Conversation with Carlos Acha - S1:E3

In this episode of Conversations with Carns, David sits down with Carlos Acha, Director of Technology and Cybersecurity. Born in Bolivia and arriving in the U.S. as a teenager, Carlos’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary—from early jobs in the automotive industry, asbestos remediation at the Pentagon, to becoming a trusted C-suite advisor in law firm tech.

Transcript

David Carns: 0:00

welcome to Conversations with Carns, where Curiosity meets connection. I'm your host, David Carns. This episode I'm talking with Carlos Acha, leader in the legal technology space. Father, and someone with a fascinating background, will talk about establishing yourself in today's world, taking risks and cultivating resilience. Uh, Carlos Haw. Welcome to the show.

Carlos: 0:25

Oh, thank you David. Thank you for having me. Fun to participate on my first ever podcast.

David Carns: 0:33

I've known you I'm somewhat embarrassed to say or pleased to say for over 20 years. I don't know how that can be right, but I think it's true.

Carlos: 0:42

Yeah, it's, it's crazy to think through time. Right. Uh, I can still picture the, the day I met you and the team and Yeah. Time flies and relationships mature.

David Carns: 0:54

absolutely. But just'cause I know you so well doesn't mean our audience does. And I'm a big believer with starting at the beginning, so maybe you can tell me where you were born and where you grew up.

Carlos: 1:05

That's going way back nowadays. So I was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia 1979. So that dates me, then funny enough, um, my, my parents moved to the US right? Looking for that American dream, and I moved to the States in 1993. And when I moved to the States, I actually resided in Millersville, Maryland, which was an extremely different environment than Bolivia, right? Where I was very family oriented. Families always came together to living in a little town where we had no family. My closest family were in Virginia, right? So it was one state away. But it was fun. It was fun. I moved in dead of winter. It was January 13th, 1993 when I first arrived to the States.

David Carns: 1:57

Do you remember your first impressions when you got off the plane?

Carlos: 2:03

So the way we came, um, first we did a tour of Disney, right? So we did some of the parks because, that's the best welcome you can have to this country. So we did Disney, Epcot, uh, sea World, all those different parks. And then after that we drove from, from, uh, Florida all the way through Virginia into Millersville. And I remember the first day I arrived, you know, you go from the Florida weather and you see the transition of weathers in January all the way to you make it to Maryland. And it was cold.

David Carns: 2:43

I.

Carlos: 2:44

And I, I don't think I've ever been that cold before because it was different cold, right? We rushed and we went to the closest Walmart and bought winter clothes because we had none. And so now it's, it's getting ready for that evolution.

David Carns: 3:01

So in Bolivia, there's all kinds of climates, But was this a new, was that kind of cold, a new exposure for you?

Carlos: 3:09

So the city I'm from, which is Coba, it's a, it's a valley. It's surrounded by mountains, but the climate's very mild. You don't get extreme heat or humidity, nor you get. Extreme cold La Paz, for instance, because it's so high up. You do get that. And I've had only been there once in my life and Santa Cruz, which is the opposite extreme. I've had only been there when I went on a vacation with my grandmother. But it wasn't something I was used to. It was just that one-time exposures here is like, I had to adapt and I enjoyed the cold. So for me it was fine. My sister was not so prepared for it.

David Carns: 3:53

Okay. So you came in in 1993 and you matriculated through high school in the Maryland area, or did you move to close to family in, um, in Virginia?

Carlos: 4:05

No, I actually attended, middle school and high school in Millerville. So I went to Old Mill senior high school, that was, that's where I was. And I actually moved to Virginia my senior year of high school. My goal was, um, a lot of Hispanic, Latino parents instilled this goals for their kids. That maybe was their goals once upon a time, right? So there was always this conversation, oh, you're really good at math, you should do engineering, right? And, uh, so when we started looking at colleges for some incline reason, like Virginia Tech was stuck in my head, right? So I moved with my dad my senior year. So I uprooted myself and only myself, and moved to Virginia to, to live with my dad with the hopes that I was gonna make it into, into tech. Unfortunately, it didn't, but it's okay.

David Carns: 4:58

So you said unfortunately it didn't, but obviously you're in tech today. So what, uh, happened in the, in the intervening time?

Carlos: 5:04

Man, it, you know, when I look back, it's a very interesting time of event, right? Because in Bolivia you weren't exposed to a lot of technology. Although I had computer classes with the big floppy discs, and we did some things in Millersville, there was no STEM programs at all. I remember my first Netscape browser at the school library just to do research, but it wasn't something that they foster. However, I. They had sent me to, they had, they would choose different students. Right. And since diversity wasn't a big thing back then, we were very few migrants, I guess you could call students. So we had a good group of Koreans who were at school. I had somebody, one friend from Germany, a few from Thailand. So they would try to pick us off from those and send us to exposure camps for se. So I was sent to an event, or like a workshop of two days that would send me to another school. And they were teaching us how to slaughter boards. Like circuit boards. And then they would expose us onto woodworking. I. Into auto mechanic and all these different things to see kinda where we were heading as part of the discovery phase. And I always kind of excelled on this very manual work, right. So I was very good at soldering. I was okay at woodworking and I wasn't great, but I like mechanical things and I used to tinker a lot with taking things apart and putting'em back together. So fast forward that into finishing high school in Virginia. Um, I prefer more hands on top of work. So when it led to trying to think of schools and not going into, into Virginia Tech, because I only applied to one school. And that was the one school I.

David Carns: 7:10

wow.

Carlos: 7:11

I had no backup plan right in my head. I had tech or nothing. And then it ended up being nothing. Through my senior year because my dad was always this, my dad's an auto mechanic, so that kind of hints where my incline for technical work was. But my dad, during my senior year through a friend, got me a job in an auto parts store. So I kept getting exposed more to mechanical things. So I was doing deliveries. I used to deliver to mechanic shops through the area, and that was through my entire senior year. So when I was done with high school the manager promoted me to do sales, right? To sell auto parts, and I didn't like that anymore. So that kind of transitioned me off. I started going to community college, and again, my head was still under computer engineering, although I didn't know what computer engineering was going to be at all. Because I didn't have like now your counselors and everybody who are very STEM focused exposure to those things. So I took the, the general courses and of course being a very immature individual you end up getting exposed to, we'll call that semi college life where you end up going to too many parties. You associate with the, the wrong crowd that doesn't necessarily value education, but more about living time. So I ended up dropping out out of community college and still right? Technology wasn't connected. That's how kind of I transitioned into doing very odd jobs, right? So I at that point, I went from delivering parts to installing audio systems in cars, to then working at a kind of like a GFI loop, changing oils, right? And I, I started, and I think that's the job where I honed in my, my work ethic, right? How I value who I was as an individual because I started as the kid that was cleaning the cars, like the courtesy ones, cleaning the windshields and vacuuming the cars. And then within a few weeks they were like, no, this guy has more potential. Then they put me working in the hood, right? So doing the actual old change selling services and all those things until I ended up becoming a store manager. Right. And it was very short period of time. Within a year I could do any role, right? I could do the pit underneath. I could do the top, I could do management. I was opening, closing the store. And I feel that when somebody believed in me that much, I couldn't let them down. So it pushed me to even more. I did that for a while and a buddy of mine who worked there ended up moving to AutoZone, right? And I had experience selling auto parts and they needed a sales manager, right? So someone who can open and close this store in Alexandria. And I took that job, right? And that kind of transitioned me more into the automotive. So you would think with all that automotive in my dad, I would end up being today in the, uh, automotive industry, but I wasn't, right. Once working there a family member had, was working on the asbestos industry and he just moved to a brand new company and they were hiring like crazy. They had a they had a job at at the Pentagon, right? They were doing one very specific area of the Pentagon where they're working, but they had lots of people. Lots of people and so they needed somebody who was bilingual and someone who had a good driving record, which was me to manage their warehouse. So I moved to an asbestos company to manage a warehouse.

David Carns: 11:09

Interesting.

Carlos: 11:09

And so I was loading trucks, cleaning, asbestos equipment, getting things ready because they had jobs daily, small jobs, big jobs, truck. We had to pack all that stuff. I did that for a little bit. And again, you know, that work ethic, I was there at seven o'clock in the morning every day. I would leave at three 30 every day, make sure trucks were full. If a job needed an emergency and somebody needed to be at the warehouse earlier or at night, that was, I was, that was me, right? Because I was very committed. And then I, then I, I started getting the itch for growth, right? And growth is triggered by, I wanted to make more money because I was having pressure from my parents to go back to school. And I was like, Nope, I am good. I'm making good money and I don't need school. So, in a way, I wanted to prove that I became a, I actually a supervisor. Because I went to my boss and I said, look I can't do the warehouse anymore and I think I'm going to become an industrial hygienist. It's essentially the person that looks at air samples from asbestos sites and looks how many fibers per square inch. Right? And then you then said the area is clean or not. And for every job there's always a hygienist that's monitoring the air all the whole time. Both inside the containment area and outside. So I learned a bunch there as well. My boss said, okay, we'll send you to management school for supervisors. Took the one week course, took an exam, and then I was supposed to be in training. I went to a train to training to a site. Where now is the former museum used to be an oil company building that we gutted and we removed the asbestos and lead and that was my training site.

David Carns: 12:59

Oh,

Carlos: 13:00

And so they're trying to train me how to manage sites, how to manage people, how to manage the hygienist, how to manage the, the people that hire you, which is usually district of Columbia in a lot of, in a lot of instances. And so I was doing all these different activities and the, the, I guess we could call it the darkest day in the US hit nine 11. So I was still working kind of the warehouse, but I. Transitioning into supervision. So I used to be driving a lot. The day that the planes hit, I was actually at going to Quantico to drop off some drawings to then go drop off some drawings for the Pentagon because we were bidding on a job because they were part, they were doing the renovation, right? They had done wedge one, they were ready to start wedge two. So the planes hit right, and all this commotion happened. There's a lot of emotions going around. And then I remember on September 20th, which is literally nine days after nine 11, uh, or 19th, the night before, my boss calls me and says, Hey, we've been called to the Pentagon. We need. We need everybody in the office at It was like, I think it was four 30 in the morning, we're gonna load people on buses and then we're gonna go to the Pentagon. Said Great. He's like, I want you to go because this is the best learning experience that, that we can, we can think of. So bunch of supervisors got called in. We had I think 60 people. Day one we go, we drive, and then we start doing the line to get batches clearance, and then it takes all day, it's almost 6:00 PM and everybody goes through, and again, my boss comes to me and says, I'm sorry, none of the other supervisors passed the clearance, right? Because the Pentagons were being very, very picky about who they were letting into property. And he said, you're gonna have to be it until I get somebody to come help you.

David Carns: 15:12

you. were the supervisor.

Carlos: 15:14

I had no idea what it meant, right? I said, what do you want me to do? He said, just make sure people take the equipment in and start setting up. So September 20th is already dark. I bring in 60 people that I had never managed. I had met, I had talked to all of them, and we took base of WeCh two of the Pentagon, and I was the kid that had to show up to meetings with the brass from the Pentagon. The team from the Pentagon Renovation Program, and everything you can think of is like I had generals asking questions and all these different things, all these different emotions were coming on.

David Carns: 15:58

And how old are you at this point?

Carlos: 16:01

Oh, I'm, I'm like 1920. It's like you had to learn. But the interesting thing is that they couldn't find somebody for almost a month, right? So for a month, I am learning in, in the job. I'm setting up teams, I'm setting up projects, we're cleaning. Our primary task was just to clean the common areas from lead powder, which is when the plane hit, all the structure shook and all the lead paint flickered or fell into desks and things like that. On the areas that weren't burnt. The people needed to come back to get their personal belongings. So we cleaned the areas. Then they came and because we did a good job, they gave us another assignment and another assignment, and then another assignment. So for two years after nine 11, I managed all the relationships within the company and the Pentagon, right at the Pentagon.

David Carns: 17:00

goodness.

Carlos: 17:01

So after nine 11, I worked 18 hour shifts, right? We would go early in the morning, leave at night and then it, it became such an amazing experience because part of me, it's always want, wants to be part of something bigger, right? And how bigger can it get for a 19, 20-year-old than working at the most important building in the us Right? So it, it was very gratifying and took pride about doing that. And we did so many things. I actually had one assignment where we had to dismantle a data center at the Pentagon, right? The race floors. And that's the first time I ever saw race floors and racks and air cooling and all these things. We had to take it because the floors were asbestos, right? So then in another project we had a wipe and de deprovision all the copiers that they had again. Because of the lead powder, right? Brand new equipment, a hundred thousand dollars copiers from Cannon. And we had to remove the hard drives in full suits, right. Because they're s lead paint and potentially asbestos. So we couldn't give it to anybody. So we had to put'em in containment, clean them, and they would tell us where the hard drives were, and then we would have to extract them, put'em in boxes, and then hand it over to them for them to get wiped or destroyed. Right?

David Carns: 18:24

this is your, your first massive exposure to a, a enterprise

Carlos: 18:29

Yeah. Yeah. So it was crazy cool. I still didn't think I was gonna end up being in it. And things happen. So after a few years at the Pentagon, there was one mistake that we did that the team and I did, but at the. You know, the buck stuck with me. So I ended up losing my job because of this mistake we did. We left asbestos inside of a of a place and no one looked at, I didn't catch it, the hygienist didn't catch it. The people that were working it didn't catch it. So at the end of the day, they were like, look, now we demoed and we contain contaminated all this area. So the company I was with was changing leadership and all these things, and they said, thanks, but no thanks, which was okay with me, right? I had been there quite a bit. I had done a lot, and I thought naively that I could go out there and the world would just, Hey, he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Come work here. It didn't happen. A buddy of mine called me and said, Hey, we're doing some work at the DC public schools. Do you want to come and help out? I don't have a supervisor role, but you can work as a laborer. Again, no job, no experience, nothing else I did. And you know, life kicks you hard enough and then you realize that you're in the wrong place and that life was supposed to be different. A cousin of mine who, who's always been kind of the guy I followed and he was my silent mentor, he was great at, um, at giving advice, really bad at following his own advice. His name is Boris and he's somebody I always looked up to. So he was working at the community college at Nova. And Nova had a program called Trip, a technical internship retraining program, which grabbed people from different industries and retrain them in it. This is 2004, right? 2003, 2004.

David Carns: 20:34

Yeah,

Carlos: 20:35

He talks to his boss, he is the prerequisite of this program that you needed a bachelor's degree on something else. I didn't have one. So the lady who was running this program, her name is Christie, and she said she tested me and she said, why do you want this? Right? Is it just because your cousin is saying it's cool? And I said, no. Right. I want to be, I want to get into something that's bigger than anything. And I believe technology itself, I. And they asked me, how much experience do you have with computers? Besides setting up my own personal computer or working on a computer, I knew nothing. I didn't know what a ram, what A CPU was. I knew they used power and transistors and boards. And so that's where I began. I started doing a full-time program in it. So I would have to be there at eight o'clock in the morning and leave at five. So it was kind of like a job, very structure, from learning T-C-P-I-P, to ram, to all this component, and I wasn't very good at it. It was really hard, really a steep curve for me because again, I went from not using my brain for anything but doing odd jobs to now have to think through it, have to study. So once I finished the program interesting. None, none of my classmates wanted to speak at our graduation, so they picked me to speak. So I had to give the closing remarks and, you know, wish everybody the best of luck through the program. I had done a very odd internship and then through this cousin of mine, Boris, I ended up getting an internship at the organization of American States and. Because they weren't paying. It was a free thing. I went to the National Democratic Institute where I worked with Harold, somebody you also know. So we both were interns there. He was the IT intern and I was building websites, but it wasn't a job. So I finished this program. At the OAS, there was a, a possibility of me getting a job that was lined up right, because of my potential. But it's a very political organization, so they gave it to somebody who had more influence than I did, right? So they, they, they picked somebody who wasn't even in it, who had nothing to do with the program, but he, his dad was a senator. So boom, he gets a job. I end up with no job. So now I have a, a retraining certificate. No possibility of getting a job because everybody's asking for experience. I need experience and. My cousin's friend Andrew who worked at a OAS and it, who got me the internship, his dad was a former World Bank person, and he started his own company dubbing videos, like duplicating VHSs for, for events at the World Bank, VHS to DVD conversions. And then he also owned rights for Indian movies, classical Indian movies, and he needed somebody to run his shop. So during, now that my, my school was done, I went to work there, and so I started learning how to do dubs on videos. Again, the odd jobs continue, right? Then I got a call from my, um, former professor at at Nova who said, I need a guy for the night, for the evening classes and the weekend labs. And you were, one of the top troubleshooters. I would like to offer you that. So I ended up working for the community college. I had, my email@cc.edu as a full-fledged staff and I could park anywhere. So I felt I was on top of the world. I did that for a bit enjoyed it. And then here's where I break into legal. One of a former student, uh, was the IT manager for a law firm in dc, Ali Dry and Warren. So Jim had gone through the trip. The fourth version of the program, I was trip 12, so that shows you dates, right? So he was trip four, I was 12. In between, there was a bunch of trips and he only hired people from this program because he, that's how much, how much he believed in how he changed his life. My boss at Nova said, okay, so Jim is looking for a person because one of his people are, are leaving and I'm gonna send the two daytime engineers, which were the full-timers and I was the part-timers and I want you to go and just practice your interviewing. I said, okay. And he says, no matter what, if one of them gets it, I'll move you to a full-time job. So I had nothing to lose, everything to gain. So I showed up to the meeting in, it was a panel meeting. It was every member of the IT department in the DC office we're interviewing. So I met with I, Judith, and then Jim. All three people you knew very well because when we merged that's how that, that, that was the story

David Carns: 26:12

Yep.

Carlos: 26:12

and. The two ladies preferred me versus the other folks that had gone to the meeting, and I ended up getting the job. I wasn't expecting it, but it turned out to be the best decision ever. Right? Because I got mentored by good people who had gone through the same program into an industry that I had never imagined. Being on legal, to me was as far away as possible because the only lawyers I wanted to have wasn't for criminal reasons. So I, I didn't want nothing to do with it, right? I wanted to stay far, but that's how I broke into legal.

David Carns: 26:55

So this is interesting. So well, let me ask this first, me rewind for a second. Once you're in legal I assume you're, you're learning, you're earning your, your stripes you're learning the business, you're learning the various aspects of what the role entails. So what sort of things were you responsible for at that time?

Carlos: 27:15

So when I started again, because I couldn't get greener than green, right? And they knew it, I knew the concepts, but I had, I didn't build a rack or a server, right? So I was first given the task of keeping our printer fleet healthy, right? So changing rollers, fusers. So I knew every brand, every, I had my stash of things. I had my tool bag, and then I was in charge of imaging. So at that point we were using ghost and we had a work bench. And if you remember when,

David Carns: 27:52

who may not know what imaging means.

Carlos: 27:54

so when we were doing it right, we would capture a golden image of a machine that had the operating system and all the applications in order and properly configured, right? So they were ready for use. So we would use this piece of software called Ghost to capture that and then, then be able to then replicate it to multiple machines at a time, right?

David Carns: 28:18

it. Because installing all the software from scratch on a machine that just came out of a box takes forever,

Carlos: 28:24

correct.

David Carns: 28:25

but Ghost takes how long

Carlos: 28:27

Oh, it was in 20 minutes we had a machine ready to go, right? Ready for a user to log in. Massive improvement, right? But I didn't know any better, right? Like at the OASI would go around. With my little briefcase of CDs, and I would go one by one, right? Windows xp, then office, then Oracle, and this. So I would spend an entire day doing one computer. Now I'm at this law firm who I'm churning like four machines at a time, 20 minutes, right? And we're then we're reusing parts from broken machines and all these different things. So I started with the basics, right? We started the basics and then we encounter an issue where our email server got corrupted. So they call consultants, and that's the first time I met USTG and Silas from the mindshift group that eventually became mindshift. And they were great mentors. They're trying to teach me a lot of things. They would allow, actually put me at the keyboard of the server and they get me to press the keys as building the server. Right? And the reason they did that is because New York, our home office was sending a server and it was arriving like at two o'clock in the morning on Saturday. So I was the only one that said, yep, I'll come in, I'll get the, I'll get the courier and I'll take it and I'll rack it and I'll get ready so that way we can start working. And they were like, yeah he wants to learn. Let's, let's get him exposed. So I did that and kept growing in responsibilities. Jim gave me the sole re responsibility of installing our malware. Cybersecurity starts kicking in, right? Because people were getting infected by malware all the time. All the time. Either by going to a website that would download to, as a firm, we chose Loft, which was probably not available anymore. I had to modify login scripts to install it, to run the scans. When people would get infected, I would jump onto their machines and then be able to then be able to run the software, be able to remove, find the files. So that was my exposure into cybersecurity too, all at once.

David Carns: 30:48

So what's interesting to me is that when you were talking about your time at AutoZone and those kinds of auto stores, were still doing, you were originally doing things like putting things in shelves or have Sales. Eventually you made your way up and you're managing the store. It's opening and closing, then restart the whole process. You go into this asbestos stuff and you're working in the warehouse and you're doing some basic things behind the scenes. All of a sudden you're managing dozens of people at the Pentagon. Then you, you break it all back down again. You go back to school, you're learning about technology and you know, initially your, your imaging machines and, you know, you're doing basic setups. There seems to be this pattern here in your life where you really both yearn to understand things from the ground up. but then also put it to good practice because you progress, it seems like you continue to orchestrate all of the knowledge you've gotten from knowing what it's like to work from the ground up.

Carlos: 31:53

Yeah, now that you bring that up because before, before starting the podcast, I'm, I'm like thinking, oh man, what kind of questions David can I have and all these things. I tend to analyze events that have happened to me. Not to criticize or to put myself down, but more to improve and refine. So if we think about it all this, we'll call it reboot and resets that I've done from the beginning, including moving to the us, right? Because moving to the US is the first example where you've reboot and re reset. You have to learn a new language, you have to learn a new culture, and you have no idea what the hell you're doing. There's no roadmap for it. And so in every of those instances, including joining Kelly Dry, it was that it was learning of previous mistakes and then refining my new process. And I think that has been the history of who I am today. Everything I've done kind of gravitates to this forceful reset. Both from mindset, but from a practicality point of view as well.

David Carns: 33:15

Interesting. And not to give short shrift to your journey from there, but you then became, um, through a series of interesting events, the DC it manager of of the law firm and eventually that led you to leading it at another law firm in Washington dc then led it for a country. Wide real estate development company and at one point how many employees were working at this company?

Carlos: 33:45

We're close to about 800. So when I started at Madison Marquette, we were about 1 25, 1 50 after the company had reduced after the 2008 financial crisis. Right? Because those crises affect real estate. So companies like that are able to. Come down and be able to expand as well. Yeah, until y yet again. Another example, right? I moved out of the legal industry into an industry. I had no idea, right? How real estate worked. Initially I was gonna try to replicate everything I had done at legal and day one I'm like, yeah, none of the things I know actually fit here. The reason was law firms are very structured. They have offices, they have people that work in those offices, and those are the people you support and the systems support it. Commercial rural state is a very dynamic business. We had five, six offices, but we were in 32 markets. Why? Because we had properties that we were managing malls, shopping malls that we were managing, and those became a hubs point of management for my team. So from defining what Service Desk did, how hours of operations to what systems they used, had to apply those dynamic changes. And it wasn't like they were defined, oh, here's where you work next week. They would onboard another mall somewhere else and you had to pivot and then, oh, we lost the assignment here, so we have to close it down. So you had to become very lean and mean and being able to act and react. So that allowed me to change my entire mindset. That was the first time, and we're talking 2016, where then my philosophy was cloud first. So when we talk about cloud first here to me it's an outdated term because I had done it so many years ago. Right. And we had moved, but again, because they weren't regulated in a way or they didn't have established frameworks, it was easy to pivot those groups. Unlike a law firm, there are a lot of cultural effects. There's management silos that exist, that are very defined because that's how legal has run for years, right? And in commercial estate, none of it. And, and we behave interesting. As I would introduce people, and I think I introduced Madison Marquette to you is like, we behave like we're a startup, but we've been a startup for 26 years, right? Because they, they were used to that mentality of that flexibility, but there was lack of commitment long term because their long term wasn't defined.

David Carns: 36:34

Interesting. So this whole theme of reset and rebuild. I mean, just keeps popping up again and again in through your career. And then you left the real estate, um, development and management world. You came back to legal and now you oversee technology and cybersecurity for a national law firm. Um, what does your typical week look like now?

Carlos: 37:00

One thing, right? It's, it's a lot more predictable than real estate. Real estate was very, very ups and down, but today, now working at beverage and truly defining my role, it's a, it's a dual role, right? Even it's the same person performing the role I have to have. A day to day, two, two sided brain, right? The operational, getting things done. But now having this compliance and governance and being able to do the right thing with compliance in mind in the, the other side of the brain, and it's, again it's helping me mature in a complete, in a completely different paradigm because I'm no longer just trying to get things done right, or moving at the speed. I'm trying to be methodical at how we do things, how we architect things, how we make decisions, right? Because I feel that I'm at a part in my in my career that, yes, I've done a lot of technical work, but it's not about the technology. Aspect of that anymore, right? It's more about now what do you do with all this knowledge that you have to be able to create a team that can take that thought to the next level? So from mentoring our teammates to collaborating with executives, it, I look at things in every decision that we take in a long-term effect from changing the firm's culture, from allowing the, the firm to be able to pivot faster and easier and influence others thoughts. Because I remember they won, or the first week of joining the IT team had very. Or behaviors that were ingrained, right? It was part of their DNA, including the response of saying, oh no, we don't do things like that. And then fast forwarding to today, which is, it feels like I've been there for 10 years, but it's only been a year, is the openness that the team now has, and I guess it comes to. Trust becomes a very big component because now they know that what we're trying to do is not to harm the firm or their roles or what they did before. We're very appreciative of where they came from. But that vision no longer applies into today's IT teams. And like the hardest thing for our team to adopt was change management. Where before change management was a conversation in the hallway and things just got done. Right now we have to have a process and it's mainly driven by complying with our ISO audit. And so that helps apply the things that we want to, but ultimately as we coach people instead of coasting through life is about legacy and legacy thinking.

David Carns: 40:10

So let me ask you this, when you were whether is it I. AutoZone, the Pentagon. At your first law firm job, at your in, in real estate development, you obviously had mentors helping guide you and all. During that time you also were mentoring other people. What is your approach to mentorship? I guess both generally, but also specifically in the, uh, the legal technology space.

Carlos: 40:44

Yeah, I think what I'm about to tell you, it fits both on my personal side as well as what I do. I tend to be very blunt and some people appreciate that transparency. Some people feel that I. Maybe I'm too direct in certain ways, but thinking about, who were my mentors, my growing up, and that ability to reset and self-growth and, and kind of help strive to improve the way I think, I guess my legacy would be fed at some point is that I work by racing standards, but when I race standards, I help lift people. And because I've been able to self-growth in a way, I occasionally have very small space in my brain of we'll call tolerance when I don't see. People striving to improve because I know that there's a lot of potential and that applies to, my kids, my family members, as well as my teams. So, and I think that kind of got honed in at Madison Marquette because we were growing so fast and the team needed to be less reliant on me. Okay, we have a decision to make, only Carlos can make the decision, instead of empowering them to make those decisions and being able to coach them. I remember I had a, a manager who would tell his teams that I think Carlos is gonna fire me today. And like he did it for months and I didn't know. All I was doing is just giving him feedback and say, okay, Alex, we need to do this. We need to do that. This is how I would like you to do it. Think about this. Look how the team is behaving. Change those behaviors, but they need to see the change from you first. And he was a member that I inherit through a merger, so it wasn't a choice that I had of hiring him, but Alex was such a great employee as a service desk technician. He was the best, as a, as a, as a manager. He struggled, right? Like every manager does at the beginning. But that's where you provide this feedback. And the poor guy was feeling like I, I was ready to chop him every time until one of his staff members who was in DC told me. And so I had to have this frank conversation. He said, Alex, where do you, what am I doing that makes you think I. It is like, it's not something that you say, but you are always pushing me to do something that is completely out of my comfort zone. And I'm like, yeah, because I know you can do it. He is like, yeah, but I'm gonna fail. And then I said, it's okay, we'll learn. It's like, if it doesn't work out we'll figure out what works out. And he, and I think that's when he finally realized that I wasn't trying to get him out the door or, or trying to burn him. I was actually trying to push him above and beyond what he thought his limits were.

David Carns: 43:56

Interesting. And I guess based on what you've said, like people have done this for you in the past, right? Someone said, Hey, you need to manage this team at the Pentagon. Someone said, you need to configure this server. Someone said you should go to this interview. Even if it doesn't work out, you still need to go through the process and that you probably learn through your own personal experience that when you're challenged, you often in fact rise to the challenge.

Carlos: 44:24

I think one of the, one of the things that possibly is one of my drivers is feeling uncomfortable. If I feel uncomfortable, it pushes me.'cause I am unrestricted there. To me, there's no such thing as failure. It's only moving forward versus when you're comfortable setting your ways, probably your growth spectrum reduces tremendously. You are just ghosting in life and that's not me. And that's part where I want to be able to push others. And it, it happens everywhere, right? When I was coaching basketball for my kid during COVID, because there was no coaches available and trying to mentor other kids to, to strive for more, to then work and, and pushing myself as well.

David Carns: 45:15

What advice would you give to someone starting in the technology or cybersecurity field today?

Carlos: 45:22

I am currently facing that right now. For people who are listening, I decided to finally go back to school and complete the one task that I never finished, which was going, getting actually my degree and I'm pursuing a degree in cybersecurity out of all fields, right? I could do just technology management, but now I focused on something that keeps me uncomfortable, right? And so in this program I'm at, at gw, of course, I'm the oldest guy in the room and have a cohort of a bunch of young professionals who are trying to be young professionals who are gaining cybersecurity experience. They do work some in the field, some don't. Right? And then be able to. Give that answer. What do you recommend? So what I recommend to them who are trying to break into the IT field is one, be yourself, right? Don't change who you are because you're trying to fit the role, because you are, you want that experience so bad, right? I know that the hardest job to get it is your first job in it, right? Because when hiring managers develop job recs, especially for entry level, they all won experience. You and I have done it. When we draft them, we want some sort of experience because we want them to be effective at their role, but when they don't, it's very demoralizing. And I look back when it was my time to get a job and I kept getting turned down because I didn't have enough experience. So know who you are. Understand your potential or what you can bring to an organization. And then as you get in into these interviews, be able to convey your story clearly. Because I don't think I got that when I graduated from that trip program. Nobody said, everything you did in this program is actually experience that you can document into your resume, right? A lot of people think that only in the job experience counts. So when I talk to my classmates, I'm like, every lab that we do, every project that we do, both as a group or as individuals, counts. And you articulate that in your resume and that is valid experience, right? It is valid experience. So this. Mindset of not having enough experience or not fitting a role is not something they need to think about. They're more than ready to, to tackle into this new world. And if they're driven, they're curious and they like being uncomfortable, this is the feel for them and they're gonna enjoy their journey. There's, now they have one person in their Rolodex that they can count on. Even when they have questions, they email me. And that is very rewarding. I wasn't signing up to go to school to, to become a mentor of somebody. I was going, I was signing up to finish a task. Right. And this experience has been more rewarding in other areas than me learning a bunch of new concepts around cybersecurity. I.

David Carns: 48:47

And it's interesting because what I'm hearing from you is there's all the skills that you and your classmates are learning and all the skills you've learned throughout your entire career, and clearly that's important. And putting, making yourself or putting yourself in an uncomfortable position, you to yourself to grow that's important. it sounds like. For all those skills, there's something more to what makes a successful candidate and there's something more than what makes someone who's going to make their way through their own career that they choose to build based on who they are. What do you think those attributes are that makes people successful from what you've seen in your experience?

Carlos: 49:31

I believe I'm a strong believer that I can teach you technical. I can tech, I can teach you how the firm uses software. I can teach you how to do your job, right? Because we have standard operating procedures, we have steps, we have guides. But what I think a good candidate or a person that is gonna work within a team is aptitude and attitude, right?

David Carns: 49:56

Yes.

Carlos: 49:57

If you come to me that with those glazing eyes, and you want to be a sponge, right? And you wanna be exposed to as much information as possible to be able to get as much knowledge so you can do a better job, you would, that would trump any candidate who has vast years of experience but doesn't know how to work within a team. And I think I've been lucky enough to be put in situations where I didn't have to choose the people. But I've learned to develop a skill where I can be around people and analyze their strengths very well. And sometimes I pinpoint strengths that they never conceptualized. And then be able to, to provide feedback and recommendations based on those strengths. And I think through my career, one of the first people who did that to me if besides, you know, being put in tough situations, but talking about having a candid conversation and saying, I truly believe you're ready for this. It was you, right? Because you saw something in me that Jim and other folks at Kelly Drive didn't see, or at least didn't vocalize it. Um, I. You are the only one that saw and said, okay, you actually have a nick for potentially management. And besides doing the Pentagon thing, I didn't think I was doing management at the Pentagon thing. I was put in a situation where it became my task and I was task oriented. So I did it. I managed people, but I never saw myself as leading the charge or doing management. It wasn't until having that conversation with you when you told me I am thinking of leaving and, and this is, this is this. And then you asked me about it, and then I rem i I remember that day and I said, oh, yeah, I, I kind of manage two, 300 people at the Pentagon. And you got, your eyes got big and you're like, what do you mean you, you did what I. I was like, yeah, I did this job at the Pentagon where I had to be it, and I end up with 60, and by the end of the day I was managing, 300 people in different crews with different sub supervisors in there. And you're like, well, this should be a piece of cake. So yeah, it takes somebody and it only takes one to believe in you to change your complete mindset.

David Carns: 52:41

Hundred percent. believe that very strongly. Carlos, lemme ask you what we're gonna kind of wrap, wrap up from by reflecting back to the beginning. What's one thing you miss about Bolivia and one thing that you love about the United States?

Carlos: 52:55

Man. I think the one thing that I miss most from Bolivia, the memories. I remember the country completely different than what it is today. So it's more out of nostalgia, because believe it or not, oblivious is a beautiful country and all this, all these things that you see, right? It's beautiful scenery, weather, it's amazing. Food is great, right? Because especially in the city where I'm from, there's a saying that people from Cocho Baba don't eat to live. They live to eat. Because there's so many possibilities. But

David Carns: 53:30

I

Carlos: 53:30

yeah. And it, but it, um, it's like spending my my vacations with my grandparents at their farm, right? But for me as a kid, life was hard. I. Bolivia doesn't, doesn't have a lot of options for people from a job perspective. I saw my parents struggle, my mom struggle, um, as a, as a, a single parent and that kind of is what I love the most about the US right When we moved here. My mom had the opportunities to be able to spread her wings, right? My mom is very entrepreneurial. She never wanted to be under somebody. She wanted always be her boss. And so when we moved here, she was a, a nanny. So she took care of some kids for a family in Sorna Park. Then she took care of the elderly at in the evenings, and then she broke out and started her own business, right? She bought into a business that did shipping to Bolivia, right? Something that it was kind of getting her community and all, and that got her to move to Virginia, so she got closer to me instead of me moving back. But the US what I like the most is it's the land of opportunity and for people who don't take advantage of the opportunities provided or in front of you. That shows you that maybe you think things should just happen, but you gotta put the work and if you're willing to put the work, the sky's the limit.

David Carns: 55:10

Well, Carlos, thank you truly for this time. I find your, your story and your personal growth and your career growth to be. I. Inspirational. And the industry that we're both in, um, has its challenges to be sure, but it's when you work with people that make a difference and make the difference in people's lives, I think really sets people who are mentors in this industry apart from others. And you've been a mentor to, to many. Thank you for sharing your story today.

Carlos: 55:46

David, thank you.

David Carns: 55:48

If you. enjoyed today's episode, please uh, follow rate, on whatever podcast, um, app you're listening to, um, and share conversations with Carns, with people you know. Thanks for tuning in. This is David Carns, and you've been listening to Conversations with Kanes.