JAMES BROOKENS
CIO for Peterson Company
Can you please provide a little introduction about yourself
I am based in the Northwest, working in Auburn Washington. My current role as a CIO includes a wide variety of responsibilities. For nineteen years I have vetted and implemented all technology for a Specialty foods importer and distributor “Peterson Company”.
From infrastructure for multiple warehouses, networking, servers and applications, to our ERP system and portals for my company. Working for a mid sized company has allowed me to gain the hands on experience with many different types of projects and teams.
What path have you taken to your current position?
I began my formal education in electrical engineering at Pacific Lutheran University, but discovered I had a greater passion for working with people. Helping bridge the gap with technology and people was, and is very fulfilling for me.
I started supporting a small real-estate companies IT needs when I was fourteen years old. As my journey progressed, I worked help desk roles, building and repairing computers, and provided technical support for various needs. I quickly worked my way into a systems administration role for a large Dialysis company.
I was always interested in learning more and the constant technological changes fed that desire. While working at the Peterson Company I have gained a great amount of project management experience. I have trained and mentored a great IT team that provides best in class service and support which allows me to be the CIO I am today. Change management is a big part of my current role. It is critical with any project to have proper buy in and acceptance for all stages of the project.
Has it always been your vision to reach the position you’re at? Was your current role part of your vision to become a tech leader?
I am passionate about learning and staying on top of all new technological developments. I have never shied away from taking on more responsibility. When I see a need where I can help, I get it done whether its in my job description or not.
This has really springboarded my career at every step. I did not have my eyes on a CIO role specifically early on in my career, but as my knowledge, wisdom, and confidence grew it was something I greatly desired to achieve.
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)
There have been many people who I have been inspired by over the years. I am inspired by those who overcome their challenges, meet their goals, and become successful. Those who do not give up despite the many hardships they face.
How do you see the role of the technology leader evolving over the next 5 years?
The methods for staying up to date for technology leaders is ever changing. You must read many sources of information from many perspectives to pick up the trends and gems. You must continue to learn and grow as a person with a trained focus to glean the right details to overcome information overload. What I feel will change the most in the next five years will be the role and expectations around being a technology leader.
With Ai being integrated into just about every product the complexity in some ways will increase, especially around security. What we did in the last five years is not good enough anymore, we must step up and meet the needs. This is a forced change that may be hard for some.
What skills do you think leaders of the future will need in order to thrive?
Change management is key for any technology leaders, because change is happening so fast, it is even more important to get everyone on board faster than before. The rate of change is increasing exponentially and will continue to do so in the next five years.
Being able to actively help bridge the gap of technology with those who have a need is key whether you are an employee or consultant. Tech leaders need to be much more agile and open to change, additionally be able to help others through this forced change.
Is there anything in particular that you would still like to achieve in your career or what is the next step on your journey?
The next steps in my journey will focus around doing something big that will help people. I have always been led by the desire to help others. I want to use my skills and knowledge in a greater capacity to make a difference.
What advice would you give to aspiring technology leaders who are just starting their careers?
Hard work really does pay off. Set your sights on a goal, give it everything you've got, and once you achieve it, set new goals that keep pushing you forward.
Make sure these goals fit with the bigger picture of where you want to be. As you grow and learn, be open to adjusting your vision and goals. Start being the person you aspire to be right now—don’t wait for the perfect moment, because it might never come.
"Make sure these goals fit with the bigger picture of where you want to be."
What has been the biggest challenge you've faced in your career so far, and how did you overcome it?
I will get a little vulnerable with you here, not that I like to, but I think others may benefit. The biggest challenge I faced in my career was self confidence. I was my own worst enemy. I used my self critical nature to push myself to be as perfect as I could, learn as much as I could, be the biggest help I could.
These were all desires that I still have but I was mis-using them. My lack of confidence in myself caused me to hit a wall in my career. No matter how good of a job I did or how happy everyone around me was with my performance, I was not happy with myself. I was not good enough for myself. I have overcome these chains of doubt in several phases, with the last of the big chains being broken with my decision making and leadership around how I handled Covid in my company. I had been following the abnormal reports coming from China early Jan via social media platforms.
The issues escalated and personal messages from doctors pleading to the world for help really got my attention to dig in deeper. What I found were scenarios that I have never seen before like locking all residents in large apartment buildings by chains or welding doors, and blocking off major roads in and out of certain cities of tens of thousands of residents. I was certain that it would spread outside of China and would be impactful to not only my company but everyone around the world. I had been feeling like I should communicate this to executives and owners at my company, we import specialty food from around the world, so it was bound to impact us sooner than later I thought.
Every day for weeks I was in major turmoil with wanting to share this, but not having the confidence to share it. After all it was just the “flu” at that time in our mainstream media. I felt like I was vibrating with change that was inevitable. Something broke inside me in a good way and I had to share no matter the cost. I shared the state of covid and all the details I had researched in a meeting with two owners and another executive. I pretty much got laughed out of the room and they were worried about me. But I did it, I broke through my lack of confidence and shared what I needed to share.
I then instructed my IT team to start prepping work from home setups, “anything that turns on, get it setup” I said. In the coming weeks later things escalated quickly, Italy who we get shipments from were reporting similar issues that China did, along with a handful of other countries. It was no longer just the flu and the mainstream thought was this was bigger FINALLY. From that point forward I was looked at as a leader to help guide the company through the Covid storm. In just about every meeting I was called out and thanked for my vision and precautionary wisdom to take action early on.
As our competitors were floundering our management team was united and focused. When the time came and the decree was made for everyone that could, to work from home, I was prepared. We had prepped many laptops and desktops. I did plan for a mass work from home event in my normal disaster recovery planning as well. Our networking infrastructure was ready for every employee to work remotely that can when it came to connecting from the outside, handling the VPN connections and networking load.
When others were scrambling we were working smoothly and able to focus on business details and strategic planning. I have never been praised more in succession than this time I pushed myself to do something I felt was instrumental.
What role do you see emerging technologies (e.g., AI, machine learning, blockchain) playing in your industry, and how are you preparing for them?
A few specific examples of what we are thinking about now around GenAi is leveraging GenAi for route distribution is something we have talked about, finding more business along a given route to improve its profitability. Also a virtual assistant leveraging AI that can pull all the data from all the portals into one AI bot that you can interact with verbally, even while driving. Helping sales prepare for a site visit with a customer.
Not to long from now robotics will bring about better automation with repetitive tasks. More than just a robotic arm, actual humanoid robots that can be programmed to perform many tasks. I am doing my best to stay on top of all options and waiting for the right time to implement.
A big thank you to James Brookens from Peterson Company 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.
