63 minute read
FRONT END
WHY A CAREER IN TECH IT careers cut across all industries, and Arkansas makes it easy to find your path to success BY BILL YODER
For too many years, Christina Eichelberger had been stuck in some form of “the call center.” Whether she was phoning customers of State Farm with their claim results, or calling potential car buyers to come in for a test drive, or contacting truck drivers all over the country to help them get the most out of the J.B. Hunt 360 mobile app, she was still at arm’s length from the kind of career she wanted. “When I hit 30,” says Christina, “I said, ‘Something’s gotta give. I need to pick up a skill.’”
She vowed to get into tech by any means necessary. Her first step in that direction was to sign up for a certificate program in front-end development at the University of Arkansas Global Campus. Then, while she was in that course, one of her classmates came in one day talking about his new apprenticeship with Affirma, the business solutions company. “His apprenticeship came with a salary and benefits,” says Christina. “I didn’t know that was a possibility. I thought my options were just internships or entry level. Until then, I hadn’t heard the term apprenticeship in this capacity. When I thought of apprenticeships, I thought of plumbing.”
Christina immediately got in touch with Affirma and went through the interview process with them. “That’s when I found out there was this really great program from the Arkansas Center for Data Sciences—ACDS—that was helping people get into tech here in Arkansas,” says Christina. Soon she, too, was an apprentice for Affirma, learning the SharePoint skill set. When her apprenticeship training is over, she’ll be calling on Affirma’s customers to help them make their businesses more successful. Christina is finally on her path.
THERE’S A LOT more to learn about Registered Apprenticeships, as they’re formally called, and I hope you’ll read ACDS Apprenticeship Director Lonnie Emard’s piece on that subject on page 40. Meanwhile, I want to tell you a little about tech careers in Arkansas and the various routes to get you there.
First of all, you should know that ACDS was formed as a result of Governor Asa Hutchinson’s 2017 Blue Ribbon Commission on “advancing the economic competitiveness of data analytics and computing in Arkansas.” We’re a nonprofit, and our job is to work with our partners—government, education, and corporate Arkansas—to prepare our state’s workforce for well-paying 21st-century careers.
Today, every company is a tech company to one degree or another. J.B. Hunt isn’t a trucking company, it’s a technology company with a focus on logistics. Tyson Foods feeds the world, thanks to their algorithm-driven supply chain on either side of the production line. Walmart is the original data-centric retailer. And orbiting around the big boys is an increasingly wide range of smaller businesses that provide all kinds of tech services to these and other companies. Information Technology is not just the future, it’s the present—even in agriculture, one of our state’s key industries. Last year we profiled an Arkansas farmer in our ACDS newsletter. “You may think that tractor of mine is just a tractor,” he said. “But it’s not—it’s a computer on wheels.”
All of the above is why we at ACDS are working with the folks at Arkansas Times and East Initiative to publish ITArkansas. And why we especially want to get it into the hands of young people who are, or soon will be, entering the working world. We want you to know that you don’t have to wait until you’re 30 to get into the tech world. No matter where you are or what your situation, there’s an IT career just waiting for you—right now.
In Arkansas, we have 10,000 tech jobs to fill and only 700 tech grads a year. That means we have to get creative, and I’m proud to say that ACDS and our partners are thinking outside the proverbial box.
In the past, when companies wanted to hire new people at a professional level, most HR departments insisted on a minimum of a four-year degree. If they couldn’t find the person they were looking for through the usual channels, they turned to an outside staffing firm to fill that unique need. It was slow, and predictable, and it solved one hiring problem at a time for a surprisingly long while. Then Information Technology knocked the business world off its axis, and suddenly the old model wouldn’t cut it anymore. The demand for IT talent is just too great.
So where is all this needed tech talent going to come from? Our answer is, Look around you. Look in the mirror. It can, and will, come from anywhere.
But for that to happen, both potential employers and potential employees must recognize that we’re in a paradigm shift—one that requires us all to view the world with new eyes. Once we open our minds to it, we start to see lots of new channels of potential candidates.
If you’re an employer reading this: Look within your own company. There may be people there with IT aptitude, not to mention deep domain knowledge of your company, who just need to be trained in the technical skills for an IT role. And if you’re a high school graduate wondering how to move forward in this strange new world—or a self-taught computer geek working a side job to support your passion, or a retired military person looking for a new start, or a rural kid confused about your options, or a minority worker feeling marginalized, or even a four-year college grad in a field like sociology or English literature who’s worried about your job prospects—we have good news for you. You don’t need to be a statistics major to have an IT career. You just need the right aptitude.
At ACDS, it’s our mission to be a catalyst for success, and we’ve developed a licensed assessment tool that can be customized for data analytics, or cybersecurity, or software development, or any of the IT occupations. It’s essentially a pass-fail—do you have the potential to learn this stuff, or not? If you do, you can earn while you learn as a Registered Apprentice at one of the 150-and-counting Arkansas employers we work with.
But even if you don’t pass the assessment test, all is not lost. As I write this, some 150,000 Arkansans have filed for unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic, and we at ACDS have been huddling with our state Commerce Department’s Office of Skills Development to figure out how to bring this potential supply of tech labor into the IT funnel. By the time you read this, we will have offered all 150,000 the opportunity to come in and take our assessment test, and our guess is that about 20 percent, or 30,000 people, will want to do that. Of those who take the test, we estimate that some 20 percent will score above the threshold.
For those who score below that mark, we’re going to point them toward a free “pre-apprenticeship.” There’s a catalog of some 20 online courses, and this pre-apprenticeship training will give them the tools to come back and go into an IT apprenticeship.
This is just an example of the many career pathways available to all Arkansans today. Besides the traditional ways into a career, there are now numerous IT boot camps out there to help Arkansans land their dream career, or change careers for a better, more fulfilling fit. For those who take the community college route, we’re working to make sure those 60 IT credits will be accepted when they graduate to a four-year program. We want all Arkansans to be able to enjoy the benefits of an IT career, no matter how they get there.
In this inaugural issue of ITArkansas, you’ll meet and hear from people at the top of the IT game in our state. You’ll learn what they do and how they got where they are. You’ll find out where the jobs are and get a sense of how much they pay. You’ll meet entrepreneurs who opted not to go to Silicon Valley, but instead stayed home and built their own successful tech companies. You’ll read about people using technology to make the world a better place. You’ll learn how to burnish your resumé and how to interview effectively. You’ll get a course in “soft skills” and a life lesson on how to do and be and act once you’re in the working world.
So welcome to ITArkansas. Welcome to your tech career.
WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY… A working glossary for the Digital Age
Remember the Tower of Babel? Tech talk can be a little like that. So to make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s a glossary of terms as defined by the Governor’s Blue-Ribbon Commission on the Economic Competitiveness of Computing and Data Analytics:
TECHNICAL TERMS
ALGORITHMS A step-by-step procedure for performing calculations; generally associated with data processing and automated reasoning. ANALYTICS Everyday tools for exploring data sets, such as queries and text search through discovery of meaningful patterns in data using advanced techniques like machine learning, data visualization, and statistical analysis. BIG DATA Data sets that are both massive and complex. CLOUD COMPUTING Computing resources that are delivered as a service via a network, typically the Internet. DATA LIFE CYCLE Set of processes in an application that transforms raw data into actionable knowledge. It involves collection of raw data, preparation of information, analytics, visualization, and access. DATA MINING Use of computational methods to find desired information in data sets. DATA SCIENCE The extraction of actionable knowledge directly from data through a process of discovery, or hypothesis formation and hypothesis testing. It is the fourth paradigm of science, following experiment, theory, and computational sciences. It refers to the conduct of data analysis as an empirical science, learning directly from data itself. MACHINE LEARNING The use of automated algorithms to find and evaluate patterns in data, enabling predictions that are increasingly accurate. Often referred to as advanced analytics. STRUCTURED DATA Familiar database technology in which data elements are characterized in a specific format. UNSTRUCTURED DATA Data that consists of a vast number of data points that often have multiple form and may or may not be inter-related. VISUAL ANALYTICS Data analysis using visualization techniques, which enable researchers to look for novel patterns in data
SKILL REQUIREMENTS
CODING Code is a set of instructions (or rules) that computers can understand; it might be helpful to think of code as a recipe. People write code, code powers computers, and computers power many everyday objects like phones, watches, microwaves, and cars. Just as people can understand different languages, computers can understand different languages (like Python, C, C++, Perl, Visual Basic, Java, Javascript, Ruby, and PHP, among others) which translate our instructions into binary. There are “low-level” and “high-level” coding languages. Lower-level languages more closely resemble binary code, while higher-level languages are easier to code in. So learning to code is literally like learning a new language (learning to construct sentences, etc.). COMPUTING The process of utilizing computer technology to complete a task. Computing may involve computer hardware and/or software, but must involve some form of a computer system. COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE A rapidly growing multidisciplinary field that uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and solve complex problems, computational science fuses three distinct elements: algorithms (numerical and non-numerical) and modeling and simulation software developed to solve science (e.g., biological, physical, and social), engineering, and humanities problems; computer and information science that develops and optimizes the advanced system hardware, software, networking, and data management components needed to solve computationally demanding problems; and the computing infrastructure that supports both the science and engineering problem-solving and the developmental computer and information science. DATA ANALYSIS Manipulate and analyze data for use in functional or business units. Identify and develop methodologically sound and reproducible approaches for analyzing data sets that are often large and/or messy. DECISION-MAKING Drawing from various information sources, analyze, visualize, and communicate insights regarding what has happened. Create models and software that predict what is going to happen or prescribe what should happen. PROBLEM-FRAMING Frame industry problems as analytical problems and use statistical analysis to solve them. Create the data sets and analytical tools necessary to solve industry problems and/or innovate. STATISTICS A number of approaches, largely based on advanced mathematics, that are used to collect, analyze, and extract information from data sets.
PROMOTING DIVERSITY IN TECH “Stomping the divide” and other worthy missions
The tech industry has worked to diversify its workforce in recent years, but change is slow in coming. As reported in the Diversity in High Tech report published by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, people of color—Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans—comprise about 32 percent of the tech industry. Not surprisingly, the gap is even larger in executive positions, with 83 percent of those roles being held by white workers.
In the face of this disparity, several tech-related organizations have grown up in an effort to attract and support more people of color to the IT community. The following groups provide scholarships, training, and networking resources to help more minorities get their start in the growing tech field.
American Indian Science and Engineering Society
(AISES): A national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the representation of American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, First Nations, and other indigenous peoples of North America in STEM studies and careers. (aises.org)
Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA): An international organization that puts on technology conferences, local chapter events, continuing education and professional development events, academic scholarships, and mentoring and career opportunities for Black IT professionals. BPDA also organizes community outreach programs for students. (bdpa.org)
Black & Brown Founders: Providing Black and Latinx entrepreneurs opportunities to network and learn about startup bootstrapping through online resources and events, Black & Brown Founders aims to “give entrepreneurs knowledge, tools, and cutting-edge tactics to launch startups without relying on venture capital.” (blackandbrownfounders.com)
Black Girls Code: Inspiring young girls from underrepresented communities to code, Black Girls Code pursues its mission of helping to grow the number of women of color working in the tech industry. The organization focuses on bridging this gap by teaching young girls the early skills they need in order to have a head start in programming. (blackgirlscode.com)
Blacks in Technology (BIT): A global networking platform dedicated to “stomping the divide” for Black people in the tech industry, Blacks in Technology outlines industry standards for creating a more diverse workplace. BIT also offers its members access to a network and community of other professionals with opportunities for men-
torship. (blacksintechnology.net)
CODE2040: A nonprofit organization dedicated to activating, connecting, and mobilizing the largest racial equity community in tech, Code2040 stages events, provides training and early-career programs, and promotes knowledge- sharing to ensure that Black and Latinx technologists have the tools and network to enable racial equity throughout the tech industry. (code2040.org)
DigitalUndivided (DID): Focuses on fostering more inclusivity in entrepreneurship by empowering Black and Latinx women entrepreneurs. It sponsors an eight-week virtual accelerator program, plus various other programs, initiatives, and research to uplift Black and Latinx female founders in tech. (digitalundivided.com)
National Action Council for Minorities in
Engineering (NACME): A professional organization for under-represented minorities working in engineering and STEM roles, NACME provides college scholarships, resources, and opportunities for individuals of color interested in pursuing a degree in STEM. (nacme.org)
National Society of Black Engineers
(NSBE): A student-governed organization with 500 chapters and nearly 16,000 active members, the nonprofit NSBE is comprised of collegiate and pre-collegiate students and technical professionals in engineering and technology who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community. (nsbe.org)
Society of Hispanic Professional Engi-
neers (SHPE): Started in a garage in 1974 by a group of Hispanic engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers has grown into a nationwide professional association boasting more than 11,000 members and 375 college and university chapters. (shpe.org) Governor Asa Hutchinson and ACDS staffers at the opening of the Newport Tech Depot.
TOM RACEK
NEWPORT TECH DEPOT All aboard for an IT career
If you think tech only happens in big cities, think again. Better yet, take a ride up to Newport, Arkansas, population 7695 as of 2018. Located on the White River 84 miles northeast of Little Rock, Newport, is an experiment in renewal, repurposing, reinventing—choose the “re-” you like best. They all fit.
The center of this grand experiment is the historic Iron Mountain Train Depot in downtown Newport. For decades, this classic 19th century building hosted the comings and goings of travelers on the Iron Mountain Railroad, but today it’s the departure point for Arkansans journeying toward careers in Information Technology.
Officially opened on September 16 to speeches from such state dignitaries as Governor Asa Hutchinson, Secretary of Commerce Mike Preston, and First Orion CEO and Arkansas Center for Data Sciences Chairman Charles Morgan, the newly named Tech Depot is the result of a joint partnership of ACDS, Arkansas State University-Newport, and the Newport Economic Development Commission. “Tech Depot will offer IT training for individuals who are employed as apprentices to Arkansas companies,” says Bill Yoder, ACDS executive director. “ACDS will manage the Tech Depot and will take the lead in matching companies to apprentices and selecting training providers for a variety of information technology skills. Courses will be offered in General IT Skills, Data Analysis, Cybersecurity, and Software Development. More subject areas will be added over the next two years to meet industry demand.”
Arkansas State University-Newport (ASU-Newport) is the educational content provider for the initial IT Generalist class that started on September 28, 2020. “Going forward,” says Yoder, “ACDS will contract with educational service providers to offer industry-specific instructional content. We at ACDS are very excited about our partnership with ASU-Newport and the Newport Economic Development Commission. Each of the partners brings significant resources that will make this project a model for the future of IT training in Arkansas.”
TECH BUZZWORDS FOR 2021 Three strategic business/tech trends you’ll be hearing more about
As companies look to gain market share and grow revenue despite the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, global research and advisory firm Gartner has identified its top strategic trends in business tech, the technologies destined to dominate the business landscape. Leading the list:
1. Internet of Behaviors A term coined in 2020, “Internet of Behaviors” (IoB) refers to the way organizations leverage technology to monitor and influence behavior. An example would be health insurance companies monitoring a policy holder’s fitness bands to track food intake and trips to the gym, and adjusting insurance premiums up or down, accordingly. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2025, more than half of the world’s population will be subject to at least one IoB program. 2. Cybersecurity Mesh Cybersecurity mesh technology enables people to access any digital asset securely, no matter where the asset is, or where the person is located. It’s the boldest move yet to redefine a secure environment from within the structure of an organization to follow an individual anywhere they go outside the organization. With the growing number of Cloud and remote employees, cybersecurity mesh will become increasingly indispensable, Gartner predicts, supporting more than half of digital access control requests by 2025. 3. Total Experience (TX) In any customer-company interaction, multiple experiences are taking place at the same time. But for many organizations, the efforts to provide a good employee experience, user experience, and customer experience happen independently of one another, so they don’t always come together smoothly. Total Experience (TX) integrates these experiences, resulting in improved overall delivery of services and increased satisfaction by all parties. Gartner expects organizations that provide a TX to outperform competitors across key satisfaction metrics over the next three years.
STATISTICIAN HUMOR Who knew that statisticians were having all this fun?
Two statisticians were traveling in an airplane from LA to New York. About an hour into the flight, the pilot announced that they had lost an engine, but don’t worry, there are three left. However, instead of five hours it would take seven hours to get to New York.
A little later, he announced that a second engine failed, and they still had two left, but it would take 10 hours to get to New York.
Somewhat later, the pilot again came on the intercom and announced that a third engine had died. Never fear, he announced, because the plane could fly on a single engine. However, it would now take 18 hours to get to New York.
At this point, one statistician turned to the other and said, “Gee, I hope we don’t lose that last engine, or we’ll be up here forever!”
Patient: “Will I survive this risky operation?”
Surgeon: “Yes, I’m absolutely sure you’ll survive the operation.”
Patient: “How can you be so sure?”
Surgeon: “Nine out of 10 patients die in this operation, and yesterday my ninth patient died.”
Three statisticians went out hunting and came across a large deer. The first statistician fired, but missed by a meter to the left. The second statistician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third statistician didn’t fire, but shouted in triumph, “On the average we got it!”
Question: What’s the difference between an introverted data analyst and an extroverted one?
Answer: The extrovert stares at YOUR shoes.
(With thanks to the cut-ups at https://www.analyticsvidhya. com/blog/2015/12/hilarious-jokes-videos-statistics-data-science/.) THE HOT FIELD All the conditions are right to make cybersecurity a growth industry
Cyber criminals are finding more targets than ever for their nefarious purposes, and they have the global pandemic to thank for it. According to Accenture’s 2020 Cyber Threatscape Report, waves of employees working from home have been easy pickings for hackers aiming to either infect businesses with ransomware or to steal company data. Worse, this activity is expected to continue long before it subsides.
“Threat actor profits [are] likely to increase as a result of targets’ weakened security and remote working, enabling threat actors [to] innovate and invest in even more advanced ransomware [in 2021],” the report reads.
The situation is having a direct impact on companies’ immediate cybersecurity strategies. Global research entity Gartner noted that 61 percent of nearly 2000 CIOs surveyed in October said they plan to spend more in cyber/IT security in the coming year. In fact, companies will spend more to defend themselves than they will to generate new revenue via business intelligence, data analytics, or Cloud services.
Here are some specific threats that experts say to expect in 2021:
More attacks on healthcare systems: With countries around the world hunting for a COVID vaccine, expect more nation-state attacks leveraging ransomware, as well as an increase in Cloudbased ransomware attacks exploiting more work-at-home people.
Over-permissioned identities causing more attacks in
the Cloud: Cloud infrastructure and applications will remain plum targets for criminals in 2021, as attackers leverage remote workers who’ve been granted more access than their specific job responsibilities call for.
Growth of insider threats and accidents: Experts predict accidents and internal bad actors will inevitably increase due to companies’ playing fast and loose with access-level protocols, giving employees more reach into systems than they actually need.
Rampant ransomware: If 2020 is any indication, ransomware will continue to be a profitable technique of choice for hackers. According to Accenture, the average ransom payment grew 60 percent between the first and second quarters of 2020; it’s now in excess of $178,000.
TECH FOR GOOD How Heifer International uses technology to profit mankind
Little Rock-based Heifer International began 76 years ago with a simple two-part idea: to distribute animals, along with agricultural and values-based training, to needy families around the world as a way of helping them reach self-sufficiency. Recipients agree to then pass on the gift by donating the first female offspring of their livestock to another impoverished family in their community, as well as to share their skills and knowledge of animal husbandry and agricultural training. Heifer International was launched in 1944 with a shipment of 17 heifers to Puerto Rico, and since that initial gift it has distributed livestock, along with training and other resources, to more than 35 million families in more than 125 countries.
Such farflung projects are comprised of thousands of moving parts, and over the past decade that work has been helped along considerably by emerging technologies. ITArkansas sat down with Jesús Pizarro, one of four members of the experimental “Heifer Lab,” to hear how this international nonprofit uses cutting-edge technology to make the world a better place.
Q: What’s the mission of Heifer International?
At Heifer, we are an international NGO and our mission is to end hunger and poverty while taking care of the Earth. We are 76 years old, so we’re older than the U.N. By the way, the first project of Heifer was in my home country, Puerto Rico.
Right now, we’re working in 21 countries, including the United States, and all of our work focuses on sustainable agricultural development.
Q: Why agriculture?
Food is central to life. But many people don’t know where their food actually comes from. Normally, when you go to the grocery store, you know, “Okay, I buy this from Kraft, or I buy this from Hershey.” And maybe you trust the store where you shop, but many companies don’t know where the food they sell actually comes from.
The truth is, 70 percent of the food that we consume is produced by small-scale farmers. These small-scale farmers are vital to our food and farming system, but often remain invisible within it. Many are not paid fair prices for the products they produce, and, as a result, are forced to live in poverty.
Our mission is to support small-scale farmers to build food and farming businesses that are both environmentally and economically sustainable. Strong and successful communities are at the very center, which are built through developing social capital.
Through our country teams, Heifer provides assets such as seeds, plants, and animals. We then work with the people in the community as they build and scale their businesses that enable them to reach a living income. So, we are looking to impact the economy, the environment, and the social capital of a community in a positive way. Q: So how does technology come into this?
In the last 10 years, under our CEO, Pierre Ferrari, we have emphasized the use of technology. My focus is Heifer Lab, which was created to identify emerging technologies that we can use in our projects to accelerate our mission. In the Lab we identify technology, do quick tests, and then try to incorporate that into our programs.
For example, I’m working with blockchain technology, because blockchain has the potential to solve the problem of food traceability, so you as a consumer will know where your food comes from. Not only that, you will also know if your food comes from an ethical value chain. An ethical value chain is a supply chain that creates a positive impact on the environment, a positive impact on the economy, and a positive impact on society in a different place of the value chain or the supply chain.
At Heifer, we say, “You don’t vote only every four years. You vote with your money every time you buy something.” What you buy, where you buy, everything is a political decision, and what we want is for the consumer, the decision-maker, to also be invested in this. We want every actor in the value chain to have the right information to make sure they’re supporting a value chain that is not taking advantage of people living in poverty.
Q: Tell me about some other tech projects the Heifer Lab is working on.
Some of my colleagues are working with renewable energy, with solar, with water purification systems, with applicational GIS. We have two projects that are using Watson for Agriculture. I don’t know if you remember when IBM
developed Watson, and for the first time a machine beat a man playing chess. This technology is now being used to support farmers to make informed decisions on their farms.
Right now, we have a pilot project in Honduras using Watson for Agriculture, and we are using drones for multiple purposes. Drones enable us to take the geographic position of the farm and gather information about shade.
Growing cacao, for chocolate, depends on how a farmer manages shade. In order to increase productivity of cacao, it’s important to have trees that provide shade to the cacao tree. The drones are used to take pictures of the farms, uploading the data so our technical experts can support farmers in the design of their farms. So right now, as we are speaking, the Shadow Motion Capture Systems and the IBM Watson are providing detailed information about soil, about the condition of the trees, about weather conditions.
For agriculture, Watson provides forecasting for the next seven months. So, we’re using predictive analytics, forecasting information, for the planning of the management of the farm or plantation. And this is one example of how technology is helping us achieve our mission. Thanks to technology, farmers have better design, better management, and they can reduce operational costs. If they’re planning to spread seeds or fertilizer and Watson says heavy rain or strong winds are coming, the farmers know this is not the moment to do it, as they will lose their investment.
Q: What kinds of tech people do you look for at Heifer International?
Well, as you know, we are a nonprofit and our resources are limited—there are just four of us in the Heifer Lab team at the moment. But for tech people who want to do good things, Heifer International offers a lot of opportunity, both in headquarters and out in the field.
We in the Heifer Lab don’t oversee all the technology that we are using. For example, in some projects our teams are using digital marketing platforms for local markets. In Honduras they have local applications that provide technical assistance to farmers, so they are using different technology.
Again, the purpose of the Heifer Lab is to identify technologies that we can scale—addressing, for example, the issue of water, the issue of solar, and I’ve already told you about blockchain technology in agricultural projects that go to the international market. That is what we are working on right now with coffee and cocoa, and we are about to start working with grains, because these are products that Malawi can export.
Q: What does the Heifer Lab look like?
We have aquaponics, botany, and solar testing at the Heifer Campus in Little Rock, but this is not the only place we do testing.
We partner with universities, and in Honduras, for example, we have an office at the National Agricultural University of Honduras in Catacamas. Inside the University, we have an office, and we work with the University to train and also to test new technology and to identify the better type of seed for the local context. Also, we are working with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s IOST lab (Internet of Science Things) for sensors in aquaponics. As I say, the culture of the lab is to identify emerging technologies and to do a quick test of these emerging technologies, and this can be here in Arkansas but also in Honduras, in Malawi, and the other countries where we have projects.
Q: What is your own tech background?
I am a CPA with a master’s in management information systems and digital currency. So, the area I focus on is blockchain and financial inclusion, but we’re also working with digital currency as a way to facilitate e-commerce with finance.
On our team we have different backgrounds. My colleague David Gill is a physicist and technologist who attended Georgia Tech and graduated from Hendrix; Elizabeth Magombo Kabaghe has a master’s in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Malawi; and Micah McLain is an MBA from Georgia Tech. Our colleagues in Honduras specialize in agronomics and computer science.
At Heifer, it’s important to have what we call an inclusive stakeholder approach. If you go to Haiti, you’ll see that our employees are from Haiti, and if you go to Honduras, our employees are Honduran. Because we must take into consideration the local context, the local point of view.
Q: In closing, what advice would you give to young people just starting on their career path?
I would say, first, that I believe the future is going to be digital, and the pandemic is going to accelerate that. But we need to make sure that this digital future is not only about financial profit. It needs to also be about a positive impact on the environment, a positive impact on our communities. In every professional field, in every kind of work, that is going to be relevant.
And I believe and I hope that every person, and every company, is moving in that direction. If we don’t do it, our grandchildren are not going to enjoy the planet as we know it. I was born in 1970. From 1972 to 2015, we have lost more than 56 percent of the animal species. We’ve lost more than half of our animal diversity over the last 50 years.
So the situation is critical. And the new generation doesn’t have a choice but to solve this problem. Technology will help.
Jesús Pizarro, center, with his daughter, Mila, and a Heifer International volunteer in Puerto Rico in 2019 for the 75th anniversary of the first Heifer project.
THE FACES OF TECHNOLOGY IN ARKANSAS TODAY Look familiar, don't they?
BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON
In the past when people imagined careers in technology, they likely conjured up images of jobs requiring long hours at a computer screen held by introverts who started writing code in third grade—geeks who could construct a robot out of stray parts in their garage. Not only that, but to land such jobs required majoring in engineering or Information Technology in college and then packing up for either coast, leaving states like Arkansas behind.
But as any of today’s tech professionals will tell you, those days are long gone, if they ever really existed. Over the past decade or so, the IT world has been radically transformed to include people of many backgrounds and skill sets. In fact, a good chunk of the growth in tech industry careers are jobs that aren’t even technology based. Sure, there will always be room—and a need—for people who can write code, engineer product infrastructure, or design a platform. But a technology background is just one part of the picture in tech jobs today.
Not only have the required knowledge base and skill sets changed, but the workplace itself has been irreversibly altered, making one’s place of residence all but irrelevant. In tech, the trend toward working remotely has grown steadily for years, but 2020’s coronavirus has shifted that trend into overdrive. Most industry watchers predict that the tech workplace will never completely return to pre-COVID-19 configuration. That means living outside a traditional technology hub is no longer the career impediment it once was.
Not to mention—as local experts are quick to point out—that a growing number of tech companies are choosing to operate outside of Silicon Valley, New York, Austin, and other techheavy addresses due to a lower cost of doing business and a higher quality of life. This is creating thousands of tech careers in places people don’t expect, and Arkansas is a prime example.
As the 13 professionals on the following pages demonstrate, there’s a lot of tech activity going on in The Natural State. These people come from different backgrounds, have various educational histories, and work in companies all across the state. What they all have in common are rewarding and challenging IT careers right here in Arkansas.
Artie Keith | Software Engineer Teslar Software, Springdale
AFTER THREE AND a half years in the banking industry, Artie Keith decided the time had come for a new challenge. Having dabbled in programming growing up, he saw tech as the answer.
“In high school, I had taken Programming I and Programming II—at that time, that was primarily Visual Basic,” he says. “Through the years, I found myself always coming back to tutorials such as Udemy Online. When I finally decided that I was looking for something new, I was still pretty much at square one. Then I got hooked up with the University of Arkansas’ IT Readiness Program at the global campus in Rogers. That’s where I started getting serious.”
The intensive seven-month program confirmed his decision to change careers. Today Keith is a software engineer with Teslar, a software company specializing in financial institutions. In his role, he maintains existing products, works trouble tickets, fixes bugs, and writes new features. “We get assigned projects where we’re given the end goal and some of the things that need to happen in between. The rest is up to us as a team to enact that,” he says. “That involves writing user interfaces and writing back-end code to handle all the interactions. It also involves making sure we have all of the database connections correct and getting all of the tables set. And then actually writing to and calling from those tables to use them for whatever our particular project might be.
“Our projects range from fast, one-week timelines to some that take six months. They don’t necessarily get touched every single day. Every day is a little bit different, which is great and something I enjoy.”
Keith says that while technical skills are obviously important in a tech career, they aren’t the only skill set that’s required, especially when one considers the tools that are available to people without a heavy tech background. “A lot of people bring up things like ones and zeros,” he says, “but in all honesty, while that stuff helps, in the software world you can write a lot of code with the help of different products. These tools handle all of the ones and zeros for you through a coding editor. So, as long as you have an idea of the big picture, you can do a lot of very productive stuff without having to do ‘nerd type.’”
Keith says level-headedness and the ability to stay cool under pressure are other critical attributes for today’s tech worker, regardless of their technical training. “There are moments when you’re just rowing your little boat out in the calm ocean and you’re making progress as you move along,” he says. “And then a crazy panic storm hits and you have these tense moments where you’re trying to fix something as quickly as you possibly can without interrupting someone else’s day or making the problem even worse. That’s real. That exists.
“I think other undersold skill sets are great communication and an eye for detail. It’s important to have the ability to remove yourself from the project temporarily and see the big picture, instead of having blinders on and seeing only this one little piece that you’re working on. Those kinds of people really excel, and they excel quickly.”
Marla Johnson | CEO/Co-founder LeapXL, Little Rock
FROM EARLY FORAYS into broadcast technology and video game design to co-founding Arkansas’s most successful ISP company, Aristotle, Marla Johnson has done a little bit of everything in the technology space. Her latest venture, LeapXL, seeks to change the game again.
“We are bringing no-code technology to financial institutions,” she says. “Our technology allows you to connect easily to multiple data sources and then mesh it on a no-code application development platform into all kinds of dashboards, reports, workflow applications, and prototypes. It’s very powerful, very fast, really fun, and easy to do. It takes about two hours of training and then you can basically build applications and launch them. It’s super-cool.”
LeapXL’s product leverages what Johnson says is a primary trend in the technology industry, the move toward no-code products that can be run by anyone, regardless of technical background. “There are a lot of studies out there indicating that by 2024, over 60 percent of all new application development will be done on a low-code or no-code application development platform,” she says. “We’re still small. We are a startup, but we are well on our way to being a multimillion-dollar company on this technology.”
Johnson’s father sold mainframe computers, one of her brothers is a rocket scientist, and her mother was a teacher, so she grew up with an inquisitive mind and a comfort level about technology that few of her female peers had. Later, when she turned her career from broadcast journalism to tech, she was the only woman in the marketplace heading a technology company.
Nevertheless, she found pockets of support and ready mentors, something she credits to being located in Arkansas versus elsewhere. “I found people who were immensely helpful and supportive,” she says. “In fact, I was just on the phone with somebody today who said, ‘I want to help you because you’re not a guy. I want to help you because you’re a female CEO.’ I found in Little Rock that there are a lot of women who want to help, and also men. I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who are technical who don’t feel like they have to show that off.”
As the new generation of technology continues to unfold, Johnson says people of all backgrounds wanting a tech career should consider Arkansas first.
“If you want to be that worker bee with your head down while you’re developing and coding, and you want to do it for a giant company, you may want to go elsewhere,” she says. “But the world will never be the same now that we have COVID; there are a whole lot of tech people working from home, from any location, so your location is a lot less important than it’s ever been.
“Technology just means ‘tool.’ You develop technology tools people need in order to solve their problems, and that’s incredibly broad. You may be shocked at the number of tech companies here in marketing technology, supply chain logistics, and any number of industries. You can find really great opportunities in Arkansas.”
Adam Holland Director of Security Infrastructure and Insider Trust GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Bentonville
AT EACH STAGE of his professional life, Adam Holland has blazed a trail for the people that followed. But for all the new ground and unexpected turns his career has taken, his role as a protector has remained unchanged.
“I actually got my start many years ago, when I was a police officer in Fort Smith,” he says. “It was when computers were beginning to become more readily accessible to the general public and we were starting to see crimes facilitated through computers, especially the targeting of children for child exploitation. "I started the department’s first Computer Forensics Unit. We built that out into a lab and we were certified and picked up by multiple federal agencies and task forces and started doing cases in the tri-state area.”
After leaving law enforcement, Holland worked as a consultant and eventually found himself at Walmart. While there, he was able to finish his college degree and develop his computer forensics training into expertise in cybersecurity that he uses daily in his current role at GSK, the global healthcare company. “As an investigator, I saw how technology can become weaponized instead of used appropriately,” he says. “Now in the private sector and retail, I can look with a lot of different lenses at the problems we face, whether it’s architecture and deployments or protections, since I’ve spent most of my career in computer security and cybersecurity.”
Holland says that where once it was unusual for someone to get into the field of cybersecurity from another field, such is not the case now. In fact, he says, many people find it easier to enter cybersecurity after earning work experience elsewhere. “There was a time where you were a ‘computer expert,’ because the field was very small,” he says. “Fast-forward to the present day and you’re building your expertise in certain technology disciplines or areas of interest. You’re no longer forced to fit into a very small, specific path. A technology career is more built around your interests and specialties.”
Another trail that Holland blazed has been helping attract and create opportunities for people of color within the technology field. “There’s been a huge shift,” he says. “One, there’s a huge deficit in applicants for open roles in technology, period, and especially in the cybersecurity roles. So the industry is starved for talent.
“But the industry is also in a constant state of scramble to deliver what consumers want in technology, and persons who have different ethnic and cultural backgrounds play a role in driving it. A company can’t figure that all out on its own; it needs people to come in and help ensure they’re seeing everything and taking in all different angles. That said, there’s still a huge need to attract other ethnicity, gender backgrounds, even age into the field. That’s definitely something that we still need to work on.”
TRUE NORTH
Sarah Daigle | Technical Program Manager Cognizant Technologies, Bentonville
TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS DON'T work in a vacuum; they are most often part of teams collaborating on a project together. Keeping these teams on task and working smoothly is the job of Sarah Daigle, who in her role with Cognizant Technologies acts something like a movie director keeping all the parts spinning in unison.
Cognizant applies cutting-edge technology to digitize business systems and processes. “My day really is spent leading 13 small tech teams, mostly engineers,” she says. “We’re trying to build enterprise off of big pieces of Cloud software. I’m planning which features need to go into this application to be meaningful, and I spend my day thinking about how we should build that feature, and if we should build that feature, and if we do, will it be popular? That’s the fun, conceptual part of the work.
“The technical part is, which team is going to take pieces A, B, C, or D, and what decisions or integrations do we have to make with it? If we add these buttons, what does it connect to, who does it talk to, and who needs to know, from a communications perspective, that we’re going to add this thing?”
Growing up in Canada, Daigle started life wanting to be a high school teacher, but a new tech course in college caught her eye instead. “It was nine months where you got a taste of everything—databases, networking, programming,” she says. “Some U.S. for-profit schools were advisers to the program. They said, ‘We’ll hire your top students. Get a graduate degree with a B or greater and we’ll put them at one of our five schools in the U.S.’ So I enrolled in this program, and it was the perfect mix of my math and education desires. I fell in love with the job of program language.”
Since coming to the U.S., Daigle has worked with a wide range of fellow professionals. She says it’s a field that’s broad enough for all skill sets, so it takes some time to distill these jobs down to find a perfect match. “You have to know thyself, as the saying goes,” she says. “What is it that drives you and what is your goal? If you are a very introverted, high-techminded person with these product visions and you don’t want to manage people or be on a boisterous team, there is a path for you. You could become an extraordinary engineer or architect.
“I made a choice to lead people and product and create the vision. I was a mediocre software engineer, but I was excellent with people. Being a manager who has tech experience on a tech team does bring something. It’s not required, but it is helpful because I do understand a little bit more of their lingo and how troublesome it is to build something if you don’t have a road map.”
Chris Wright | Founder Sullivan Wright Technologies, Little Rock
CHRIS WRIGHT STARTED his professional journey in the United States Air Force, where he had set his mind on becoming a military pilot. He excelled in the USAF program, eventually landing in the selective Navy flight school. Once there, he made a startling discovery.
“There’s a lot of hype and coolness to flight school—that Top Gun aspect,” he says. “But I realized quickly that that wasn’t the path I wanted to go. I transferred back into the career field the Air Force called ‘communications’ at the time. It was basically the technical side of all that: IT, radios, navigational lights for aircraft, satellite communications.”
Wright was also introduced to cybersecurity, and from the start, he knew he’d found his calling. He subsequently held cybersecurity positions during the remainder of his military service, and later in the USAF reserves and within the private sector. Eventually, he went out on his own to launch cybersecurity companies, including his current venture, Sullivan Wright Technologies.
To be successful in the field of cybersecurity, says Wright, you must first develop an aptitude in other areas of IT and technology. “Whenever anybody asks me what kind of degree program or education program to go into for cybersecurity,” he says, “I always warn them against some of these that are called ‘cybersecurity’ but don’t have good computer science or computer engineering underpinnings to it. I like to look at the bigger sphere of technology. There are three bubbles in it: You’ve got the software development bubble, you’ve got the IT bubble, and you’ve got the cybersecurity bubble. Those cross in different areas and in different amounts, depending on how you look at certain circumstances. It does help you to be a better IT person and a better cybersecurity person if you can at least do some software development.”
At the same time, what makes a successful cybersecurity professional isn’t just technical expertise. “Really, the big thing I’m looking for besides technical aptitude is curiosity,” says Wright. “You have to be able to go out and learn on your own. In the military, the joke was that if the Army wanted us to have that, they would have issued it to us.
“But that doesn’t describe my military career at all. It was all about going out and learning on my own. There are so many ways to do that in cybersecurity. If you’ve got a computer, you can do most of the things that we do in cybersecurity in a controlled environment—your house—that’s not going to get you arrested. Going through training programs, watching YouTube videos, reading websites and books—you have to be willing to go and find it and toy with it.”
Stacy James Lead Executive of Enterprise Data Management and Business Solutions Center Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Little Rock
WITH A NEARLY 30-year career at the same company— and in the male-dominated technology field to boot—Stacy James is something of a unicorn. Graduating from the University of Arkansas at a time when only about 20 percent of tech students were women, she came directly to Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield as an entry-level programmer.
Almost three decades later, she leads a department of around 120 tech workers and is responsible for the company’s enterprise data governance, enterprise architecture, third-party risk management, and IT asset management, among other important responsibilities. Not bad for someone who was originally planning to be an accountant.
“As a student, I had an interest in everything,” says James, who grew up in Fort Smith. “But when I got into high school, I took an accounting class. I’m quite a detailed, linear, analytical person, and accounting seemed very black and white. I really liked it.”
But when she got to college, one of her courses was in computers. And with the help of an invested professor, she discovered to her surprise that she had an aptitude for technology. “I took my first class and I was like, I really like this,” she says. “My detailed, analytical, linear traits were applicable to the field. That’s how I got involved with programming.”
After an internship with nearby trucking giant J.B. Hunt, James joined Blue Cross and Blue Shield and never looked back. She says her advice to young people today is to keep their minds and options open when it comes to both education and career. “You don’t have to decide immediately when you go into school what you want to major in,” she says. “At least the first year, take classes you’re interested in. For me, I had accounting and an introductory computer class and that computer class changed my mind as to what direction my studies were going to head in.
“I’d also mention to get involved in different activities around campus, whether it’s related to your major or not. I was president of what was then our data processing management association. Getting involved in different activities related to your area of study is really helpful; it helps resumé-building as well as gets you some different experiences.”
James also says that an attitude of lifelong learning is vital to a long career, especially in technology. “In 2011, I had been in the same department for 14 years. I needed and wanted a change,” she says. “At that point I went into project management and got out of IT for four years. That was a very positive move for me. It got me out of the technical world and opened my eyes to every aspect of the health insurance business. With project management, you have to have very good communication skills, planning skills, and organizing skills, and that’s what I honed during that time. That prepared me for the role that I’m in today. I definitely think any type of leadership or communication skills that a tech person can develop just makes them more valuable.”
“If I could go back and redo my college education, I would take a bunch of classes on logic.” THE LONG WAY HOME
Hannah Baum | Programmer Hytrol, Jonesboro
DURING COLLEGE, HANNAH Baum did seemingly everything but target a career in tech. Despite having a father who was a programmer, the Kansas City, Missouri, native started her post-secondary work with an eye on health care. After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology, she bounced around from one graduate health program to another, each time coming to the same conclusion.
“I did a semester at medical school,” she says. “Then I took a year off because it wasn’t working so hot. I came back and after a week I quit. I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ I decided I’m going to go into psychology; I quit before it actually started. I did a year of a nursing program and I realized I hated it even more than medical school, so I quit.”
Recalling her childhood interest in programming, honed at her father’s elbow, she decided to give tech a try. Living in Arkansas by then, she landed an internship with Hytrol, a Jonesboro manufacturer of conveyors and other inventory handling systems. “I was an intern for a summer and helped implement a new system that dealt in human capital management,” she says. “They went from an all-paper-based system to all-digital and I was the person who really helped move everything to the digital system and teach everyone how to use it.
“Since that went well, my supervisor was like, ‘I’m going to hire you.’ That was a really great day for me because I don’t have a computer science degree, right? I think that’s one reason I really, really like this field. A lot of times you can’t get a job unless you have a degree. Here, it’s more about how competent and capable you are, rather than your credentials.”
What Baum lacked in a diploma (she’s since started work on a computer science degree) she more than made up for in other areas. She says that one of the lesser-known facts about a tech career is the weight that communication and customer service skills carry in many positions. “Being able to communicate with other people, and enjoy it, really helps,” she says. “If you can actually sit down with people and explain things and be more of a collaborator instead of us-versus-them, their-department-versus-my-department, things run so much smoother.”
Baum advises the next generation to think similarly outside the box when it comes to skills development for a career in the technology field. “If I could go back and redo my college education, I would take a bunch of classes on logic,” she says. “I think that’s so helpful because whether you’re coding or designing something, logic is very, very helpful. If you can understand this leads to this—or it doesn’t—you can solve a lot of problems.”
Matt Olson | President Matmon Internet, Inc., Little Rock
MATT OLSON LEARNED early on the value of marketing oneself, especially when it came to technical skills. While attending Lake Hamilton High School in Hot Springs, he joined a class called WolfNet, which dealt in all things IT.
“This was in 1994 and I was learning about networking and installing RAM and software on computers,” says Olson. “If I was walking down the hallway during class, and I wasn’t supposed to be in the hall, a teacher wouldn’t stop me and say, ‘Go to class.’ They would say, ‘Hey, Matt, could you come help me with my computer?’”
That, says Olson, was when the light went on in his head. “It was like, wow, they’re seeing that I have value other than just being in class. And it happened a lot, not just one or two teachers. All the teachers knew the WolfNet kids, because we were in there getting their Internet set up.”
From these basics, Olson graduated to other functions, some of it learned in the classroom, a lot of it self-taught. “I was a computer science major at UA Little Rock, which got me involved in programming,” he says. “I also worked at the computer library helping students with software, helping them with Excel spreadsheets, printer issues—you know, I was a lab aide. While I was doing that, I learned about building my own websites. I was sitting there in the computer lab working, but I was also reading and learning how to make websites, buying domain names and all that. That’s really where it all came from.”
Today, Olson is president of his own full-service marketing company helping businesses build their brand. The company leans heavily on digital media, so website building and programming are still central to the company’s services.
“You have to be solution-oriented in this business. You need to find the solutions in how you approach things and through research,” he says. “The biggest variable with new employees is if they can dig in and get the answers. If they can keep bringing solutions and keep trying, then they’re the right fit. If they give it a quick one little chance and then expect you to tell them what to do, they don’t make it.”
As for why he decided to stay in his home state, he says that customers can be found anywhere, but quality of life can’t. “You can get swallowed up in a big city and never feel like you’ve even scratched the surface,” he says. “You go to downtown New York and no one even looks at you. Here you have more opportunities, I think, to really establish yourself. Arkansas is a really special state.”
Malachi Nichols Director of Evaluations and Data Quality ForwARd Arkansas, Little Rock
TEXAS NATIVE MALACHI Nichols has a passion for the state of education. During college at the University of Arkansas, he taught math, history, and robotics in a local private school. After completing his doctorate, he joined ForwARd Arkansas, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the quality of the state’s schools.
Working behind the scenes to support and improve what’s going on in Arkansas classrooms gives him a chance to make a difference in thousands of young lives.
“Looking back, I truly did enjoy teaching students,” he says. “But I knew teaching wasn’t going to be my long-term fix. I saw that between my math and science skills and my ability to think abstractly, there was an avenue for me to use those skills to change schools. Not by being a teacher, but by being a researcher.”
Nichols’ job responsibilities include working with community partners to help identify ways to improve schools throughout the state. He also compiles and organizes data that’s given to state legislators as they consider new state laws. His work also assesses the performance of ForwARd Arkansas itself, to make sure the nonprofit is operating efficiently and effectively.
Arkansas offers a wealth of technology career opportunities, Nichols says. “In Northwest Arkansas, I see a strong push for tech people just to support the dominant businesses here, such as Walmart, Tyson, and J.B. Hunt,” he says. “But also, people who have those data systems and information systems management can really develop around the state. Especially post-COVID, you don’t have to pick up and move your family to Fayetteville or Little Rock or to a town with a university. Now, you just log in remotely and you’re able to stay in your community and connect to the job market.”
Nichols has two recommendations for the next generation of tech workers—learn as much as you can about various tech careers and don’t limit your education just to math, science, and computers. “When I was coming up in high school, I never knew there were people who actually did research on education,” he says. “A lot of it is lack of exposure, whether it’s in the African American community, the Hispanic community, the white community, or whether that’s the rural community. It’s hard to become what you don’t see.
“As for education, honestly, what’s important is your English and your writing skills. What will set you apart is being able to clearly articulate not only what you think, but what you’re doing in a fashion the layperson can understand. It’s taking complicated information and all of the techy things and being able to present it to somebody who’s never entered the field. That’s a very important skill and it’s something you can start building in high school.”
GOAL-FOCUSED
Aaron Green | Robotic Process Automation Developer Arvest Bank , Fayetteville
EVER SINCE HE can remember, Aaron Green knew he wanted a tech career. “My dad has always been a technical guy,” Green says. “He’s done a lot of computer repairs, and I was always interested in that growing up. There were times when he’d be delivering a part to go to a customer’s house and fix it, and I’d be part of those jobs.”
In addition to what he saw of his father’s work, Green also liked working puzzles and other brain-teasers, and today he says he applies that same analytical mindset daily. “Puzzles and software development are sort of the same thing, just a big problem-solving exercise,” he says. “You’ve got to understand the problem. You’ve got to know how to address certain difficulties. And you’ve got to know how to get information.”
Green joined Arvest Bank fulltime in June 2019. Since then, he’s been working on software projects that reduce keystrokes and mouse clicks, thereby simplifying and streamlining functions for bank employees. Tech careers abound in the business world, he says, even for people who didn’t start programming early, as he did. “There is always demand for people with technical skills—it’s one of the most competitive fields out there,” he says. “You don’t need specific skills, you don’t need to have X number of years of experience. It’s more about your determination and your passion for it and how hard you’re willing to work for it and not be afraid to try anything new.
“We have people on our team who didn’t go to school for technology, but they have lots of experience within the company. They know the company better than someone like me, who has the technical training. So, there’s definitely room for people who don’t have that background but have the interest and the capacity to learn. There’s always something you can bring that someone else can’t.”
Given this fact, young people looking to prepare for a career in technology should pay attention to team building and communication skills as much as coding and programming. Green says that no matter how technically proficient a person is, the ability to work with other people is just as important—if not more so. “Being around people is going to help build those communication skills,” he says. “I took a robotics club in high school and that helped a lot, just being around people. A lot of us, when we’re studying or getting experience training, we’re locked up in our room. A big part of it is just getting out there.
“Also, you may want a certain tech field, but you have to start somewhere, and it might not be where you really want. My advice is just be willing to learn new things and to take a job that you may not have expected. You can build your profile from there.”
Keenan Gillispie | Software Developer Apptegy, Little Rock
KEENAN GILLISPIE GREW up in a tech-savvy household and followed a predictable path—heavy on STEM coursework and skills—to college and the working world. But as the tech workplace becomes more diverse, the Bauxite native says that careers following this traditional tech pathway aren’t nearly as numerous as they once were.
“The stereotype is people who have followed my path, who have been interested in tech for as long as they can remember,” he says. “That seems to be diminishing; I don’t think we’re in the majority by any means. I work with people who came up through music programs, have history degrees or writing degrees, and are now in the same software development field.”
At Apptegy, which provides software and products to help schools effectively market themselves, Gillispie provides support for other developers, trouble-shooting issues and making sure the production servers are operating properly. He says that as software products have become more complex, they require additional skill sets and perspectives to create and maintain. He thinks that’s one reason tech workers now demonstrate a broader range of backgrounds.
“We’re not building, necessarily, physical things,” he says, “but we are building things. We’re building software functionality. It requires being able to understand very abstract concepts. For that reason, I think creativity is an absolutely vital component for working in this industry.
“And I hope this is not too cliché, but the biggest skill set is really communication, whether you’re a more traditional software developer/code monkey or you’re a software architect. It’s going to require you to speak to other people with different skill sets, different backgrounds, and who do different things.
As developers, we’ve got to be able to talk technically and not-so-technically with other groups within the company to convey information. It’s vital. If you can’t communicate with those different groups, you’re going to have trouble.”
Gillispie, whose father is a software developer and whose mother is a technology coordinator in the local school district, says he didn’t feel the need to look outside Arkansas to find a fulfilling tech career. In fact, he offers a word of caution to anyone who automatically thinks the tech grass is greener in bigger cities. “For those looking to move to a bigger tech hub and work for one of these giant tech companies, I suggest you do your research,” he says. “Look into the stories of people who have done this and see if you like what they have to say. There are some highly renowned tech companies that are amazing to work for that have great cultures, great benefits, and great work environments. And there are some that have a big name but that are less than ideal to work for.
“Don’t just dream about it. Try to seek people out who have tried it and understand their experience to see if it’s something you want to pursue. In my case, I haven’t wanted to uproot everything and move thousands of miles away and fight with everybody else to do the exact same thing. There are plenty of companies here locally where I can do this job and I can contribute.”
A WORLD OF EXPERIENCE
Jeff Brinsfield | Vice President of Information Systems QualChoice | Little Rock
ARKANSAS NATIVE JEFF Brinsfield could’ve headed to a bigger city to pursue his lofty career goals, but he got all he wanted by looking right in his back yard. Before joining insurers Centene and QualChoice, where he’s now vice president of information systems, Brinsfield started his career with Arkansas Systems, later Euronet, which sent him around the world.
“I joined them in 1998, and two months after I started, I was sent to Sri Lanka to install a banking system,” he says. “I was based out of Budapest, Hungary, for four years. I eventually went to 40 countries and saw the world. It was phenomenal seeing all of the different cultures.”
Bringing his global experience back to the States, Brinsfield has continued his corporate career in IT. His work today—developing world-class versatile work teams—benefits from his inclusive perspective. “Information technology is so multifaceted and it touches all parts of an organization,” he says. “My team deals with hardware, software management, infrastructure, data analytics, project management, security, testing and design. A number of teams that report to me deal with each of those aspects.”
In his daily work, Brinsfield provides high-level direction and strategic problem-solving across various work groups. Managing multiple teams, as well as interacting with other departments to build projects and work through problems, takes coordination and teamwork. The ability to synthesize skill sets is key to keeping things moving forward. “We’re fulfilling those other teams’ needs,” he says. “We’re a service part of the organization to other teams. Whether it’s the data analytics side or the project management side or the software management or development sides, having an exposure into those teams is what helps you do this job really well.”
Given the wide variety of work for which his department is responsible, there’s no “typical employee,” Brinsfield says; instead, there’s room for all personality types and skill sets. “I’m looking for certain traits. How’s this person going to fit in with the team? Are they more of a loner style or are they more of a teambuilder who likes working in a group? There’s definitely room on both sides and there’s a demand for both sides.”
More than technical expertise, Brinsfield said he values intangibles in choosing the right employee. “Attitude is a big piece of it,” he says. “A key aspect of being able to do IT project management or support service is someone who has that ability to connect to other departments and teams, interact with people, and, in some cases, help teach them about the equipment or software. Having a problem-solving attitude and mentality goes a long way with that.”
Virginia Hickman | Quality Assurance Engineer Movista, Bentonville
VIRGINIA HICKMAN IS a gatekeeper. In her role with Movista, a retail management software company, she’s one of a team of tech professionals who tests the company’s products to make sure they perform as advertised. It’s a critical role, one that heads off issues before they get to the customer.
Hickman is a natural at her job, born of a helping spirit and a natural inquisitiveness—all the more remarkable considering that she’s never considered herself “techy.” “I had worked at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville for a really long time as an undergrad,” she says, “and anytime something happened to the computer, I would call the tech person. I never had a mind for tech—I never thought I’d want to do it.”
Hickman’s education and job experience tended to reinforce that belief—she holds a degree in anthropology and previously worked as a yoga instructor. Then a friend insisted that she had the right “thought process” for a tech job. On his advice, she enrolled at the University of Arkansas Global Campus. “I just wanted to get my feet wet,” she says, “so I did an online prerequisite, which was an HTML course. I loved it. It was a very gentle way of getting into programming. And then, when we started our other classes, it was like drinking from a fire hose, but I loved that, too.”
Hickman joined Movista 18 months ago as a QA analyst and soon moved into her current role. “Being a QA Engineer, you test the product and make sure it’s as bug-free as you can get it,” she says. “The bugs aren’t anything malicious. It’s usually something that’s preventing the user from doing what the user wants to do—you know, there’s a new version of the app and it doesn’t work like the last version did. It’s my job to catch all those bugs before it goes to production.”
While Hickman spends her days surrounded by people who have followed the traditional tech path, she’s a firm believer that you don’t have to have a technology background to find a rewarding career in the field—all it takes is the right attitude and a willingness to learn outside of your comfort zone. “The most helpful thing to me was just doing it,” she says.
And her advice to anyone considering a tech career? “I would say start with anything HTML,” she says. “It’s pretty easy to learn and you see immediate results. It’s fun and it’s a very good introduction to programming. Then take any free courses you can take. I sometimes watch YouTube videos and coding interviews, even though I’m not looking to get hired anywhere. They’re just interesting to see.”
