A-Core Concrete is based in Murray, Utah, and we have 15 offices across the southern and western United States. Our company provides concrete cutting, demolition, grinding, grooving, and pouring services.
I have been with A-Core since 2018, and am the Chief Information and Security Officer, managing all technology and security services for the organization. I have worked in IT operations and management since 1990 and led many major IT design and implementation projects.
I have always been intrigued with technology, and I was fortunate to have an uncle who owned a small computer support business. He took me under his wing bringing me into the IT world. While working for him, I pursued an AS degree in business. I moved through a couple of additional IT support positions with larger companies until I was hired as an IT manager for Morrison Knudsen, working on a construction project for Kennecott Utah Copper.
I took the opportunity at that time to pursue additional undergraduate degrees in electronics engineering technology. It was from here that my career really spring-boarded upward. I later managed the IT operations for the I-15 freeway reconstruction project in Salt Lake City prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics, and then moved on to manage IT operations for the corporate headquarters, western US, and international offices of Washington Group International based in Boise, Idaho.
While there, I pursued an MBA in technology management recognizing that it would really aid my future in IT leadership. After the IT operations services for Washington Group were outsourced, I moved back to Utah and entered the world of academia. Although I was hired as faculty, I was quickly moved to program chair and associate dean positions. It was at that time that I chose to pursue my PhD in education. After working in academics for a few years, I felt that I needed to get back to my IT roots and was fortunate to be hired as the IT Director for the University of Utah College of Nursing.
I managed the technology and simulation learning center, and led the technology portions of the College of Nursing building renovation project between 2008-2010, creating one of the top nursing simulation learning centers in the US at that time.
During that time, I also found great satisfaction in teaching, and have continued to teach for several universities to this day. I also completed an MS in healthcare informatics during that time and pursued a BS in programming. After a few additional speed bumps in my career, I was again fortunate to be hired as an IT Director with an IT consulting firm specifically to manage IT operations for A-Core. Soon after, A-Core hired me directly as their CIO.
Once I entered the IT world, I became intrigued by the management of IT services for larger businesses. I had the opportunity to meet with the CIO of Washington Group International while working on the I-15 freeway reconstruction project in Salt Lake City as he came to visit and see how I was doing.
While the project combined services between UDOT, two design and engineering firms, and Wasatch Constructors, which itself was a combination of 3 different construction companies including Washington Group, I was the only IT support person for the entire 1.5 billion dollar project for Wasatch Constructors.
While meeting with the CIO, he asked me where I wanted to go with my career. Looking back, my answer to his question showed a LOT of naivety and how much ambition I really had! My response was that I wanted HIS job. He was taken back a bit, but asked me what I thought he did. I answered with a number of different technology and policy-driven functions, none of which were really correct.
He was very polite and did not berate me, for which I am very grateful as I always reflect back on our conversation as a great learning point in my career. Now that I am in a CIO role, I definitely see how far off the mark I actually was. In short, yes, the role I have now embodies what I thought was my vision at the time of my meeting with the CIO of Washington Group, and much more. I have been very successful and really enjoy what I do for A-Core.
Have you had a role model or mentor that has helped you on your journey? (If you feel comfortable, please share their name and how they helped you)
My initial role model was my uncle Mark Oberg who set me on my career path in IT. Sadly, he passed away a few years after I left his company, but I will always remember his patience and guidance. While I had various communications with CIO's over the years, I did not have any that I could refer to as a mentor.
How do you see the role of the technology leader evolving over the next 5 years?
Emerging technologies such as AI, ML, robotics, blockchain, and industry 4.0 will continue to increasingly have a major impact on how businesses operate. Security challenges will continue to evolve with the utilization of AI in writing programs, phishing emails, and targeting vulnerabilities, pushing the technology leader to find ways to work smarter to protect both data and infrastructure.
Demands will continue to increase for better ways to use cloud services and identity management for access control, especially as the workforce requires mobility and remote access. Technology leaders must be involved in strategically managing the business in order to design and provide the required infrastructure as well as the information security to protect it.
For the CIO, the skills needed are more about leadership and guidance for the people in their charge. Certainly, a solid understanding of the technologies in use within the company as well as by competitors is important for strategic leadership.
However, emotional intelligence, genuine care, and the ability to communicate effectively and inspire performance are among the top skills that I see are needed to really thrive and stand out as a true leader.
My primary goal now is to inspire others looking to move in to IT leadership or other roles. This is one of the main reasons that I truly enjoy teaching. I am able to share my stories as they relate to the concepts and share my experience to help others learn and apply in their careers. At the end of 2020 following the impacts of Covid and moving people to a remote workforce, I had a great meeting with the VP of Administration for A-Core. We discussed what we could do to help bring people back together and create the social connection and community that was sorely lacking as a result of Covid.
We decided to start holding a weekly 30-minute Friday training session to bring people together. We have continued this ever since, rarely missing a Friday. I have been very fortunate to be able to teach many different topics as I am the individual driving the training sessions. Sometimes I am able to bring in others from within the company to discuss their job areas, functions, HR, or any other needed topics that stand out at the time. I have received a lot of very positive feedback as many in the company really look forward to these sessions.
While it is great to have ambition and demonstrate strong technology skills, once you get into an organization, you are often surrounded by people just like you who are also smart and technically skilled. So what sets you apart from the rest? Your social and emotional intelligence, ability to communicate, and willingness to help others. I would argue that these are some of the things that truly set great leaders apart.
My advice to people just getting started in their IT leadership careers is to look back on their former managers and leaders and determine what it was about them that really made them great, and to work on those skills in yourself. My bet is that you will find the connection they had with people, showing genuine care and support, and effective and open communication will be on the list.
"Effective and open communication will be on the list."
Patience. When you are ambitious and feel like you know everything already, it is hard to be patient and wait for the right opportunity. This also means that I had to learn to be humble as well.
Once I decided it was not just about me but more about how I could help others along the way, and truly care about their happiness and success at work, not only was I then offered opportunities, but I was also a lot more satisfied with my work.
One skill that I have developed over the years is the ability to communicate technology issues and concepts to those who are not technologically inclined. It was very important for me to learn to recognize in the facial expressions and body language of others, especially business leaders, as I tried to explain technology concepts and find ways to better communicate what they really needed to know in a manner that they could understand.
Frequently, this meant understanding when to talk technically, and when to instead simply provide a basic overview of what was happening, how long it might take to be resolved, what the impacts were, and if there were any costs that would potentially be involved. I needed to learn what each individual leader really wanted to know, what their level of understanding was, and how much detail they wanted to be given.
In short, I needed to learn how to communicate with each individual at their level of understanding and need. This skill is something I continue to work on to this day, and it has made a world of difference in helping me be an effective technology leader.
A big thank you to Andrew Black from A-Core Concrete Specialists for sharing his journey to date.
If you would like to gain more perspective from Tech Leaders and CIOs you can read some of our other interviews here.