In honor of Employee Ownership Month, we interviewed IT Specialist George Watts. George has been part of TechFlow’s IT team for over a year.
How did you get started in IT?
I’ve always been interested in computers since I was young. In high school, I was building my own computers and ended up hosting my own Minecraft server for some of my friends at one point. In the Navy, I was an electromechanical technician, with most of my skillset (and college credits) leaning towards electrical engineering, but IT has always had a special place in my heart, so I decided to pursue it professionally.
What do you enjoy about working in IT?
My favorite part about IT work is going over log files or large amounts of data. There’s something fascinating about being able to filter through all of that information to pinpoint what caused an operation to fail. I’ve always loved having large amounts of information available and was something of a book hoarder in the past!
What’s your favorite thing about working IT at TechFlow?
Definitely the people. Everyone at TechFlow has a great attitude and is fantastic to work with. You can teach an employee a new skill, but you can’t train then to get along with your team. I’m grateful to TechFlow’s hiring managers for making great choices when it comes to our employee-owners.
What’s a technical problem that you found great satisfaction in solving/overcoming?
When I started working at TechFlow, our IT team had been switching from one asset management system to another, but the employee who was organizing everything after the import had left. So, I was asked to go through and organize our asset management system. It was a lot of work, but it was deeply satisfying to fix hundreds of small discrepancies to have one perfectly organized database.
What are some fun habits you do outside of work?
I like to SCUBA dive when I can find someone to go diving with! I also enjoy PC gaming, hiking, playing D&D, reading nonfiction, and binge-watching shows on Netflix.
