I was pretty shaken and embarrassed that I did not know the printer would do that. Well, you guessed it, coffee went all over the rest of the computers. I set it on top of an IBM printer not knowing that when the printer ran out of paper it opened automatically. We walked into the computer room and I had a cup of coffee in my hand. I finally secured a meeting with Bob McGlaun who was the head of IT.

Early on I spent months trying to get into an account called Adams Oil, which was owned by Bud Adams who at the time was the owner of the US Football team called the Houston Oilers. He asked me to move forward with some conversations and that was the start of a three-decade-long career in technology.Ĭan you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that? While waiting for an interview with Coca-Cola I engaged in a conversation with someone who turned out to be from IBM. So with a few weeks to go before college graduation, and needing to find an alternative career-route, I attended a job fair. My original plan was to fly jets for the US Navy, but several weeks before I was due to join, I blew out my knee playing basketball and that disqualified me from flying jets. I got into the technology industry quite by accident. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started? Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person.

Alex shootman