Q&A with Jaime Nelson

We’re thrilled to introduce Jaime Nelson , our Chief Operating Officer and VP of Operations and Programs—or, as we like to say, the “glue” holding our dynamic team together! We gave her a few months to dive into daily operations and embrace her role as a true ‘Exist-ite,’ and now we’re excited to share this Q&A to highlight her insights on ExistX, career experiences, and outlook for the future. At ExistX, we’re bridging the gap between groundbreaking research and real-world application, committed to getting transformative technology into the hands of those who need it most. Jaime is central to driving this mission forward, working closely with our CEO, Janie Robinson , to shape and grow our business and community, one dedicated person at a time. We hope you enjoy getting to know Jaime and discovering more about what makes ExistX unique!

1.????? Why ExistX? What about this company drew you to work here?

There were so many things, but I think the two that stand out are size and focus.

The opportunity to be part of a small business family again, like I was 20+ ago, was incredibly compelling. Back in the day, I was employee number 004 and had a tiny desk in the server room where the white noise occasionally lulled me to sleep. My CEO would bring me coffee, and all four of us in our small but mighty business did everything from building our tech solution to authoring deliverables to establishing partnerships to managing our facility clearance. Oh, and taking out the trash! It was an “all in” environment. Since then, I have had the great pleasure of working for several large companies, meeting brilliant people, doing extraordinary work, and seeing many ways to both deliver value and genuinely take care of people. All of that made me want to return to small business! I relished the idea of bringing what I’ve learned into a smaller environment where I can truly know, share with, and learn from all of my colleagues.

The focus of ExistX was the other draw. I am an Air Force Brat, and the entirety of my career has been in service to National Security interests. I have worked at the intersection of research and operations, and I have witnessed the struggles of operationalizing brilliant new technologies. Because of that, I saw – and deeply felt – the promise of ExistX. Being connected to our sister company, Galois, and specializing in bringing their cutting-edge technologies into real-world environments to support missions that matter… well, that sounded like a dream come true.

2.????? What’s your experience being a leader in a small business like EX, versus a large company?

I once had someone ask me, in an interview, whether I was the kind of person who liked to color outside the lines. I’m not sure if they were trying to avoid someone who breaks the rules or celebrate someone who is unconstrained by convention. It turns out that it didn’t matter, though, because what I really like is to draw the lines themselves.

That’s what being a leader in a small business really is. ?I get to work with my team to create the way we do business together. I get to be involved in everything from client delivery to security processes to financial management to personnel development to business strategy. I love it. We are drawing our own lines.

3.????? What’s your approach to managing people and creating a team environment?

I think the lines between “work” and “home” have all but evaporated in the past several years. Despite the challenges that virtual work can raise, seeing each other in t-shirts and baseball caps with children and pets coming in and out of view has humanized each of us in ways that I hope we will continue to embrace! I love people. I love knowing that the painting behind Chad was painted by his grandmother. I love knowing that Anna collects those baseball caps I mentioned! I love seeing Alannah’s cat jumping up on her keyboard (or the back of her chair for the first time!).

So how do I manage people? I do my best to get to know them as people. Creating a team environment is an extension of that.

4.????? What’s been the most surprising to you since joining ExistX that you didn’t expect?

We have committed to a business model that is, to my knowledge, unique in our industry. ExistX people spend 80% of their time doing client (“billable”) work and 20% of their time doing internal ExistX business. We each use My Twenty Percent to do required things like mandatory training and team meetings, team-building things like participating in our book club (Shelf Indulgence), and personal development things like elective training, degrees, or certifications. We structure our contracts to support this. It allows us to do phenomenal work for our customers but also grow as a team, as professionals, and as people.

5.????? What gets you excited to come to work at EX every day?

My job is about making sure others can successfully do their jobs, so I have the pleasure of learning about all of our programs, the technologies we’re delivering, and the customers we are supporting. I love that variety, and I also love the way it allows me to see opportunities for synergy across our efforts.

6.????? You have a background and education in systems engineering and psychology, what drew you to both of those? How have they helped you in your career?

“Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” - Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

If the whole point of technology is ultimately to improve the human condition, we have to understand both people and the technology we are building to fulfill both the stated and implied needs of the humans who will use our solutions.

I have always been fascinated by people. I think it started with my love of language and the communication, not just of words, but of meaning. I started exploring this through theatre, dove into the underlying science of how we pass traits and patterns through the generations in genetics, and in my undergraduate studies, I found myself in Cognitive Science, which was an interdisciplinary study of psychology, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, and computer science. I ended up getting two different master's degrees, the first focused on Human Factors and Applied Cognition and the second on Engineering Management & Systems Engineering.

It’s a bit of a “chicken or the egg” problem, isn’t it? Do you push the state of the art in understanding human thought, behavior, perception, communication, brain function... and work to create technologies that enhance or expand those things? Or do you push the state of the art in technology to continually make things smaller, more powerful, faster, less expensive... and then figure out how you can use that to do something meaningful? I don’t know what the right answer is. I just know that I found myself needing to have an understanding of both to make sense of why and how to approach the work I do.

How has that helped me? I find myself often serving as a translator among stakeholders of any given technology or solution to help the various groups understand the needs, constraints, and goals of the other groups. I find myself hearing what people mean and understanding what people need, which helps me in leading teams and envisioning solutions to complex problems. Most of all, I think that the study of both of these disciplines has driven me to remember the “why” of what I’m doing, which is empowering human beings to do things that we do better than any machine ever will.

7.????? What’s your favorite thing to do outside of work? We’ve heard rumors about the theatre...

My husband and I have two kids (10 and 15) and four cats and my favorite thing in the world is to hang out with them. We like to take road trips (we visited Mt. Rushmore this summer!), go to Disney (Disney World, Disneyland, and last year we got to visit Disneyland Paris!), and visit nearly any place where we can take a million pictures.

?Do they make me crazy sometimes? Of course! All of them! Our house is constantly a whirlwind of activity with my kids and other people’s kids in and out, but that’s as it should be. I know more about things like Pokémon, Roblox, Star Wars, and Marvel than any sane adult woman should know, but my son is a card collector, gamer, and movie lover, and that’s how we communicate. He also loves animals, so we have begun volunteering at a local animal shelter to provide comfort and socialization to cats who are waiting for forever homes. My daughter, though, is a performer. Quite honestly, she is the performer I was never quite able to be. It is the honor of my life to get to be part of her growth as a singer and an actor and I get to re-live the joys of high school theatre and choir as she does them.

?You mentioned theatre, and you’ve definitely got me there! I do my best to go see all of the musicals that stop in DC – we have season tickets to the theatre season at the Kennedy Center and make sure we catch three or four of each season’s shows at the National Theatre – and occasionally get to pop up to Broadway or across the pond to the West End. I could spend all of my time in the theatre... as Shakespeare said, “I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”

?With all of that activity, late at night, when the kids are in bed and I have a few moments to myself, I love to cross-stitch and stream murder mysteries, tucked up under a blanket on the loveseat in my family room. Quiet time is precious, and I value it now more than I ever did when I was younger.

Want to learn more about ExistX? visit us at www.existx.com