Welcome back to our Team Highlight! Today, meet Josh from Integris’ office in Duluth, Minnesota.
Could you describe your role/what you do in 2-3 sentences?
I am the Cloud Services Supervisor; in that role I handle the day-to-day operations of the Cloud department. As part of the Centralized Services group, the cloud team provides a wide swath of services covering backups, security, and hosted solutions. My time is spent primarily on communication and coordination, I like to think the focus of my job is making sure the technical staff have the bandwidth to get the meaningful work done.
How did you become interested in your profession as a career?
I have a varied background that has always been centered around technology. During that experience, I found I was drawn to and thrived in operations. What I look for in any role is a dynamic set of problems to be solved and smart people to work with. I found both at Integris.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
I get to work with some brilliant and exceptional people.
Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing? What are some of your hobbies?
I have two little girls who occupy the vast majority of my free time. Outside of that, I am a full-fledged nerd, board games, video games, tabletop war games, roleplaying games… lots of games.
Your favorite book?
Dune is my favorite book of all time. I think I have read it roughly once a year since getting a copy from my father at 12 or 13.
What are some things you love about the place you currently live?
Duluth is a great city to live in. My commute is non-existent, and we live next door to some of the best wilderness available. On top of that, Duluth punches above its weight on food and entertainment.
Are you an early bird or a night owl?
While I have always aspired to be a night owl, it has turned out I am definitely an early bird.
Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Hopefully in good health and deeply satisfied with life.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I ever received was to leave a terrible job. Which I did and my life was much better for it, but that is not very inspirational. That same individual also said his goal at any job was to “work himself out of a job”. At first, I thought he was a bit of a lunatic but after some time and experience, it made more sense to me. Who wants to tackle the same issue day in and out? It is much better to find a meaningful solution to that issue that does not require constant intervention and move on to a whole new problem.
If you could have a superpower, what would you want and why?
I am going to go with temporal powers. The ability to create more hours in a day, or slow things down to really enjoy the great moments.
