Business as Usual: PTC Team

Transcription: 

So good afternoon, everyone. It's Wednesday, and you're on business as usual. And it is, it actually marks 100 and 50th session. But before we get started, I just want to take a moment of silence. And just remember that two years ago, was the massacre that happened that tree of life here in squirrel Hill hard for me to believe that it's been two years. I used to be a member of that congregation. And it would just be an honor to all the people and all the people in this community that were amazing to the Jewish community, the black community, the Muslim community, you name it that really came out to show their support and to hold services that were interdenominational. And for all the people that unfortunately, lost their lives. So tragically, you could just take a moment.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm very soaked up, I'm sorry. I would like to give thanks to Huntington bank, for always being with us on this journey and for the work that they do in our community. And I also am very, very thrilled that we're gonna get a chance to just come behind the scenes and meet some of the people who really do you know, most of the heavy lifting in terms of the work that we do at the tech Council, I'm excited to highlight them, I'm excited to for many of you to just meet and understand the work that they do. And because they really do do the work, and we are touching people in the business community each and every day more than ever before. And we hope that we're doing the right thing. We are convening the community. We're hearing feedback from people and the people that you're going to meet today, I think, you know, you'll be pretty impressed. I'm I'm nothing without them. And I'm pretty thrilled to be able to bring them to the forefront. Just ask them some questions. I might be a little bit more somber today. So I will probably need some of you to jump in in some humor. But I would like to start let's start without dusky. I'm going to bring up our Kaspersky and owl thing. In here today. We tell everyone what you do.

I am the Director of Finance and HR for the tech Council. I've been here about six and a half years. And I previously worked at Maya along with you a long time ago. So we've known each other for several years.

Yes, we have. Back in the day, we had a lot of fun. Now Now we work we really work for a living. Yeah. So share the one thing that you're working on today that will help that will help a tech company.

I've been working on multiple employer 401k plan. So we formed a map is what it's called back in June, and allows multiple companies to come together and pull all the resources to form one large 401k plan. And it allows individual companies to save on their annual member annual administration fees. It also cuts down on the administration of the plans they have to do because everybody is now under one plan. And it's all the PTC sponsored plan. So we take care of all that that administration and the fees are split amongst everybody who's on the plan. So it allows you to get a much better plan for a lot cheaper price.

So that's exciting. So if people are have 401k plans and they're interested reach out to our dusky, a dusky at PGH, tech.org.

Yeah, it doesn't matter if you have a plan or if you just want to form a plan. You can do either one.

Okay, awesome. And so what's one thing about you that we couldn't learn from LinkedIn? What's one thing?

Ah, I've been, I've been restoring a Mustang for like the last 30 years.

In the rain in the rain.

Yet, is it done yet? Nope.

The rain Oh going, Hey, maybe my 14 year old would be able to drive it in two years when I drive it will be his 16th birthday present the way I'm going. Great. We're just a project for forever.

So that's awesome. So thank you. Thank you our thanks for joining us today. Next up is Allison. Allison, let's come to the forefront. She's I'm very thrilled to have her as part of the team. So Allison introduce yourself and tell Everyone about you know your background, just a little bit about you and what you do at the tech council

can do. So my name is Alison Carrick. I am currently at the tech council as the director of major programs, including CIO of the year at the Aquino awards and the tech 50 Awards. Tomorrow is my one year anniversary at the Council. And before this role for the entirety of my career, I've been working in marketing, marketing, communications, operations and event planning. And so what's, you know, just share one thing that you're working on that today that you think helps technology companies? Sure, let me package my one thing into a shameless plug to say that I am currently gearing up for the 2020 tech 50 Awards coming up on Thursday, November 12. And that event for the tech community, it shines a light on 50 tech companies, and this year nine top notch CEOs in the southwestern peer region. And these people are true tech innovators. So we love sharing their stories and helping others learn what they do through this annual awards program. You know, just to help get in front of them and co guys might be able to work together. And if anyone wants to attend tech 50, I will put the link in the chat later. It is free for PTC members. And I hope to see you all there.

Awesome, thank you. So what's one thing that you think no one would find out about you if they looked it up on LinkedIn? Got it? Well, you

said you want to some level to this call today. So I really do believe in working hard and playing harder. So what LinkedIn will tell you is that I love traveling the world with a tiny rubber hand and taking absolutely ridiculous pictures with it in front of global landmarks. So if you want to see some of them, let's connect on LinkedIn. And I'll be more than happy to share my top five or my top 50 depending on how much time you have.

And that's true. I totally forgot about that. She woke up she came in and she had these tiny little hands. And I looked around and said what what is that? What is that about? So thank you. Thank you for reminding everyone about tech 50. It's going to be really exciting. You've done a great job when it comes to all these virtual events lately. So Monica, hello. Hi, Monica. Hi. So tell us a little bit about you and the work that you do. And I believe you just celebrated some time with us

right now yesterday was my five year anniversary. So

yeah, it's been a it's been a fun ride so far. So I am a Senior Director for industry networks with the with the tech Council. Of course, I have over 15 years experience in association management, primarily in membership and events. And right now, I'm managing our it and our manufacturing programs.

Okay, so So can you share one thing that you're doing right now that you think is really important for everyone to know?

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been really excited about the IP programming that we've done over the summer, and that we have upcoming. So we've done a recent collaboration with some of the folks in Columbus so we featured some, some CIOs from there to get some new voices into the room. And we've also, you know, one of the things that I feel like we're really starving for is networking. While we're here in zoom

in zoom Lan,

but we've been able to really provide that opportunity for networking through the CIO insights, we've been utilizing the breakout rooms. And I think it's really helped attendees, you know, continue to meet people connect with people here in the Pittsburgh technology community.

And I think it's great that you know, you've been working on expanding the reach by making sure that you know why we like to say that Columbus is really just a suburb of Pittsburgh, right? Why not? Why not figure out some ways for Information Officers, chief security officers, anyone that's on that tech side of a business to connect, and to address the issues that face us today. Even recently, I liked when you hurt when you gathered everyone together and talked about what's it like to hire remotely and work from home, etc. Really want to hear from other colleagues? Yeah, and one

of the things that has been really interesting is the conversations we've been having about the technology implementation acceleration, that everyone is just, you know, they What happened? what they thought would be happening five years from now is happening now.

Right, right.

So what would we need to know about you don't know about you?

know, I'm a bit of a theme park nerd. So if you're looking to plan a trip to a theme park, let me know in the past few years, I've visited most of the major theme parks in California, Florida, here in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even Japan. And in addition, Allison just reminded me or made me think I have an Instagram account, adventure, Gouda Tama if you are, if you know the Sanrio Sanrio character. It's the lazy gag. He goes on adventures with me and hasn't sent an Instagram account. You can see him in many of the theme parks that I visited and the other landmarks that I visited so far. Park in Japan,

with that was the theme park in Japan.

And we went to Disneyland, Tokyo, Disneyland, Tokyo Disney Sea and Universal Studios in Osaka.

Wow.

Yeah. Okay, so there you have it on Instagram account and everything. Okay, so now let's bring on Marie. Marie. Welcome. So let's introduce yourself, tell us about your background.

I am the director of talent attraction and stem development at PTC and I come from the world of education. I was a middle school teacher for 11 years. And then for six years, I worked for a curriculum development company and wrote their science and math middle school curriculum. And then found myself on the 501 c three side, our foundation side here at the PTC called 40 by 80, developing STEM programs, which I absolutely love, and still get to do in this new role. And now package it up with workforce development and talent attraction.

Awesome. So tell us about the one thing that you think our members need to know about that that you know about doing. So I like to call Marie like the resident nerd, because she actually comes from academic, you know, sort of K through 12 academia, but she also has a tremendous propensity for continuous learning and science.

And I am such a nerd. So I absolutely adore that you say that about me? Um, but yeah, so right now, I'm going to actually talk about two different things, we have a higher up coming up. And the reason that I think this is really benefiting, that the tech companies that are members are in our region, are we're really looking at what tech jobs are you looking for? What is the need, that you're really having right now, what non tech jobs, but also looking at remote positions. And that's coming up on November 10. So we really want to help companies find some great talent in the region, but also maybe bring some some talent back to this region that may have left. So we're looking at that as well. And in combination with that we're putting together a winning talent together coming up looking at companies that have moved to looking at remote workers first. So companies that have made that transition, and how does that look? And how does that look different? How is your onboarding looking different? How is your recruiting looking different? So we want to get that conversation started?

That's great. So what might people might know about you by looking at LinkedIn,

I would say that I raised honeybees along with my kids. We have several hives way out in the backyard, and we recently just harvested 30 jars of honey,

wow, will you soon be putting that into a business?

Um, I think eventually I this is only my third year doing it. So I share it and give it away. But yes, once I get really good at really keeping the bees alive, I for sure will sell some honey.

Great. So thank you so much. And thank you for being a newest member on our team. So now I'm going to ask for Jonathan, many of you know, Jonathan, from these ba us and from some of the other work that he's done. But Jonathan, you know what, you know, just introduce yourself and give us your background. Well,

this is kind of a cool transition, because you went from the newest employee to the oldest employee, because I've been at the PTC for 23 years now. And I have appreciated your shout outs adriaan ba you letting people know for quite a while my 23 years of existence at the PTC so that that was kind of fun. As far as that goes. So I'm our VP of all things, Communications and Media at the tech Council. At the end of the day, I just love telling our members stories is really what it comes down to. And we just have so many ways of doing that, you know, old school ways through our T Q magazine, people still like printed magazines, it's fun to see yourself in print. And we still do that best to have our Honors magazine, which has been a ton of fun for us to put out there and talk more about robotics and industry 4.0 type of stuff. And of course, our bread and butter. We love doing tech vibe radio. We're now on Saturdays on ESPN 970 a lot of fun to talk to our members about all the great things they're doing. The innovations are coming up with it always blows my mind, which is like people always ask me like, man, you've been there for 23 years, like what gives and like because I keep having so much fun. I don't know what to do with myself. It doesn't get old for me. I love telling these stories. And I'm gonna continue doing it as long as possible. And of course, Audrey are podcasting and of course, bringing up BYU how to become 150 episodes. Remember, it was gonna be like, so be a couple weeks and we'll be done with this. Then it's like November.

Classic Jonathan. I asked him for one thing.

I have to go. I say

a whole bunch of things in terms of you can't mean anyone who's more focused on our membership. And there's the stories and then Jonathan, so what might people not know about you by looking at LinkedIn.

Thank you. What would not be on there?

Probably the fact that I have a family of squirrels living in the walls of my house right now, and I can hear them. Like, that's always kind of a pain. But other than that, it's probably my complete Nutter other dedication towards riding my bicycles. If I wasn't working at the tech Council, I'd be working in a bike shop. It's as simple as that.

Okay, so awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks. I'm gonna bring up Shelby. Hello. Hi, Shelby. How are you?

Good. How are you?

Okay, so Shelby, introduce yourself?

Sure. So I'm the director of member engagement at the PTC. Basically, it's my job to make sure our members are getting value at the membership across all of our pillars. So that's business development, talent, government affairs and visibility. And another hat that I wear at the Council is I manage our creative industries, network programming as well.

So what what's the one thing you're working on? That you think you're the most that people really need to know?

Well, I am working on developing new ways for our membership to develop community building, as well as ways to provide business development and visibility opportunities for each other. Okay.

And what's the one thing that people might not find out about?

And they live well,

I on the side, so I'm very passionate about sustainability and reuse. So I have a hobby of reusing clothes that would have ended up in landfills, and I repurpose them, whether it's fixing them, or just getting them to new folks that can make sure that they continue getting away.

Wow. Okay, so let's see who else Brian Kennedy, come to the come to the forefront. Hi.

Hi, hi. And Brian, what gonna

so I'm Brian Kennedy. I'm the Vice President for operations at the tech Council. In addition to operations I also focus on government affairs. So that means our advocacy work in Washington, DC and in Harrisburg. It also means some of the people that we bring to the business as usual to meet with our members every week, including on this Friday, shameless plug. This Friday, we're hosting Michael Chrisman who is the Special Agent in Charge from the FBI. He's going to be talking about Cybersecurity Awareness Month and he was previously the in charge of all cybersecurity at the FBI. I think in two weeks, we're hosting lieutenant governor john Fetterman. So I'm busy, often interacting with elected officials and on behalf of our member companies.

So what might people be not know about you? So if they went on LinkedIn, what might they not?

So I am kind of an open book on LinkedIn, as anybody who follows me will know. So please, if you're not following me, please do that. I'd say one thing that people might not know is that whenever I find something new and exciting that I fall in love with, I also want to bring everyone else along with me. And so everyone on the team can tell you that I talk at nauseam about electric vehicles, as an example, but probably the biggest areas around travel, I didn't, I didn't really travel outside of the country until late in life and fell in love with it. So I spent a little bit of time being a travel agent for people like me, who haven't left the country and trying to find affordable ways to get people out there. If you look at my LinkedIn from a couple weeks ago, I think I posted a trip in September to Rome. That included six days of hotel and airfare and it was $700 a person. So if you've never left the country, you want to head somewhere, let me know I'll give you some tips on how to travel affordably.

So everyone, this is just a snapshot of some of the people who are working on our team. We have lots of things that are planned for the future. There are lots of things that we actually talk about, how do we keep people connected? How do we get people getting the connections to business? How do we do networking, these are the things that we're going to be addressing over the winter. But we need to hear from all of you. We need to hear it. Our work is all about you. It's not about all of us that we've just shared. I just wanted everyone to see a little bit about who's behind the scenes who's doing what and what we're passionate about. And that we actually does take all of us to try to lift the work to make sure that Southwestern Pennsylvania is an amazing place to do tech, your tech companies to do business and to be network but we also know that we're facing a new world and we're facing a new world that we're not going to go back to. We want to figure out ways that we can continue to do the kind of networking and get people business. Make sure that people have access to capital. Make sure that the pathways for tomorrow aro are really work that we're doing on that's what that we're doing, we're really focused on making sure that we're not leaving people behind. But it takes all of us to do that. And we want to hear from all of you want to make sure that we're doing the work that all of you care about these, this is the winter. And we believe that the winter isn't going to slow us down in terms of working for all of you. So I just want to say thank you pay attention to the events that we have coming up. I want to thank everyone for continuing to be our allies and be supportive, but we need your feedback. We want your feedback. And we only can do this work together. So I hear someone that just said I would love to speak about heartland touchless technology solutions to help our businesses open safely. Okay, they said they offer capital and other ways to include to increase revenue. touchless technologies are something that are pretty important today, the opportunity for the future in contactless technology is pretty big. And it's definitely accelerated during COVID. Isabella, if you want I don't know anything about this. But you could reach out to Brian Kennedy, B. Kennedy at PGH tech.org. If there are other ideas that you have, don't hesitate to reach out to us, we don't have all the answers. But what we do know is our job is to focus on all of you. And to make sure that Southwestern Pennsylvania is an incredible place for people to build their careers, to have access to companies to build innovation. And for tomorrow, let's not look backwards, let's look forward. So I appreciate that I know this is a little shorter, we're a few minutes shorter than normal. But I wanted to I know I was emotional today is a day, that remembrance in terms of tree of life. But each and every day, there are things that touch all of us today, it's not just tree of life, it's making sure that we live in a safe community, that there's equity, and that there is an opportunity for prosperity for each and every one of us, okay, it's not just you know, those who have had the aberration of what unfortunately happened two years ago. And it's really about each and every day. And the beauty of the partnerships. And this community is quite big and profound. So let's keep that tethered together. So I'm going to sign us off, please take the time to think about tree of life. Don't forget to vote. It is it's really important. And just because winter's coming, it doesn't mean that we're going to stop doing cool things all with the focus on each and every one of you that are building companies, for tomorrow. So I'm signing off, thank you, for all the kind notes really appreciate all of you reach out to the people who just came on board and introduce themselves. Many of them are not used to talking in front of people. So round of applause for appreciating them to be on this zoom. But they are working. The only reason you work at the tech Council is to make sure that you're helping companies. That's really the only reason if you don't like doing that kind of work and telling their stories and connecting them. It's not the right place to be so the people who you just heard from, it's just a sample of the team. And their job is to help each and every one of you. We care. We really do. So thank you all and who do we have tomorrow? Jonathan O'Brian,

our institute come by I are lost. He's brand new to Pittsburgh, and he's got a great story about what they're doing to bring more robotics into manufacturing. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai