“At Source 1 Solutions, we hire for talent, not just for a role. This is fully apparent this quarter as we share our team member spotlight. Travis Russell was nominated — more than once — and the management team is thrilled to recognize his contributions and achievements today.
Since he joined us 5 years ago, Travis has grown immensely. He is the embodiment of a team player with an incredible spirit and attitude. Travis always brings his A-game to each and every assignment, and he has contributed to our business in many ways — from project management to installations. And perhaps most importantly, he continues to learn, grow, and contribute. Travis is #allin and we’re lucky to have him at Source 1 Solutions. Way to go, Travis! ” – Rob Hessel, CEO
Can you describe your position at Source 1 Solutions?
I’m a Project Manager. I assist with nationwide site surveys and design systems. I also manage and design internal processes and documentation that are critical to successful deliverables.
What was your dream job as a child?
Anything to do with sports — especially football. But size and athleticism put a damper on that. LOL.
What two apps are must-haves on your mobile?
- The Generic Notes App: With so much information coming at us on a daily basis it helps to have something in which I can jot down thoughts, ideas and a shopping list on. Sometimes I use it to fine tune a speech or sales pitch I want to practice.
- Amazon Prime: Although dangerous (!) this is a must for buying necessities with minimal effort–whether it’s office equipment, supplies for the house, or just fun-stuff for the family–especially with a newborn. My Amazon app is getting a lot of use these days!
How have recent global events, specifically COVID, impacted your daily routine? How have you maintained a standard of excellence with disruption to travel, on-site visits etc?
- Nationwide deployments and implementations have been impacted by the recent events and have altered our normal routine greatly. It has limited traveling and site visits, face to face sales and overall boots on the ground. It’s forced us to sharpen our communication skills through virtual meetings, phone calls and detailed documents & emails. We have the ability to staff augment quickly and globally. I’ve been able to train PoCs and local talent pretty easily using the digital tools we have available to us. And again, communication is key. When people can’t be in the same room or be on site to conduct surveys, your scopes of work maps and systems designs needs to have a very sharpened pencil.
- What it comes down to is just Information, specifically documentation and communication. Making sure all parties involved understand the current state and what it takes to get to the desired future state. Whether it’s price tag, equipment needed, time-frame to complete or the strategies used to deliver. The better those three things are the better chance of success and a satisfied customer. So instead of being onsite and directing all the traffic we rely on our communications and project documents to stay on course.
- Our team is second-to-none when it comes to support. We have impeccable remote troubleshooting skills and the skill and knowledge base on how to service our customers. We ensure all remote troubleshooting steps have been practiced. This helps pinpoint the onsite work that is needed. So when it comes time to send a tech on site, they are not searching the site blindly for the problem. Rather, they go to the source, remediate and move on to the next task.
Any predictions for the future of tech?
- Seeing our engineers engage new tech, it seems the future has endless possibilities. I see a lot of what the future looks like is Cloud Storage or Co-location for Servers and Storage. (1) With so many people working remotely, companies can opt out of full brick and mortar offices and just have all of their company data put into a Co-location. They can have their staff use VPNs to access their information. While this has already started, I see the trend increasing. (2) CCTV/Security Cameras — although the actual cameras, wire and POE Switches will need to remain physically onsite, the actual servers could be replaced with Cloud Storage, reducing the amount of on site hardware.
- Of course, all of this would have to be handled with extreme care and cover all ends of potential breaches. But the idea is less hardware on site. Disasters happen. If all of your work, documents, financials (basically your company’s livelihood) is saved in one location and there’s an event at the office, all could be lost.
Can you tell us a bit about your career path and how it led you to Source 1 Solutions?
- My career path was not really planned or predictable. After graduating college, I moved from Northern Virginia to a small beach town in Pinellas County, FL (with a few close friends). We all gravitated to the hospitality industry to work and meet people. That is where I met our CEO, Robert Hessel, and a few other executives. We developed a rapport and I was offered a permanent position with Source 1 in 2015.
- I began my journey as a field technician. I learned how installations are done along with some programming. From there, I moved to more of a sales technician and smaller system design role. Some hardships, good and challenging experiences and great deal of opportunity led me to the Project Management Office of Source 1. The list of responsibilities is fluid and growing. I lean on my past experiences and build processes around them to train our team and continuously grow and improve our processes. And with all of this, and a newborn, I am also preparing for the PMP exam to receive my PMP Certification. All good stuff. I went from serving food to serving enterprise level IT services nationwide and planning to help deliver global services in the near future.
