Meriton Employee Spotlight: Lance Willingham

Lance Willingham is the Director of IT Operations here at Meriton, responsible for leading our talented IT team who manage and enhance our IT services, infrastructure and cybersecurity.?

Q: Share a little bit about what your role & responsibilities at Meriton are!

A: As the Director of IT Operations, my role is to lead a talented team dedicated to managing and enhancing our IT services, Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity. Our mission is to ensure that the technology we rely on every day runs without a hitch, playing a crucial role in our company's operations. The Service Desk is the tip of the spear, always ready to solve any tech issues quickly and help create a productive working environment for all staff members.?

The full Meriton group is now approaching a dozen companies spread across several states, dozens of offices, and several cloud tenants. The Infrastructure team works to maintain our existing systems while simultaneously integrating newly acquired organizations. Our Cybersecurity team is all about the details, dedicated to protecting our company's online data and addressing new security challenges.?

My input is to guide and encourage this great team, ensuring that what we do supports the broader objectives and principles of our company.

Q: How did you land at Meriton? Briefly, what was the path that led you here??

A: I joined Texas AirSystems about seven years ago after a friend of mine sold me on his company that was a curious mixture of four decades of established market presence and also a startup-like tenacity and entrepreneurial spirit. I was infected with his enthusiasm, and joined the team. TAS certainly continued to grow, and along the way, Meriton was formed to streamline business functions like IT.

Before Texas Airsystems, I worked for web and software development companies, a managed service provider, the Army, and a commercial nursery. At the nursery, we implemented Lean Production Methods on growing and harvesting millions of bedding plants. It was eye-opening for me how integral information systems are to truly efficient operations in any industry you want to imagine.???

Q: What is your favorite part of your role??

A: I was the sort of kid to take apart the family vacuum because I wanted to see how it ticks. It "occasionally" got me into trouble when I couldn't quite get it all back together again.?

Every day has the potential to deliver some new tech to explore, and many days deliver. I love tinkering and problem solving, so working with new tech to solve business needs across a broad domain is pretty much a dream job. And as a bonus, I now have the support of a great team to help me put the bits back together.

Q: What is something interesting IT/cybersecurity related that you’ve learned recently??

A: ?Wow…everything! I really mean that. In the world of IT, existing tech evolves and new tech emerges at an absolutely breakneck pace. Even if you were an expert on something at the beginning of the month, if you don't keep learning, your knowledge can quickly dive into obsolescence.?

One good example is the emergence of new encryption methods for something as mundane as your business VPN. Wireguard has burst onto the scene and both simplifies the configuration of tunnels and is several times faster than the protocols that have been around for three decades.?

This type of tech excites me because it will enable us to harden our defenses by encrypting all traffic to every corporate device with virtually no performance impact to the business. VPNs are boring and the nuance can be nerdy, but at the end of the day it is solving real challenges in the workplace. I dig that.

Thanks, Lance, for all your hard work in keeping our tech running smoothly and securely!

Meriton is currently hiring multiple roles for our IT team. Check them out: meriton.com/careers