by Duane Trammell
Computers, Email, Servers, Internet Connections, mobile device updating…all of these pieces of technology are great when they are working, but when they are not…it is frustrating. And the person that is the recipient of our wrath is “the IT guy.”
Being a small business, we don’t have the resources to have a full-time Information Technology specialist onsite. So what we have done is what countless other small businesses have done…we outsourced that function. And when the “IT guy” isn’t available, the person who is the least technology-phobic (usually the 20-something) works on a temporary fix.
We have been very fortunate to have the same outsourced IT guy for the past 20 years. His name is Louis Carter. He has helped us grow from a couple of computers to a network. He helped us understand “email” when it was introduced back in the 90’s. While we were reporting about this strange prediction called “The Information Highway”, he helped us get an internet connection and begin thinking about something called a “website.” And when we outgrew our hard drives, he would find us new, better ones.
Having his own small business, Louis has been subject to the same market ups and downs as we have. But in the course of the 20 years, he has always found a way to keep us up and running. He has stayed late into the night, up all night, and I know we have interrupted his holidays and vacations to solve problems for us. And unlike some of the larger IT firms, he knows we have a limited budget and finds ways to make our IT dollars go further.
Perhaps one of the best things about having a 20 year relationship is just that…we have a relationship. We remember when his son started to school. And recently on an IT call, I could detect a tear in his voice as he was driving back from taking his son to his first year in college. We talked about it a bit and reminisced before solving the problem at hand. And there was the marriage of his daughter. We have many people calling wanting our IT business. But I don’t know their sons or how their first day of college went.
So, why the special blog? We don’t say “Thank You” often enough. So, Louis Carter, this is for you and all the other IT guys out there who keep us all in business.