out a network, like I can set this up in a lab and I can try and play it around now I can’t set up a lab and develop the skill of reading the room and say all right I need you I need you to interact and pretend that you are having a conflict and let me figure this out. Rhonda Lemke: No, that’s a –

Rhonda Lemke: That’s a really good question.

Manuel Martinez: I’m just curious like because – it’s something that I know it’s taken me time yeah and it’s a lot of reading it’s a lot of, you’re right, you’re watching and – but watching with intent, because that’s one of the things that I had to figure out, it’s – okay, I may not get it, I may not know how to respond but if I can watch situations – and I’ve started to be a lot more observant like if you go out to a restaurant right and just kind of just watch how the servers are interacting, how the person that’s – that’s being there interacting with – what are they doing and just paying attention a lot more is that – were you just naturally observant? Because I was not. I mean I was but not to that level of paying attention at that micro level, like I would see all kinds of things around me but not to that level.

Rhonda Lemke: So all right, a couple of things 1) Some of it is learned experience . Oh, there’s 63 emails going back and forth and people are getting a little snarky, maybe we get on a call you know. People love to like avoid calls but you know what let’s just get on a call and talk through this. So that’s sort of experience right? Because you’re applying you know the tools that people are using and you know maybe it’s Slack messages – over time, you get to know your colleagues, you get – and it’s funny because I wanted to be a psychology major when I was younger you know, and I was like, Oh, what do you want to do in college? Like when I finally got to the college point I was like, I think I want to be a psychologist because I want to help people, but I honestly you know, we all have our family of origin and growing up in you know the south suburbs with an unpredictable mother, you just never knew, so you had to be able to read the room and the moods, because I think I just developed it as a kid and – you know and then the experience kind of built on that, and here’s a little sidebar – so growing up in the south suburbs of Chicago okay, like I remember sitting at dinner one time with some ladies from University of Chicago – of the four of us, only one of them only had one step mom and one step dad, the rest of us had multiple. Now these were leaders at University of Chicago so to give you an idea of, you know, what I mean, like when you kind of grow up in that chaos, you figure out how to survive and how to thrive, does that make sense?

Manuel Martinez: It does because now thinking about it, when it… coming to situations where there was like conflict, like I’m not really conflict averse, but I am very good if people are upset, like to try to kind of calm them down like, hey whoa, like I can – as a kid I didn’t, but it’s things that I learned to like keep my cool, and I was good at diffusing situations or at least I got better at that.

Rhonda Lemke: Were you the middle child?

Manuel Martinez: I am the oldest child.

Rhonda Lemke: Okay.

Manuel Martinez: So that was the thing is – being the oldest is – a lot of times having to go through and – you know it was part of it is, and now that you mention it’s like – some of times I was the one left in charge so I had to kind of break this up and I had to be like, Oh hey hey guys, like, Don’t do this, and like, Hey we gotta – Because the parent – you know like – when mom and dad get home, like, I’m gonna be the one that gets in trouble right? Like even though you guys are the ones that did it, but I was in charge. So I learned to kind of diffuse situations and I’ll tell a funny story, and I don’t know if my siblings ever watch this, but there was one time where they had these big old nerf guns and my younger brother had shot it at my sister who happened to be on the phone and it hit her and I mean these were like big nerf bullets and they were getting ready to fight, I’m like, Oh wait hold on, and you know like diffuse the situation, I was like Oh okay well how do I kind of 1) calm them down and then 2) I was like Oh how do I make it even without making it even? And so I was like oh tell my brother like, All right buddy you got three seconds and I’m gonna shoot you and he ran and I shot him, right? But it wasn’t – like that’s how I defused it because if I have her shoot him back right then they’re gonna kind of go back and forth – Like hey, I got this, I’ll do it, I’ll shoot him like one is kind of fun for me right, but I was good at doing those types of things as the oldest as always having to be the one to kind of diffuse situations.

Rhonda Lemke: Conflict resolution, right. Manuel Martinez: Conflict resolution type of things. I – you know even in the workplace like people would get upset and I’m not like – I try to do my best and never really kind of be that person like I try to keep that even temperament, so to say.

Rhonda Lemke: No, that’s a funny story because I think about the nerf gun – there’s an analogy there for when you’re a director and you have different departments shooting at each other – “Hold on, okay – ” Because people just – I don’t know – One of their basic needs is that everything has to be fair. Life’s not fair, dude. Life’s not fair right? But they do need to feel like somebody is advocating for them and I always did that for my teams, but not in a combative way you know what I mean? But I do think that conflict resolution is a really good skill and if I could tell my younger self don’t take everything so personally this guy’s going off but he’s had a bad day or he’s got something else going on in his life – it’s not about you, Rhonda. And you know so just not not taking it personally and – I’m not a person that avoids conflict like – I think maybe just getting beat up so much as a kid, you know what I mean? You know I had the neighborhood bully – whatever – and I had a big mouth so who’s the target right? And I just think you just learn that – you’re not afraid and I think that – looking back at all of these – like you’re talking about the interviews – I didn’t have the confidence I didn’t think I could do that job, but I wasn’t – I just went in because I was just used to fighting through the anxiety of being scared.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah and similar to you like I wasn’t conflict averse right because again I got beat up and I beat up you know like I fought as a kid right, I was in the 80s, and we did that.

Rhonda Lemke: Yeah, yeah.

Manuel Martinez: But it didn’t – that didn’t make me – like I wasn’t conflict averse but I also didn’t look for conflict – again having been on both sides like I’ve been beat up and I’ve done the beating up, so you’re just kind of like okay, this doesn’t really work in the long term, so you touched on another thing right now is you felt a little unsure or scared about going in but you did it anyway. why? Like what is it? Is it just the fact that you have repeatedly done – and again I read a ton of books – you know, it’s a thing that I enjoy doing, and one of the things that I’ve heard or read repeatedly is do hard things right? Because I’ve seen a lot of people are like, Well, I don’t know I don’t know if I’m qualified I don’t have the technical skills and they just won’t apply you didn’t have them but you did it anyway so what is it that made you continue to go through – like, “Well, I don’t have the skills but I’m gonna do it and see what happens”?

Rhonda Lemke: Well it’s funny you say that because I do see a difference between my generation and this generation and I think because we were thrown into the fire we want to protect the next generation. “Oh, we don’t want them to go through what we went through.” But what we went through kind of made us do hard things in some ways right? I mean you know there’s obviously balance but I just think – I think it was survival like I knew I needed a job. I needed a job and so I just went and pushed through. Not having a job wasn’t an option. Does that make sense? So really it was just it was a matter of survival, and you know it’s kind of – sometimes it’s missing when we protect other people from their own you know – challenges.

Manuel Martinez: Right. So you went over to Sears you met this new mentor so what is it about him – I mean you gave us a little bit about you know – he was funny, he was direct, obviously he came from the military, but what is it that made him such a great mentor and so impactful to you?

Rhonda Lemke: I think I needed someone that was going to be direct and honest and transparent, and he cared, you know what I mean? He cared about my development, he was just – he was a good mentor, and when I say he was funny – like – how old are your kids?

Manuel Martinez: So they are 14 and 16.

Rhonda Lemke: Girls, boys?

Manuel Martinez: Boy’s older and then the girl’s younger.

Rhonda Lemke: Okay. So he once said to me – he was just going off about something – he said – I can lead 50 men to war but I cannot control my teenage daughter. Like this this guy was funny every day, every day, and I’m like that is that’s some funny stuff right there. he was always like – get comfortable in the uncomfortable. Go and do this you know. Like you can do this, or no you’re not going to do this, and we would – I remember us having screaming matches and he was my boss but it was like – I needed someone that was going to tell me why. Someone that was going to tell me you can do this and – you know whBut I thinkat I mean? Someone who was kind of just there to to guide.

Manuel Martinez: And had that mutual respect right? Because it was shouting matches, but again it was just – I wasn’t there so I don’t know, but I’m going to assume it wasn’t out of lack of respect, right? It’s just – “Hey, hey – ” Rhonda Lemke: No, right, right. You were going back and forth – Rhonda Lemke: We were passionate about

Rhonda Lemke: whatever this thing was,

Manuel Martinez: Right. Rhonda Lemke: you know.

Manuel Martinez: But also it sounds like he had – and I’m going to say the big thing is he was very invested in you and your development right to to be able to say, “No you’re not going to do this” or “Yes you are right” and it sounds like even challenge you, right? And that’s what I see there is he was teaching you, but at the same time challenging you, and it sounds like you kind of developed that challenge back. And being able to have the shouting matches – and I’m sure it wasn’t because you wanted your way, but I’m guessing that that was kind of that dynamic.

Rhonda Lemke: Yeah, yeah it was. definitely – we just, yeah we had that, we had that – and every Friday it was hard, I mean these were hard years because you’re – you’re commuting an hour and a half to the job right? Now you’ve got another you know whatever, nine hours – you’re in the office, now you’re commuting in Chicago traffic – I mean those were like tough years right? You’d get to Friday, you were just burnt, toast, you were so tired. And on Friday afternoon it’d be like, you know, two three o’clock, he’d be like, “Thanks for all your efforts this week” and words of affirmation are my love language and I was like, You know what, that made it all worth it. Because no matter what banter we had back and forth, I knew he had my back. I knew he was going to help me, you know, and guide me – and he appreciated the the efforts , so.

Manuel Martinez: And that’s something – I don’t think that’s something that a lot of people probably experience is having somebody that appreciates what you’re doing in a lot of different leadership roles right? And it’s finding – and it sounds like you did it right? You were good at identifying, you were that mentor or that person for other people – and is that something that just came natural, or because, well, people have done it for me, I’m going to do it for others?

Rhonda Lemke: It’s funny you say that because I have repeated so many times expressions that he said in situations because they helped me and I would – I found myself a lot of times saying, “A wise mentor who was a marine once told me…” And then of course for some people, that marine title gave him crud even though he was – he didn’t know this person.

Manuel Martinez: Right. Interesting.

Rhonda Lemke: Yeah. So that – so yes I do think some of it was natural because I saw the talent and I was a teacher but some of it was learned – like if you combine the natural ability with the experience – oh my gosh that’s that’s the recipe right there, right?

Manuel Martinez: So then from Chicago you are – you’ve been at Sears, cars.com, all these different things – what led your tech career over here to Vegas?

Rhonda Lemke: Well so in 2019 it was the polar vortex and it would – at the time, my leader wanted us to all go into the office, downtown Chicago, and it was 80 below, I think that was the air temp was 40 below, and I was like, “I don’t think it’s a good idea, not everyone has a safe car, what if they get you know stalled, it’s not you know – we’ll pay for parking – ” you know – Anyway I got angry, and I remember hearing the expression “Mad people get stuff done”. And I’m filtering the words You know what I mean. Anyway so, I was mad, I was angry, and my husband had been asking me for years, because he would come out here a lot, his parents live out here, they retired out here, and he would come out and he’d be like, “Come on let’s move to Vegas,” I’m like, “I’m not moving to Vegas,” that made me mad, and so then I started applying for roles from Chicago and God open doors because two of the roles – so one was with UNLV and it was like an associate director position – I was so excited about that, but it kind of took – the hiring process took so long. The other was the director of IT for the culinary health fund, and they were – they had a headquarters in Chicago in the suburbs so I could interview there and interview here, and that’s the door the Lord opened for me, and that was – so I came out to Vegas.

Manuel Martinez: That’s interesting. And it is right? It’s usually – there’s something impactful that happens, and at this point I have heard that expression that “Angry people get stuff done”, and it looks like that happened. So you ended up with the culinary position, is that kind of what happened? And you know, what what did you gain there experience-wise in that role?

Rhonda Lemke: So that was really interesting because I think you know when you look back in the building blocks of your career, I had run a help desk, I had run a network operation center – the last job during the polar vortex was a VP of – oh gosh, service management maybe? At the… I can’t remember what the title was, but anyway – it was at a trading company and trading companies are intense let me tell you, because if you have an outage that’s one or two minutes and people lose a lot of money on those trades, forget about it. So they they paid you really well for your stress. But anyway, so I was doing, you know, compliance and audit and you know all the ITSM functions so I had all of those and then I come to the culinary and now I have the help desk, the infrastructure team, the database team, you know, it’s just kind of like wow, okay, this is everything all in one instead of just, you know, having – and it was a smaller environment than some of the others – I’ve done large global companies and smaller companies. And what I learned at the culinary, what I loved about it is there were a lot of women in leadership, a lot. And that was – and the president at the time you know, she was a woman, and I sat at the table being interviewed by all these powerful women who just led these departments and I was like okay, but I had to learn in that role, I had to take all my consulting skills and learn how to negotiate. That was the skill that I now use in real estate because I had to say, “Okay Manny, I know your department really wants this thing built,” and you know, “Sharon your department wants this built, the resources that we have, here’s what I can offer.” And I would have to – with them – and you know sometimes it’s not about – you know it’s sometimes about the title and the politics and who’s got the more power but I had to do it in a way that said, “These are the resources that we have to do the thing.” So that’s what – I think that was the biggest skill that I learned at the culinary.

Manuel Martinez: And it’s interesting that you mentioned that as, like, negotiation because it is a better way to approach it as opposed to – you could have came in there and – you know as the director and said, “This is what we’re going to do,” right? Because you have – it sounds like you had the title or probably the power or the authority right because sometimes –

Rhonda Lemke: No, I didn’t. Manuel Martinez: Oh, no you didnt? It was a very heavily- Manuel Martinez: Manuel: Oh. political environment. So whoever had Manuel Martinez: Okay. the most political capital pretty much got what they wanted. The problem was before I got there the IT team was just burnt toast because they were trying to do everything. They were working all these hours and they just didn’t have the organization. I remember and the other thing I remember learning is okay these people will not complain about the work that they need to do they’ll just burn themselves out and quit right? They – and so I remember having my whole team in my office and doing a big whiteboard of stickies it was just a big you know Kanban board of – okay you know, here’s what’s in the backlog, let’s talk about this, here’s what’s in the backlog, let’s talk about what you’re going to do this week, here’s what you accomplished, let’s you know, yay, have a stand-up and celebrate. So that was a – you can do that with infrastructure folks, it’s not just a development methodology right? So that is what I learned there is that in a heavily political environment you still have to be honest about, These are the finite resources I have now, if you want we can outsource this, if you have budget we can do this a – multitude of ways through people, through vendors, through delaying, you know, it’s kind of like the project management thing – you can’t, but what you have to have the lever of – either time or money or resources, so, anyway.

Manuel Martinez: And how long did it take you to kind of learn that skill in that role and do you think it took – because I mean – I see parallels to different, you know, positions that you’ve had, and just things that you’ve had to encounter and just – Hey, the development, the teaching, like a lot of that, and when I say maybe authority, maybe you didn’t have the authority to you know allocate budget and things of that, but you know in a – from a position standpoint right, there you have the ability to use maybe not authority, I’ll say influence right, maybe you have a little bit more influence, and maybe you don’t have it at the start. The little bit of influence you have is your title, but then you eventually start to kind of build that up so it’s not just the title, but it’s really – it’s Rhonda that has the authority and the influence to kind of negotiate because – it sounds like you didn’t just come in and were like – oh okay – From the get-go, this is how we move. Rhonda Lemke: Yeah, no. But you know, how did you do – How did you kind of build that skill there and you know, did you have people to lean on? Do – you know, were you reaching back out to your mentor, like how do you kind of refine that skill?

Rhonda Lemke: That’s a really good question, I mean I think I was thrown in there and I didn’t know what – I didn’t know right? Usually in the first month you kind of know what you’re working with and I would say within a couple of months I knew I had to come to that leadership meeting with roadmaps, with – you know what I mean? Like month-at-a-time. With my Gantt Chart. Manuel Martinez: With your Gantt Chart at the interview. Yeah, again. Because they could – and then basically the – we’ll call them the swim lanes or whatever – were their departments and they could see – “Okay, I am getting this at that time. If we can move things around, this is just what I’ve put together.” Yeah, I would say that I definitely, I had to navigate a lot of politics because I had to figure out who’s who. You don’t know that this person that runs this department has the most power and is friends with the president, you don’t know that. You just – so you have to figure out the politics, the knowledge, what’s the impact to the business, what’s the impact to the culinary health fund members – they support a hundred thousand lives in this valley – Okay, if I do this thing right – but ultimately in that environment it did come down to the political capital and I had to learn that very early on, I’d say within a couple of months.

Manuel Martinez: And it’s funny that you mention that because I forget that you came from Chicago so even understanding – the culinary here, like a culinary union you know- all those people like you said, they’re supporting the people, it is a lot of politics but there’s a lot of different people you don’t know who’s connected to who within there but it sounds like you were able to use a lot of your project management skills like your observation skills and slowly put all that together, so even though it took some time there’s different areas and different skill sets you’ve built up over time, and I think that’s something that, again kind of going back and looking at this entire theme of kind of the conversation, and just things that I try to impart on people – and it’s not just early in career because there’s a lot of things that I’ve learned later on in my career, it’s just – Hey, all these skill sets, they compound over time. It may not seem like a big deal of you kind of doing your project management, like hey, laying this out, whiteboarding, okay most people will be like, “Well, why whiteboard? What’s the big deal?” But in this point – Okay, it’s not a whiteboard, but you’re putting this out on a board, on a chart, on something, and saying, Hey, hey, look, I know that sometimes we can talk about this all day, but until you see it visually represented, people are like, Oh, oh, I didn’t realize that. So is that – obviously you just have a love for whiteboarding because I still do it, I have one in my office where I’ll just draw stuff out. Rhonda Lemke: I do too.

Manuel Martinez: And is that a skill that by that point you just realized, “This is the way that I’m going to get through to people, is just building that out,”?

Rhonda Lemke: I think for me it’s just always been a necessity of – you know and I’ve also realized that everybody’s brain organizes things differently, so the way my brain organizes things happens to be in like Gantt charts, things like that right? You know Kanban boards whatever it is, but I have to know that if other people don’t organize their brains this way, I have to find multiple ways, and that’s what I learned at Accenture, multiple ways to communicate the same thing in visuals.

Manuel Martinez: Got it, okay.

Rhonda Lemke: I also want to say that I didn’t just go in – like you said how long did it take you – in these negotiations, you also have to have a relationship with people, you have to have some kind of connection and so they know that you’re not in there trying to screw them over, you know what I mean, trying to slight their department, so I made sure you know, Hey do you want to have lunch? Do you want to you know, whatever it might be, relationships. And I think it’s the same thing with real estate. You can’t just say, “Hey do you want to buy a house?” No, you first need to find out, Where are you coming from, what is your what’s your story? And the same thing with the politics in any organization, what’s the story, what’s the history of these politics? Okay, now I need to – because I know now there’s landmines and I need to avoid the landmines, but I want them to know that I’m not there to screw them over.

Manuel Martinez: Right, and I’m not here to step on the landmines on purpose when it serves – you know, me for a benefit of some point.

Rhonda Lemke: Exactly, exactly.

Manuel Martinez: So we’ve touched on a lot of different areas – you know, I know that we could – and I would enjoy nothing more than to sit here with you for four hours and talk about, you know, your entirety of your career, but are there things that we’ve kind of glossed over, things that you think that maybe we didn’t cover that you feel might be important, like a skillset, a job, mentorship, you know, just anything that you feel might be missing?

Rhonda Lemke: I think that when I was thinking about the whole theme of my career and looking back I think that it is really important to advocate for others and have advocates for you. And you know, I kind of told you about a couple of instances where someone approached me about a role, and like those things changed the entire trajectory of my career and I’m going to give you an example that’s not necessarily – it’s tech related, but it started out at Pizza Hut okay? I think I might have told you about this guy. So when I was running that NOC at Sears.com, we could not fill that night shift. That night shift was the least coveted shift and I remember you know, telling my esthetician or whatever, “Hey, if you know of anybody…” She goes, “I’m telling you, my daughter’s boyfriend, he’s a total tech nerd.” And this is a person that doesn’t have, you know, knowledge of the field and I was like, Oh okay, what’s he do? “Well he’s a Pizza Hut manager, but I’m telling you, he’s a tech nerd.” and I’m like, “Sue, I’m not gonna talk to your daughter’s boyfriend. Well months go by, I still haven’t filled this position, my team’s burning out because they’re all plugging in the ships right, she’s like, “I’m telling you, you need to talk to Dave,” and I’m like, “Fine, let me talk to Dave.” So I talked to Dave. Dave the Pizza Hut manager was building Linux servers in his basement. Dave had fantastic not only tech skills, soft skills, and I hired him and he ended up being, you know, one of the leaders of the team. And after I left I think he took over some things. So taking a chance on someone – they might not have the – on paper, you know what I mean? And that leads me up to another person that helped me… yes?

Manuel Martinez: And before you get to that one – I want to go dig a little bit more in on Dave because obviously he’s on his own building up his technical skills; he’s a manager – credit, it’s a manager for a Pizza Hut, but is it the combination – because you said eventually he ended up kind of leading the team – on paper right, if he handed you a resume, you’d be like, “Okay well, managing Pizza Hut’s you know – blah blah – like how do you put those technical skills – ?” But again with you talking to him, you were able to discover the technical skills. He’s a manager at a Pizza Hut but he’s managing people so he knows how to deal with – you know I’m sure you’re getting a wide range – you’re getting high school kids ,you’re getting older people, like you have these wide range of personalities that he has to deal with, so was it that combination that eventually said, man, he has the technical skills, he obviously knows how to deal with people because he’s in a management role – like is that kind of what made you take the chance on him?

Rhonda Lemke: Well no so I – when I talked to him and realized he had these tech skills, I didn’t have the confidence that I could screen his tech skills properly. So I connected him with one of the team leaders and I said, “Hey, I need you to screen this candidate. And he was like, “Oh yeah, this guy’s Linux skills are sharp.” Well I liked his communication, he was very articulate, he liked his tech skills, and he was willing to work those hours? No-brainer. Yeah.

Manuel Martinez: And I love that, the fact that you’re like – never discount somebody, right? So I think a lot of times people – especially now, and the reason I want to touch on this a little bit more is because there’s people that are trying to get into the tech industry right? I get it, right now is a tough industry, but I had a friend of mine, a really good friend, she mentioned at one point she was out of work for five years, starting her business, people can go back, she thinks she’s like episode two or three, and one of the things that she did was kind of develop those tech skills and be able to talk about them and building relationships with other people. And I think that that’s the thing that is extremely beneficial – the relationship building, and then building those technical skills, right? Like okay, I get it, it’s hard to show on paper, and people will say it all the time, like, “Hey, I’m putting in a thousand applications.” Okay, I get it, so is everybody else. But what are you doing to kind of – continuing to develop those skills and develop relationship skills? Would you say that that is a set of skills that they should be working on in parallel?

Rhonda Lemke: 100 percent, 100 percent. And you can’t discount either, right? And as you know, in the last year we have more tools, more AI tools than we had two years ago right? So there are tools that weren’t – didn’t even exist – jobs that didn’t even exist two years ago – you have to be aware, you have to stay on top of those things, but the people skills – that doesn’t change. You have to be able to work with peers, you have to be able to negotiate with people, and you have to be able to articulate to resolve conflict. You just- you have to.

Manuel Martinez: And I know that we started – we started this part of the conversation with advocacy, so obviously your esthtetician she advocated for him multiple times but then you had to advocate for him as well, so if you don’t mind before we get to the other person like – what was that advocacy that you provided for him?

Rhonda Lemke: So all I did was I took the information I had because she had advocated so much and I you know brought him and presented him to my team. And you know so I kind of opened the door and that’s the thing I think at the manager and director level – you have different political capital, you have the authority to open doors for people, and I think that you should do that with your title.

Manuel Martinez: Got it. Okay, sorry I just I wanted to touch a little bit on that before you bring up the the other scenario.

Rhonda Lemke: So, okay – yeah, there’s two scenarios, but I know we’re running short on time.

Manuel Martinez: We’re good.

Rhonda Lemke: Okay, okay. So one one scenario is that when I was at the culinary – now it’s Covid time, and I’ve just moved to Vegas a year before that and I’m like, Wow, you know, we’re grabbing cell phones out of the recycle bin to send them to the providers so they could do telehealth appointments – it was crazy times right? Well then right around then, I think it was 2021, 2022, I had an old boss from cars.com, I hadn’t talked to him in years but we were on LinkedIn, and he reached out and said, “Hey, I know this Director of Cloud Infrastructure position for this healthcare AI company.” And I was like, “I don’t even know how to spell AWS, what are you talking about?” He’s like, “No, no, I’m telling you I know you, I’ve watched your career, I’ve worked with you, and you can figure out the technical.” So I remember literally he advocated for me, that opened up the cloud space for me. Now at my desk at home, I had this huge whiteboard, and every time I heard a new term: EC2, smack. You know what I mean? Like, Lambda, smack, you know. I’d have these – and I’d look up all these terms – eventually I got an AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification and the AI Practitioner or whatever because I believe that you have – to even though I’m not going to log in and do those things, I better understand those things if I’m going to lead my teams. So that’s one of my greater accomplishments. At the same time – so that that company is no longer, but around that same time, I got an MBA and it was like – my mentor – well so I reached out – I don’t know if you know, you know Nadia Hansen who, she was the CIO of Clark County?

Manuel Martinez: Yes, yes.

Rhonda Lemke: I was following her on LinkedIn she’s a dynamo she is so smart she’s on top of the modern technology and I reached out because in infrastructure you just don’t have many women to look up to and I said, “You know what, would you mind mentoring me?” So when the time came that I needed to find my next role and I got my MBA, she gave me some great guidance, she said, “Look, you need to write down your your must-haves in your next role and you need to, you know, basically rank things.” And I was like, “Okay,” and I just I didn’t think that was a thing and once I put it on paper I was like, “Oh,” she goes, “Rhonda, I’m telling you go back to consulting, you got your MBA, go do it.” Well now I have a cloud skill that I can take to consulting and that’s how I ended up in the culmination of all of my roles at Caylent.

Manuel Martinez: The question I have for you there is – I agree with you I’ve seen what Nadia has done and she is the dynamo – that powerhouse that probably attracted you to her based on her career. What gave you the – again, that confidence to go through and say – her specifically, like and reach out – because I’m assuming you – I don’t know if you knew her, had met her, so it’s just through LinkedIn but again – it’s an important question and the reason I’m asking this is because you know, two things: I think a lot of times we think that a mentor has to be somebody that’s been in a career longer than we have, or they have to have something. So what is – I guess that’s a two-part question – what is it specifically, apart from just her having this infrastructure background and being the CIO at Clark County at the time, and then what gave you the confidence to say, “I need to reach out to her and say ‘help me’,”?

Rhonda Lemke: I honestly don’t know. Like I’m putting myself back in when I reached out – again at that point I had nothing to lose, you know and I probably heard it like at a conference or something, like – you know, “reach reach out to people and find your own mentors”. And because here I was mentoring other women and you know other people earlier in their career and I just felt like I wanted to have a female mentor. I didn’t want to just be reading books by female leaders, I wanted to have a female mentor in this space, and she was so dynamic. I just think I had the “I don’t have anything to lose” mentality.

Manuel Martinez: No, that’s awesome. And again, even if you did have something to lose I think it’s still a good thing to kind of pursue. And I tell people I try to tell people again in one-on-ones: Go for it, try it, what’s the worst that can happen is they’re going to say no.

Rhonda Lemke: And I have a quote from one of our recent sales meetings that was really helpful and it’s a life quote, I was like, “Oh my gosh.” “Embarrassment and people pleasing are a prison.” Ooh. I was – I was like wow, is that not true. We all care what everybody else thinks and that’s been a prison my whole life right? Like I don’t want to be embarrassed and do this or that, you know?

Manuel Martinez: And it’s funny, I don’t think I have the embarrassment prison, because I’m okay being a fool. Because I’ve done it all the time right? Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. on purpose. But similar to that, I saw a quote and I live – you know I try to live by this a little bit more – and you would think I’d have it memorized correctly but it’s something to the effect of: “The only way to remove doubt is through action.” You can sit there and doubt, “Would she be my mentor, would she not be my mentor?” And a lot of times that’s what we’d go through. It’s like, well, will this happen, will this not? Like the only way to remove doubt is with action.

Rhonda Lemke: That’s a good one, yeah. Manuel Martinez: So when I see that and I’m like –

Manuel Martinez: anytime I’m doubting something I’m like – ah – well, wait a minute, let me go through and then I’ll know yes, she will mentor me, no she won’t, okay, onto the next person, right? So I – that’s the one I was like – the only way to remove doubt is through action.

Rhonda Lemke: That’s a good one, that’s a really good one.

Manuel Martinez: Well, this has been such a great conversation – actually wait a minute, was there another scenario or –

Rhonda Lemke: I think that that kind of covered it, I mean getting my MBA at 52 years old and being in the position I am now to pivot, you know, at 55 – it’s a scary place, but it’s also kind of a freeing place.

Manuel Martinez: Well and just looking back it sounds like you’ve – I mean you’ve pivoted multiple times, different roles different – I mean you went into teaching for a while, kind of got out, so again I think that’s okay and, you know, you and I have talked a little bit about you know – based on our personalities and us being scanners and having to have challenges and do stuff and I think that’s why – it is scary, I’m not going to say it’s not, or it’s not uncomfortable, but we’re a little bit more willing to kind of pivot and change and do different things. I have seen for me my growth in my career, it has done phenomenal, right? I look back and I was like, “Oh man, like is that going to look bad that every three years-ish I was like switching jobs?” But I wasn’t switching jobs just to switch a job, it’s because well, I have the skill or I want that skill or I’m – again it was to progress. So again, would you say that you had a similar kind of experience in your careers by switching over to different ones? “Yes it was scary, but I learned something new, I then took that and then kind of compounded that or parlayed that onto something else”?

Rhonda Lemke: I mean I think I’ve definitely been – I don’t want to use the word “discriminated” against because of what is perceived as job- hopping, but this one interview, I don’t remember which company it was, they literally had me walk through the changes, and it was like, yeah, an old boss reached out to me here, an old boss reached out to me here, an old colleague reached out to me here, and it wasn’t me necessarily jumping ship but it was a shiny object syndrome because there was something bigger better at the other company that I was able to then grow. So I don’t think I have any any regrets as far as my three-year shelf life. I think it’s fair, and now it’s not like our parents. They stayed in a role for 40, 50 years. My father-in-law retired as an accountant for a law firm in the Sears tower you know what I mean? Like he worked there 42 years, that’s not a thing we do now.We have like three to five careers in our lives. So I’m happy with my path.

Manuel Martinez: This has been awesome. I’m so glad I met you and you know, I know just – even outside of this podcast again the conversation could keep going, just there’s so much in common, there’s so many more questions that I have for you that you know, unfortunately not all the guests are going to be able to hear a lot of that. But hopefully you know, if they run into you and, you know, buy a house or you know, run into you at some point, that you know they’re able to kind of go, “Hey, Rhonda, I have a question for you.” So thank you again so much for sharing your experiences in your career.

Rhonda Lemke: Well thank you for having me on and allowing me to do this kind of reflection, it was a lot of fun.

Manuel Martinez: Thank you. And for everyone who continues to support by watching and listening, thank you, and continue to plug in and download the knowledge and until next time.