When I moved to Chesapeake, VA in 2018 I was already 12 years into my IT career. Up until then, the majority of it had been spent as a systems administrator for several customers within a variety of types of organizations. Every day was a bit of a mystery in terms of what I might have to deal with. All of that changed in 2018 when I was hired into a company that had recently won a government contract I would soon facilitate from an IT perspective.
Initially, my primary tasks surrounded the implementation and maintenance of the environments that were needed to support that contract. Within a year I found myself supporting multiple contracts as well as the internal infrastructure of the organization. By year two, the contract I had initially been assigned to had tripled in terms of scope and local resources and we expanded our office to facilitate the need for workspace. Enter COVID-19.
Security has played an interesting part in my career for several reasons. About two times a year, my grandmother would call me about the nice Microsoft person who had called to help her with a virus that had gotten onto her computer. Twice as many times a year, I would remind her that Microsoft wouldn’t call her and didn’t even know she had a computer. 2020 brought many changes to the IT landscape as well as introducing new responsibilities to my position. As COVID sent us all home to work remotely, I saw an opportunity to dive into the security deep end.
By the end of 2021, I had finished my bachelor’s in Cybersecurity at ODU. After determining the opportunity to learn and grow in the security space wasn’t available at my current company, I started looking for my next endeavor. A friend, and current employee at ePlus, sent me some info about a new security academy program being developed. My interest was piqued, and I applied. After several interviews with the security team, I was hired.
The ePlus Security Academy kicked off in Richmond, VA in October 2022. There were five of us, and to my surprise, I was the ‘old guy’. We all drank from the firehose that week, but I knew I was in the right place on day one. There were a ton of lightbulb moments for me, and one I won’t forget was the realization that I was now in sales. What did that even mean though? What was I selling? It took a minute for that to make sense, but by the end of that first week, I had it. It was me. I was selling myself.
Eight weeks went by faster than I anticipated. In that time, I was introduced to more vendors and schmoozed more than I ever had in my professional career. I met many wonderful ePlus folks that I consider great friends today. The exposure I had to ePlus security solution offerings was extremely valuable. Looking back, I would say that one of the most important things I learned was the ePlus way of doing things.
What is the ePlus way? I think that can translate differently for different people. For me it meant to learn who our customers were, where they needed help, and how I could help them. From a security perspective that meant finding out what problem they were trying to solve, what capabilities were needed to solve them, and then what solutions had those capabilities.
The final week of the academy was capped off with a graduation presentation made at our Herndon, VA office. We were given mock customer scenarios and asked to present solutions that would address their needs. The presentation was followed by commentary and critique from different members of the ePlus team. It wasn’t until that day that it occurred to me that I had been on the other side of that table, as the customer, for several years. That perspective gave me a lot to work with, and it was time to get started!
In the weeks following the academy, I dug in and began applying everything I had learned as much as possible. I quickly learned that one of my primary objectives was not only selling myself to customers but also selling myself internally to others within the ePlus organization. Building those internal relationships would become key to being brought into opportunities. Combining that with ongoing training for our various security technologies would prove to be the one-two punch I needed to become a successful security solutions architect.
I stole this from AI (there, I said it):
“The proof is in the pudding” is an idiom that means the true value, success, or effectiveness of something can only be determined by trying or using it.
I can say from experience that I have used much of what I learned in the academy in order to become a successful solutions architect at ePlus. The proof is in the numbers as I was able to meet and exceed my targets for my first full fiscal year, and I am well on my way to doing so in my second. I am grateful to ePlus for allowing me to bring value to a number of customer organizations and look forward to doing so for many years to come.
My decision to focus my career path on cybersecurity has given me the opportunity to work with organizations as they strive to strengthen the posture of their infrastructures. The ability to add value to that means the world to me. As the climate of the technology landscape evolves and becomes more sophisticated, I know that my opportunities to learn and grow will do the same.
-Jeremy Jackson
P.S. – To pursue security (or other) career opportunities with ePlus, please check out our Careers page. To learn more about ePlus Security Solutions and Services, please check our web page.