TechVibe Radio Geeks out with Eaton and Involta

TechVibe Radio is back on air at ESPN 970 AM every Saturday at 8:00 a.m. from the Huntington Bank Studio.

 

Audrey, I tell you what, I'm very excited because we are on the precipice of my favorite holiday, which would be Thanksgiving, I can't believe it's that time of year again. So it's kind of fun to be thinking about Thanksgiving and doing a little TechVibe Radio on the side here to get ourselves all whipped up into the holiday spirit. So who's our guest today?

I've got a great guest hanging out with us today. Because you know how I freak out about this all the time. You may not know about this, but the security of our energy grid is of utmost importance, especially if you want a Thanksgiving Day dinner. You know you worried about this? Yes, because I feel like it's so easily hacked, like anybody could like mess with the security of our energy grid. And today, we are talking to a guy that they're making sure that's not going to happen. It's as simple as that.

Bring them on then. Yes, we have Michael Regelski. He's the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the electrical sector at Eaton. So Michael, welcome to the show today. How are you doing? Thanks for stopping by.

Jonathan. I'm doing great. And like you, I love Thanksgiving, love the holiday seasons, not my favorite like yours, but I do and do enjoy it.

Is it your second favorite?

Ah, you know what I'll say it's in the second third. I'm a big Fourth of July guy.

I like it. I like it.

That's fabulous. So let's go. Let's just talk about your role. I mean, you know, the standards, all the things that Jonathan just conveyed? Are those the things that you work on each and every day, you know, every single day, Audrey and just a little bit about Eaton, if you don't know Eaton, I mean, Eaton is a is a power management company. So what is what does that mean? It means we have expertise in managing different types of power that operate our lives behind the scenes every day. So it could be electrical power, which is the core focus of our business. Or it could be mechanical power, or fluid power, which is driven by some of the other parts of our of our organization. But for now, I'll just focus on the electrical on the electrical power side. And just think, you know, Eaton is not necessarily the most brand name recognized inside the home about a lot of our products are inside of Home Depot and Lowe's and everything.

Stuff that keeps the juices flowing.

Exactly. Think about it like this, every time that you go, and you try to do an e commerce transaction. You know, what's keeping the power running inside of those data centers?  Eaton. Walk into a building or you know, when you see the lights coming on, you know, who's behind all that? Eaton's behind all that all that we are making sure that we're pride providing safe, efficient, reliable power every day, behind the scenes, the all the infrastructure that gives us the modern conveniences in our life.

Absolutely. We're done here. Our work is done for God's sake. This work, everything has Eaton inside. 

Actually, our brand slogan Audrey is, you know, we make what matters work.

That sounds much better to me. Like that one too much better. So So talk about, um, I mean, where do you want to start? You want to talk about, you know, the biggest challenges they have? Where do you want to start? Because there's so many things that we could talk to you about, you know, you know what, let's do it. Let's just start with where we're Jonathan You know what he does the scenario that he was laying out, he's at home, he's got his turkey in the oven and everything, and he's cooking on the stove and all that stuff, and then all of a sudden, the power goes out. And he can't watch football. All of a sudden, lights aren't on, it's getting dark earlier. And essentially, your whole holiday is disrupted. And you wouldn't know why. But you but you know, one of the things that's very likely, is you could trace it back to a cyber attack on the grid, taking out areas of power, disrupting our lives. And why is that happening? Let's just talk about a major trend that's going on really around the globe. And if you think about the history of electricity, it really is it really is, was centered around unidirectional power flow, you have a power plant that produces energy. And it transmits that energy down transmission lines and distribution centers, into our houses in our buildings, and we consume that power. And it makes us warm, comfortable, and all the modern conveniences of life. But now what's happening? Well, we have renewable energy, you have solar panels on home, you have wind farms, you have energy storage units that are coming on to that are coming onto the grid. And all this means power is no longer flowing in a unidirectional manner. But it's bi directional power that's on your home that's in excess in excess power in your home, that's not utilized has to flow back onto the grid, in order for it to go flow back onto the grid. Now there has to be intelligent devices controlling the flow of that power to go back and forth. So the utilities know how much energy to produce. Because you don't want to produce too much energy, it has nowhere to go. So in order to accommodate all of these renewable energy sources, on the grid has to become more intelligent. And as it becomes more intelligent, that means it's driven by industrial IoT devices, which are driven by software, which open up your attack surfaces for cybersecurity breaches.

But I was saying I get freaked out that people can hack into our systems and like shut it off. And I don't want that. And you guys are finding solutions around that, which I think is just so exciting. 

Michael, what is your background? Tell us a little bit about Michael, your background? Because you know, there are probably a lot of people who would love to understand that and have a job like you did.

Audrey, I'm a I'm a hybrid person at the heart. What does that what does that mean? hybrid? It doesn't mean that I'm like half fuel powered, you know, I think but uh, but I really am a hybrid, I started out in my undergraduate as an electrical engineer. And I said, You know what, there's this whole realm of software that really plays an integral part of it. So I switched to Computer Engineering. So that this way, I can get a good background in computer science, as well as electrical engineering to know how hardware and software kind of came together. back for my graduate degree, again, I couldn't decide you kind of go for an MBA or Diego's technical so I did a hybrid, and got the combination of both. And that's how I always viewed the world. And we're that's really helped me is if I think about what we're trying to do to secure the grid, you have software and digital capabilities, which are starting to come on, as we just discussed, but the world is primary electromechanical. So it's the perfect marriage of electronics and software, with physical hardware and mechanics. And you have to make those two worlds work together in order to get all of the power that we're enjoying today.

But he doesn't know you're at the you have been at the forefront then of IoT. You must chuckle when people say the Internet of Things. You've been doing that?

That's absolutely right. Absolutely. I'm chuckling over it, because IoT is kind of the new incarnation. But the reality is we've been putting intelligence and communications inside of devices for many, many years.

So if you know it's funny, though, isn't it funny how things happen and all of a sudden there's a brand and you're like, it's like the same thing with autonomous vehicles, right. Carnegie Mellon has been working on AV for 40 years. Right? So they're all of a sudden it's an overnight success. And they've been working at it for four decades. They call it that though, so it's the same. It's the same so you are, you are a man who's never going to be without work. Your work is is in perpetuity, right?

At least for the foreseeable future. And I always say that if I always say to myself and our engineering teams, if we do our jobs, right, we should effectively put ourselves out of work. That means everything safe and secure in my mind. Right? Right, if you take it to that level that everything. Sure, but, but I think it's interesting, because you've actually been eating some pretty significant awards around your work to make things secure, which I think is so cool. Tell us about that.

So you know that so there is one little differentiation when we start talking about quote, IoT, that is new. And that is it allows for connectivity to the outside world. And most of the communications before that we had was all internal inside of a facility. But now you're really extending that outside of the facility. Right? So we believe that in order for the world to move forward, right, you have to take the fear out of the equation. Because if you bring up in, you have to educate people on what it means to be cyber secure. And think about this, if you're running a if you're running a utility, and someone comes up and say, Hey, you know what, we're going to put this device on, and it's going to go and save you time and make your energy distribution more efficient. But there's a chance of a cyber attack, and it could bring down your grid, you know, you're probably going to go and say, Hey, you know, what, I'm gonna pass, err on the side of caution here, right?

Yeah. And in a lot of, it's just because the fear of the unknown. So what we try to do is this, we try to educate people to say, look, in our products, cyber security is built from the ground up. And it's not just in our products, but it's in our processes and DNA and how we go and design products. And you don't just have to take our word for it. We're independently certified and audited by and assessed by outside agencies, because the best way to gain credibility is for people outside to say, Yes, they are secure. And then we're pushing for two global standards around cybersecurity. So now, when you go and talk to a customer, you could say, here's how our products secure here out, here's how it applies to global standards. Here's how it'll work on your network. And here's your vulnerability points that we need to make sure are in compliance. So now you can go forward with a trusted solution. And you could get all the productivity gains and conveniences that you need to provide safe, reliable, efficient power.

I guess, because I first of all, I've done many tours in various levels, because there's so many divisions, I look at the engineers they have on staff, they're the women and the men that are working on crazy solutions. I know they're locking things down and making it safe, which I think is great. That's why I'm so glad we had Michael here Did you give us a little a little sample as to what's going on. So when we go to put our turkeys in the oven and whip up our mashed potatoes, we know the power is going to be on and if someone tries to hack in our power, anything can happen if you know what I mean.

Well, is great. So Michael, what's your advice to people as they think about their own careers? Given what you've been told? I don't you know what, I go by the adage that sharks go by and you know, when a shark stops swimming, they that this when a shark stops moving, they're dead. You don't stop moving, don't stop learning, continue to this and go and push the boundaries of innovation. That's what makes that's what makes life worth living is when you're on the edge of it.

I love that. Those are wise words. Thank you so much for being with us and taking the time just just for us to have like a little snapshot into the work that you do and how you feel about it. It's really now even is ensuring that my power does not get cut off this Thanksgiving. So let's keep our fingers crossed. I don't have to cuz I know it's gonna be good.

Jonathan, you could sleep asleep of angels. I will be talking to you, Michael, you have been having you on the show today. That's for sure. Hey, for taking a quick break. We're coming with a lot moreTechVibe Radio with our friends from Involta stopping by this is Jonathan Kersting.

And this is Audrey Russo.

We are back as promised, this is Jonathan Kersting.

And this is Audrey Russo. I am so pumped up that Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I'm not going to stop talking about it and after talking to our friends at Eaton I'm glad to know that the the power network is nice and secure. And everything's gonna be just fine on Thanksgiving when I need electricity the most. We have some great guests hanging out with us from Involta. We have a Keith Cuyer and Jim Buie here from Involta Thanks for hanging out with us. And Happy Thanksgiving early to you guys. And so before I don't want to forget, Happy Thanksgiving and tell us about yourselves and what your favorite dish at Thanksgiving is. And Jim, let's start with you.

All right.

Good afternoon, and thanks for having us, Jonathan.  You know I've got to go with stuffing. Turkey is one thing makes you sleepy. We've been in the Pittsburgh market for about eight years. And just really appreciate your time today.

And we're glad to have you here. And so Keith, what do you do at Involta?

Yeah, Jim took my answer. But so I'm an account executive here in Pittsburgh. Born and raised in Pittsburgh. My favorite side dish would be homemade cranberry sauce. And I think the reason why I like it is I eat so much fun Thanksgiving, I'll make cranberry sauce that actually makes me feel like I actually did something good. I eat something healthy, even though it's not. But that's a great answer. Thanks for thanks for having indulging us with some Thanksgiving fun. Let's get to the dishes. And let's talk about Involta. What's going on? Because you guys are expanding in Pittsburgh, making a big presence here. We're glad to see that. So first, maybe just give our listeners a pitch what Involta does because you guys do all things digital transformation. And that's a very broad term. We bring that down to earth for us.

Yeah, you bet. I love to take that. So you know, it's interesting, because when we first came to the Pittsburgh market, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was our anchor tenant, for the data center services. So we're known I think, in Pittsburgh, mostly for data center services, right? Like many companies we've grown, we've evolved, and over the last few years have really started providing a broad mix of it outsource services. And, you know, we're most proud of our security services. Today, we had a nice press release around our managed AWS services. And interestingly, today at volta about 52% of our revenue is our services beyond just the data center data stuff. Data Center has been the anchor, but you know, we're very proud of we can fully outsource it departments and really help them maintain secure, reliable, you know, services.

People are listening, and they're interested in outsourcing. What is your sweet spot in terms of size of company. What's your sweet spot?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think we've historically middle market is our key customer, because you think about middle market companies. They're not large enough to necessarily invest in the cloud engineering talent that they need. Or maybe it's too expensive to build a full data center or maybe the security professionals just to keep up with, you know, we all know the IT security, what those resources what it takes to recruit them, just the salaries these days to really build a department from scratch. So middle market is absolutely our key client. We obviously serve large enterprise and I think, compliment or generally prize more so than then fully outsource. And then in the SMB market, it's really interesting because many of our services scaled down to what an SMB needs. And it's been interesting for us, as we've seen the pandemic, we've had everything from enterprises looking to get out of their corporate real estate. And obviously, you can't take a server home with you.

See a lot of those corporate real estate kind of upper mid market enterprise that that data center needs. But at the same time, we've had a lot of surge of call it upper SMB and middle market companies moving forward with a lot of their IT projects in Pittsburgh. So it's been a good mix, but middle market is, I think, where we're most helpful to the client base.

Right? You say you're bullish, you believe that. Pittsburgh's on an incline?

Oh, absolutely. It's become a technology hub. There's so many, you know, it's a good mix of academia, and business, as you've really studied autonomous vehicles and call it artificial intelligence in industries like manufacturing and financial. Pittsburgh's a great hub for us. It's our one of our fastest growing markets. We really like the business of, obviously, Keith has lived there for his whole life. So he's seen quite a change in the technology sector, but we love the talent, the people we have, in Pittsburgh, our barn on some of the smartest, best talent in our company. And we're excited for the future. I think we're not too far from teleports, and, you know, the day of George Jetson. And finally, it's gonna happen first, I think in Pittsburgh, that's cool.

So Keith, I'm just curious, like, what what attracted you to to work at Involta, you knew you knew the company? Obviously, you can go wherever you want. You saw something pretty exciting about being an Involta in Pittsburgh?

Yeah, that's a great question. There were three things that really drew me to Involta. The first thing is that I am community and culture focused. So in everything with the Involta team, you really get the impression that they're community focused as well. So they encourage us to get involved in the community, they invest in their people, they invest in the community, as well. And then not only are they a good corporate citizen, but the second thing is to help align with our customers on their key initiatives, and bringing commitment to the community as well. So one thing that we've done internally was we created a program called linking loved ones. So it's a program where in COVID, people are able to communicate with their loved ones. So is a program that was dedicated to were able to provide the infrastructure and the tablets and the communication devices, so that people can communicate with their the the elderly, well, that's awesome. Yeah, for folks, when they were in, you know, in nursing homes, and they could not be visited or get out to visit isolates, you're able to bring some technology and and create those connections digitally. So people could be linked up. That's awesome.

Yeah, and it's something that I think that the whole company is very proud of.

I would imagine. So I mean, that's, that's called making a difference. And using technology to do it, I can see why having programs and issues like that gives that little extra something to your day gives you some real reason to get up and do what you do. Indeed, how far do you reach? How far is your reach? In terms of your customer reach when you think of Pittsburgh?

Yeah, no, that's great question. We actually our national hybrid it providers and customers as far as LA and Seattle, on the west coast, and the East Coast, you know, in the northeast, certainly New York and New England, and all the way down to Florida. So, you know, people were, you know, now with so many people working remotely and doing hybrid, we, you know, we've we've expanded our own reach by having friends in Ohio, and friends in northern Pennsylvania and Cleveland, etc. So, if people are listening here, should they reach out to keep?

Yeah, I you know, I think there's two great ways reach out to Keith, I think www.involta.com is a great way to learn about all our services and even the community events that Keith mentioned, we'd love that people participate in those as well.

Very cool.

So can we talk about digital transformation, that big kind of hairy word that means a little bit of everything, really bring that down to earth a little bit and talk about like, what does that mean? What are some key things that kind of equate to digital transformation that I think people find really helpful now especially as they're navigating things like COVID and realizing like it's a transforming world. Let's get behind this.

Yeah, and let's talk about it in terms of some of the verticals that we see in Pittsburgh. So here's a great example. Like, overnight, not only did hospitals now have to deal with, with all the COVID response, but think about their staffs, their non frontline staff working from home. But really the number of telehealth appointments because patients there, there were some hospital systems were aware of that went from, you know, a handful of telehealth appointments a week, up to 6000 a week, just the ability to accelerate, you have to have the network connectivity to your patients, you have to have security to your patients to protect that personal personal information. That's really what digital transformation is. And we've seen it accelerate in the pandemic, it's not just healthcare, but I would say manufacturing is another great example, as manufacturers looked at how do we cut costs out of our plants? How do we provide more efficient plant, many manufacturers had to shut down certain product manufacturing for a month or two. So they had to make up for lost time, and really figure out how to drive costs out of their manufacturing plant. So artificial intelligence machine learning. Again, you know, if you go into some of these manufacturing plants, and my manufacturing clients know exactly what I'm talking about, you know, again, you have these servers on the plant floor, and it's wet. It's not a good place, environment for a server, and really upgrading those plant facilities to operate and modernizing. That's what digital transformation is. It's really just about bringing technology to bear to solve business problems. And that's where Involta, you know, we'd love working with clients across all those industries, to really try to help solve business problems with technology. And, you know, just like Keith said, with linking loved ones in the community, there's great application of technology in the community. And from a business point of view, you know, we're best when we're solving problems. And that's how we define digital transformation. It's not a pie in the sky, corporate bingo buzzword about solving real problems for real companies, right, and, you know, saving them costs and doing things more efficiently.

That's how it all comes down to the end, save some money, be more efficient, provide more value to your customers innovate better, like all the way around, and it's so cool. And volta is really like really doubling down its efforts here in the Pittsburgh area to help these companies out within these verticals and everything like that. So it's exciting times, I think that companies like yours during COVID, people have just had finally had to say, Okay, I'm not doing this myself anymore. Exactly. Do this myself. So I think if you're listening and you're mid size company, you should check out involta.com. And, and or you could reach Keith, I'm sure you are on LinkedIn, and reach out to him there to find out more about what they're doing. They're not just data centers anymore. So it's cool to see you grow. And like I said, we're bullish on Pittsburgh. It's a slow and steady incline, which is really the story that most people want. And with health care alone, I would imagine that your world has gotten really strong, pretty busy. That's for sure. For sure.

And you know, like you said, I like the tagline, like not just data center. You know, because we pride ourselves are over taglines is get there, like we really pride ourselves on Hey, please get there and but we may still agree we may take your marketing brainpower there as well.

Great. I'm always excited about growth. I'm always excited about people having deeper relationships across the business community, because that helps all of us. So really appreciate both of you joining us today.

Thanks for being part of TechVibe Radio, have a great Thanksgiving. This is Jonathan Kersting. And this is Audrey Russo. Learn more about the tech Council by going to PGH tech.org in case you want to listen to TechVibe Radio and it's not a Saturday, just go to your favorite podcast channel and you can download TechVibeany time of the day. Have a great weekend, everybody. Thanks for listening to tech vibe radio coming at you from the Huntington bank studios. And thanks to our sponsors, see leveled PNC Bank, my benefit advisors 321 blink chorus, call copy genetics and sdlc partners geeking out with us each and every week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai