20 Years in Technology: How I Started, What Changed, and What Hasn’t

This week marks 20 years since I started my career in technology. I thought I’d take this moment to tell the story on how I got my start. Like so many of us, I didn’t initially intend to go into the IT field, but somewhat fell into it.

My origin story

Growing up, I didn’t see myself as technically inclined. My older brother was the computer wizard. He programmed our Atari ST computer and went onto computer engineering school. To be fair, both he and my parents were always very encouraging and supportive of me. I drew the comparison myself, and concluded that I wasn’t cut out for technology.

I moved from Pennsylvania to Minnesota to enroll at Crown College to pursue a career in ministry. While I loved my experience at Crown, after a year, I realized that I did not have a vocational calling to the ministry. I initially planned to withdraw and go home, but my friend across the hall stopped me. He told me that Crown just started a computer networking associate degree program. He was switching to it, and he thought I should too. I thought about it long and hard for 15 minutes, then I decided to go for it.

There I was, 1000 miles from home, at a Bible college, learning computer networking. Go figure. After the first semester of my second year, I learned the basics and earned a few certifications. I arranged my second and final semester to be all night classes, freeing me up during the day to start my career. To put this in perspective, I had just graduated from high school 18 months prior.

How does someone with education, but no experience get started? My program director referred me to a TEKsystems recruiter, who landed me a contract position at Allina Health. I was one of 100 contractors they hired to rollout Windows NT 4 to 16,000 computers across all Allina hospitals and clinics before Y2K hit. Read the full story of that experience here.

In 20 years, what has changed?

For starters, it’s not as easy for a college kid to get a job nowadays. In 1999, the demand was so strong, I think anyone could have gotten a job in IT, qualified or not. Today, the jobs are a little harder to land without experience. Fortunately, there are a lot of good programs that bridge the gap. Also, I do my part by mentoring the next generation.

20 years ago, mainframe and midrange computers were on their way out. I rode the wave of distributed computing on the Microsoft platform. I owe that trend to my early career success. Today, physical computing is on its way out and the cloud is the future. If I were entering the IT field now, that’s the wave I’d ride.

20 years ago, viruses were annoying and that’s about it. Today, cyber security is an industry onto its own. The digital world in which we live is not safe.

20 years ago, I took dispatches from a Motorola text pager. Mobile computing meant lugging a heavy laptop around and dialing-up to a modem-bank. Today, I can do most of my job via my iPhone if I need to.

In 20 years, what has stayed the same?

IT has continued to be a strong sector. It’s not recession-proof, but it seems to be the last one hit, and the first one to recover. Knock-on-wood, in 20 years, I’ve always been able to find gainful employment.

We still run Windows. And Office. If I had a nickel for every time someone predicted the demise of Microsoft… Anyway, it’s nice to know that Ctrl-Alt-Del still does something 20 years hence.

IT is still a highly portable skillset. I’ve worked in healthcare, financial services, agriculture, and energy. As I talk to colleagues around town, everyone is dealing with the same issues.

We still run fax machines, mainframes, FTP, VB6, email, file servers, and tape backups. Just because there are more modern solutions it doesn’t mean the old stuff goes away. Tech debt will always die hard.

What about the next 20?

Even though I have 20 years in the review mirror, I still have a least 20 years ahead of me before I’ll be ready to hang it up. What will those 20 years hold? It’s hard to know. Many things will change. Many will stay the same. Will I still be able to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del on my Windows 10 (version 3809) computer 20 years from now? Who knows.

I do know that leadership will still be relevant. It was as relevant at the formation of my career as it is now at the midpoint. Good leaders make great tech teams. That will be true 120 years from now. Like my blog? Please share it with your colleagues.

Read this article on my blog site: https://zachonleadership.com/20-years-in-technology-how-i-started-what-changed-and-what-hasnt/

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