[00:00:28] Jay: . Hi everyone. Welcome to the First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by three co-founders of Appalachia Technologies, advance you and protect your business through IT and cybersecurity solutions.

Hello, gentlemen.

How are you? Mike? Romano. I'm gonna start with you. Give me your introduction, who you are, what you do, and we'll go from there.

[00:00:46] Mike R: Thank you Jay. Mike Romano, partner at Appalachia, and I'm heavily involved with business development.

[00:00:53] Jay: Biz dev. It's true. 'cause that's why we're here. 'cause I met you at a conference where you were Biz Dev on. So that's why we're here today. Brian, I know you do some legal and finance stuff. give me a little bit of your background, just what you do there, and then we can go from there.

[00:01:04] Brian: Yep. the other partner and do a little bit of biz dev, but yep. At the end of the day, legal and finance kind of lands on me, as the final gatekeeper inside the walls of Appalachia.

[00:01:14] Jay: So they love you for handling all the stuff that nobody else wants 

[00:01:17] Brian: we try not to be the deal prevention department. We try to.

[00:01:20] Jay: Ah, deal prevention department. That is a, that exists in lots of, yeah,I've met a couple of those departments in my day, and then Mike Williams, president. please introduce yourself and say hello.

[00:01:32] Mike W: I'm Mike Williams. I'm the president of Appalachia Technologies. I've been with Appalachia for 12 years, and I've been fourth, four years in my role.

[00:01:41] Jay: Beautiful. All right. Well, we caught up a little bit before this. Like I mentioned, Mike, Romano and I met, I think at PA Govtech. Conference or whatever that was, tech con whatever it was called. I think my favorite part of that, besides meeting you, Mike was, meeting the CTO of Deloitte, which was pretty cool.

He was a smart guy and seemed to know, way more than I did. So that was pretty cool. But, so you. I hear are the one, responsible for kind of the initial spark for Appalachia. what problem were you trying to solve, you know, what decision, you know, kind of led to this? Just give me the, you know, the genesis of,where the idea came from and how you pulled this team together.

[00:02:16] Mike R: So I was working for Brian 25 years ago. He hired me in 2000. And, just a great experience working with him, talking to

clients, talking to our peers, and, driving our mission forward. And, Even though that was a great experience for me, I had a lot of career anxiety and I think it's, it was really, you know, I had a fire in my belly.

I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I wanted to go out there and serve clients directly. And,I did get involved with some DOD contracting at the time. Brian has a story around this where, there was a reduction in headcount happening at Appalachia, or I'm sorry, at, knowledge planning at the time.

And, I decided to put myself on the block on the chopping block so that I could go out and chase some opportunity around DOD contracting. And, it allowed, us to keep one of our peers in place for a time longer. And, in two, within two years, Brian and I stayed in touch. Within two years we got Appalachia started. That's.

[00:03:10] Jay: Beautiful. and just to dig in a little bit on that, Mike, I think you were, you have a background in the military. thank you for your service, if that is the 

[00:03:19] Mike R: Yeah, that's right 

[00:03:20] Jay: a long time, right? You were in there a long time. 

[00:03:22] Mike R: I was.

I was active for eight years and then I completed the balance of my 21 years in the reserves, the Navy reserves.

[00:03:28] Jay: Wow. All right. Well, thank you for your service. And I do, I mean, did that lead to any of the DOD conversations that you had? Is that 

[00:03:36] Mike R: Yeah, it was yeah, definitely I had an affiliate with the Reserve weekend commitment that I had. I was, maintaining a top secret clearance at the time, and I had exposure to the Navy crypto community and as a result I was introduced to, some great. DOD subcontractors that, were talking about some of the opportunities around networking and cybersecurity at the time.

So this is, this goes back to 2002 and, it was very appealing and I thought it was an opportunity for me to strike out and, see what that was all about. And I was definitely intrigued and I realized not long afterwards that I wanted to get something going right here in my backyard, in central Pennsylvania. At the time I was doing a lot of travel and towards the Philly or Delaware Valley and, down into, Northern Virginia. So, it was good. Get Brian to sign up and, get us started here, you know, in Mechanicsburg, PA.

[00:04:29] Jay: So Brian, when you came on, you know, what was the thought from your side, like you're jumping into this thing after Probably something, you know, mentioned the headcount reduction at the old place. Why did you decide to jump over and then like what was the kind of goal of the company back then 

[00:04:43] Brian: Yeah, well, Mike's very convincing and he is the risk taker out of the two of us and has pulled me out into some more risky things in my life. But, we spent a lot of time, gave some blood, sweat and tears to that startup. It was venture capital funded the CEO was a friend of mine from back in high school in the early days, bartending together doing some stuff, and I saw his world unravel. Then he got to the point where he was acquired and the headquarters moved to Boston. And there, you know, most of the folks that were there at the time were like, we don't wanna go to Boston. That's not in our future. So there were a lot of things that just gave us the nudge to say, well, it's either that, or go try to find another startup or find something else.

And, we had already built a lot of good relationships working together for a few years and had, Just people we could trust. Some other business owners that we were buying from or doing business with that were our early mentors and coaches. And, you know, it felt like if you're gonna do it, this is the time and the place to do it because the door seems to be swinging and hitting us on the backside and fear appears as there's a door to getting ready to swing open on the front end.

[00:05:52] Jay: Love that. and just for, you know, for, Mike and Brian, it, a lot of people are hesitant, you know, to do that, you know, jump out and start your own thing. you know, a lot of people do it, you know, side gigs and stuff as they still have. a nine to five job, was it, describe just like your personal, did you have, you know, money saved up where you could like, have some runway to go out and do this and not be afraid that you were gonna not be able to pay your bills?

Did you guys jump straight into it and you're like, we gotta get our first customer because we need to pay the bill. Like, what was the vibe as far, you know, as far as personal on both of you guys' side of, you know, where you guys were that made you comfortable enough to do this?

[00:06:30] Mike R: So it was part-time initially, and we

had some other engagements. I was involved with contracting at the time, so it was. We were well positioned to key up a couple relationships, and we had, I think our very first client at the time, on the professional services side was with Armstrong Flooring outta Lancaster.

They were headquartered outta Lancaster. We had a couple security folks in our circles that, were in between roles and were able to get them quickly employed on a contract through Appalachia with Armstrong Flooring. And, that kind of put the wheels in motion. And that was really funding, you know, the initial investments that we needed to get the operation off the ground.

But yeah, we were both running with some contracts initially, just so that we tackle this thing and eventually make that decision in full.

[00:07:17] Jay: Got it. And then you guys were like, oh my God. We need somebody to oversee the business. We need to bring in Mike Williams. Mike, when did you come into the fold? When all this, like where, did you come in and, what was your, you know, what did they pitch you on to Come in?

[00:07:30] Mike W: Yeah. So, I worked with Brian in a former life at, the company that Mike also worked for, but Mike and my path didn't really cross much so. I've been with Appalachia for 12 years, 13 years ago. We actually started this conversation. my background is I am an operations guy, I'm a process guy, customer experience, those types of things.

And I think it was the right time for Appalachia to bring in somebody like me to start to build that foundation. so we talked for about a year and it took about a year of. Talking back and forth, making sure it was the right fit for all of us. And then we lit that candle in, what, 2013. So here we are 12 years later, and, the business has grown and it's, been, honestly, the professional experience of my life to be able to be involved at a company at this level.

[00:08:23] Jay: Beautiful. And what was operationally speaking, what, gimme a snapshot. And you know, this is no indictment on Brian or Mike. This is why they brought you in to help with it. So, you know, I, but the snapshot of, you know, delivery operations, you know, the, how well it was systematized and the process of run it back then versus today.

Like, what, you know, what's the, main differences in that you have today?

[00:08:43] Mike W: Well, I mean, look, 12 years ago we were a much smaller company and we weren't exactly sure who we were. We knew we wanted to. The people that we wanted to serve. but like any new company or starting company, I'll say in startup mode, you don't have the systems in place. You don't have the process in place. There's probably a loose culture that's trying to find itself somewhere. core values, mission statement, all those, I'll call them pieces, the glue if you will, that keeps a company together. That was really. What I was tasked to do, and it was exactly what I wanted to do. so yeah, it starts with, it started with surrounding yourself by really good, strong people, right? Looking at the tools and the stack and the clients that you have. And is this, are we going in the direction that we want to go in? We know we're not close to perfect and we'll never be perfect, but are we on our way to where we need to be? so just. Just making sure that communications was tight, making sure the client experience above all else was tight.

That the clients that we had, we could retain, and that they could help tell a story to new clients through word of mouth. 'cause at the time, there wasn't. Marketing. There wasn't budget for that. It was pretty much all word of mouth as to how we got the business. So I would say, you know, it was like any new business.

There was, there were some building blocks, but it needed more, structure, more formality, more process, more accountability, and those were the things that I was responsible for and to a degree are still responsible for to this day.

[00:10:18] Jay: similar question to you, Brian. as somebody who hates finances, so very much, I am curious, you know, is your background in finance, did you have some idea of how to wrangle a startup and, you know, continue to grow that and evolve that? And as, we all put this call know, like your accounting and your tax stuff and your finance stuff, early on is nothing like it is, you know, like you guys 20 years in,

How did you kind of spin up what finance meant and like, how to pay attention to the p and l numbers that made sense and like, how did you to kind of wrangle, all the finance stuff back then and then, you know, has it continued to evolve to this day? Is that what you're involved in the day to day now?

[00:10:55] Brian: so it's a really great story. the CFO that I reported up to at that startup company that we, you know, left to start this, he was my mentor for many, many years. When I first started in that organization, I was at, you know, kind of a medium management level and. Closer to the end, I was, you know, had a seat at the big table and I was 20 something, so I was kind of young, still wet behind the ears, just basically got my degree and I didn't know my butt from a hole in the ground.

But this guy, every inch of the way, held me accountable and plenty of times I didn't like it. You know, it was

like, Ugh. I'm like, Hey, I'm running this profitable shop. But he is like, yeah, well you're not profitable if the whole company's not. Let me show you some things. Let me give you a peek into my world. 

And literally was kind of the guy responsible for helping to negotiate the contracts that my division supported. You know, that folks like Mike and others. we're responsible for delivering, and, there are to this day, we're still friends. I'm still friends with that guy. He has done some help, some contracting for us to help us along the way, and also to this day.

There are times where after I say something in that context. I say that was Scott talking it like, you know, it, went into my brain and I said, and again, sometimes I don't actually love it, but I go, that is the right thing for the business. And now it's all about learning from how Mike Williams would present those things to be a little softer, a little, you know, different about it.

'cause that guy was a little bit more black and white. So that's the world I came from and I just, at the end of the day, it's still our baby. you know, our tax returns, Mike Romano and I, you know, it's our, there's houses in our families are at the end of this, calculation or this end of this tax sheet or spreadsheet. So I don't know that there's gonna be a timer. We do pass that along to anybody else. But the day-to-day is, we've had a lady with us Lynn, for eight years now. Mike, it's been a lot of years, day-to-day accounting and finance and legal, so I have tried to be the Scott. To her mentor, and teach her what I learned, and then went to school and learned and took a lot of classes and said, here's what I learned.

I'm not saying it's always right, but I'm saying it's our way,

 it's what our external professionals, legal, finance, accountants say, here's our best recommendation. So you do with it what you want, because at the end of the day, it's your business decision. We're gonna keep you within the guidelines of the law. And then you decide the rest. So still learning to this day, not in the weeds near as much, but you know when it all rolls downhill. Before we get external accountants and lawyers involved, I try to add value. And lean on what I learned over the years. So, we're not spending a ton of money, you know, multiple hundreds of dollars an hour on legal fees that we don't have to. But when I say I'm not sure, and Google and AI is not helping me answer this, we're gonna call in the people

that actually have degrees in this stuff.

[00:13:51] Jay: What's the biggest mistake that small businesses make? or that you could, you know, tell them that your biggest mistake from a finance perspective, you know, something that, that a lot of people you've seen do.

[00:14:02] Brian: well there, there's one that I think we may have been kind of party to is maybe not investing enough along the way, not taking enough risk. but you know, if we rewound the clock and said we were back in that situation, and you know what, you know, would you do it again the same way? Maybe. But we've had a lot of counsel, a lot of mentoring and coaching over the years, and like, you wanna get somewhere?

You need to take, you need to be a hundred percent convicted and take that risk. And it's not always gonna work out. So there

were some opportunities for us to take some risks that we didn't and, but we're still here. So, you know, if we would've failed, I would've said that was my biggest mistake, taking the risk right.

[00:14:43] Jay: All right. Fair enough, fair enough. Mr. Romano, so you kinda mentioned who your first customer was. I mean, compare them to who they, who you go after today. who is your customer today compared to who it was when you first started?

[00:14:55] Mike R: The ideal client for us today is

a mid-size company, so mid-market. They have an established internal team. IT maybe they have a, leader overseeing cyber, potentially overseeing it. Operations day today. but their budget doesn't allow for them to grow or expand the team. And that's where Appalachia comes in.

We're a good fit to augment and, provide oversight and monitoring 24 7 so that they can go home, spend time with their family and sleep at night. You know, we take the helm and,that's kind of our mantra. And, so that's the ideal client. Granted, we have small clients, we have s and b accounts, and we have large enterprise accounts as well. But I would say where we shine the best, is with a mid-market account where they have just a small team, and they have no intention to grow it, but they have the every intention to partner with someone like us.

[00:15:46] Jay: Yeah, I mean it's, almost like the natural progression of most professional services or agency businesses, right? Like you do the startups and the consulting and the small business stuff and then you go, oh God, we've got a couple enterprise. But those are nightmare 'cause they're super long sales cycle and you know, a million other reasons why it's hard to get in there and it's political and all the other stuff.

why, you know, why? Other than those reasons, is mid-market so good for you guys? What, do you see in there that's like, oh, you know, they, I mean, you mentioned some of the team size stuff and is it the budget where, like, something I,learned recently with one of our clients, it's a, you know, big, enterprise level, insurance company, was that they dedicate 30% of every year's budget.

To contractors and to agencies because they don't wanna hold that W2 footprint. Is that the same kind of thing you see in your space where they're like, people are willing to scale up and scale down cybersecurity, kind of off to the side outside of that W2 bucket because it doesn't hit the bottom line as hard.

Like what? Why? Why is it so successful for you guys?

[00:16:41] Mike R: Certainly that's the case in the large enterprises when they have a large initiative and it's gonna take 18 months, you know, from concept to implementation, in the mid market, you know, You know, I think why it's so appealing to us, it's mostly because we understand the individuals that are operating those departments. Meaning they're wearing all the hats. You know, they have to be a data center or a cloud, or a security or a wireless or a developer, you know, on any given day, you know, they are, They're challenged and those are the exact individuals that we populate our bench with here at Appalachia. You know, when, one of those individuals in the community in the industry is looking to find a home and they wanna jump into the consulting or the professional services side of the industry. And, those are the folks that, understand our, they understand our resources, they understand the value that we bring, and I would say has a big part to do with affiliation. That sense of association that we have with those smaller business

[00:17:42] Jay: Mike Williams. the agency life is a seesaw, and I like to say I always have too many clients and not enough people, or too many people and not enough clients. how have you guys balanced that by having the bench that, that Mike talked about? I mean, I think we all, like to have as big a bench as we can, but then you basically end up.

The same problem that the companies are trying to serve have, where it's like, I don't wanna have this giant bench of W2 people that like, you know, aren't working and I'm just paying to sit on the bench. Mike, how, have you guys balanced that kind of up and down as far as it comes to delivery and having the right resources and all that sort of stuff 

[00:18:15] Mike W: Yeah, it's, one of the biggest challenges, and not just for Appalachia, but for any professional services company. It doesn't matter if you're an IT

or you know what you're doing. there's no secret algorithm for us that we press a button and says, oh, time to hire. Right. There are a number of, there are a number of tells, quite frankly, as you're. As you're onboarding new clients, there's certainly an impact to the team. We crunch a bunch of numbers, everything from customer satisfaction to how quickly are we able to turn around things like a ticket or a project. are we burning our staff out? So we look at this all, well, we look at it monthly. Quite frankly, we run utilization numbers, we run numbers. What's, our profitability post, salary and load, those types of things. So it's a combination of factors. it's also listening to our people, quite honestly. And I will tell you, Jay, this has probably been the biggest growth for me as a leader.

I would say probably in the last few years. I was the guy. That when we'd lose a person, you know, let's say five years ago, for whatever reason, I was right there with Mike and Brown. We got a backfill. We got a backfill. Who's gonna do the job that this person did? And we don't wanna dump that on people that are already busy. and, We've grown through that. And when I say we've grown through that, there were, as a time, like right now, we're 40 people. There was a time in our life that we were probably much closer to 50. and a portion of that is overhead. That's another consideration for us. How many people do we have that aren't actually generating revenue?

They're, doing things that enable the people to generate the revenue, to generate the revenue. So we've. I certainly, and I would say the collective, we have learned a big lesson as far as, just because we lose one doesn't mean we need to backfill, we need to look at the rest of the numbers. We need to look at the availability of other team members. Maybe there are some skill sets that people didn't have an opportunity to get that they could now move towards and kind of fill those gaps. So there's not one answer for that. I think it's a number of things. but I would say listening to our teams and. Client satisfaction are probably the two biggest drivers.

[00:20:26] Jay: I wanna drill in a little bit on the, customer satisfaction there. How are you guys, unbiasedly getting that information from your clients?

[00:20:35] Mike W: So we do it a couple ways. number one, every ticket, and I, and this might be annoying for some, but it's a great data point for us. Every ticket that a client submits, is met with a ticket survey at the end of,

the end of that ticket life cycle. And I will tell you, and, you know, I, I guess. Patting ourselves in the back, our response resolution timeframes, the job that, Chris Swecker and our tech, our technical assistance team has done with tickets is phenomenal. And it would put us against anybody in our space. so that's certainly one indication. We also do project based surveys.

After every project we pull the client. How do we do, how were our communications, how was our knowledge, how was the price, the value that you got for the service that we provide? plus. Like we're relationship play. We wanna talk to our clients, so we really encourage our staff, and especially our AEs, our account executives, to do annual, quarterly business reviews.

It's really important to understand and get unsolicited feedback. How are we doing those? Those reviews aren't going in and try to pitch and sell new products. They're going in to try to understand how can we serve the clients better, and those naturally take on a life of their own. We get to have real conversations about where their business is heading, and we find all kinds of new places that we might be able to fit.

So again, it's a multi-channel kind of approach as to how we're doing.

[00:22:00] Jay: I like that. Brian, how awful is it handling legal for a cybersecurity firm? And I mean that from the risk that you guys take by stepping into some of these, you know, scenarios where you're like, holy shit, like we are on the hook for, you know, a lot of stuff. how do you deal with that from a legal perspective?

Is it just like assembling the best group of lawyers and like trying to bulletproof stuff is like, what is the angle there to try to make sure. If you guys don't get ransomware the day after, you just sign with somebody and said like, we're gonna protect you guys, or whatever, and it explodes and they come see, like, how do you prevent that sort of stuff from bubbling up?

[00:22:36] Brian: Yeah, well, it can be unnerving for sure. 

And there were years that went by in the earlier days before we were heavily focused on cyber, that you could get your legal agreements, you know, MSAs, master service agreements, statements of work, Ts and Cs, all the funds that NDAs and they could ride for years.

That doesn't really happen anymore because the world is evolving and changing so quickly. So we do have. Some kick ass lawyers that help us. One in particular is our main contact at the law firm. We work with one of the bigger ones in the Harrisburg area and, He speaks at events with us. You know, we don't just throw documents at him and say, you know, fix the legalese in there.

We're having regular conversations and they introduce us to some prospects and things. So we live and we, you know, kind of revolve around that world. 

but we certainly have a level of cyber insurance. But I can tell you the thing that probably gives me the most solace or comfort outside of the attorneys is I'm gonna throw some acronyms at you.

SOC 2 Type II, CMMC, like PCI, we are certified and able to deliver audit or help prepare other organizations to do those things. So we have some heavy governance, risk compliance framework that we live in. So. If we wanna get a little loosey goosey our, we have some guard rails, guide rails that say you can't do that, or you're gonna be outta compliance with all the things you've invested in as an organization and the things that you committed to maintain for your clients and prospects.

So some of that. Keeps us honest, you know, keeps us in check. but it's a combination of all that there, there isn't one thing, there's not a silver bullet. There's not somebody on a white horse riding around somewhere. It's a lot of things and a lot of due diligence and holding ourselves accountable.

'cause things can happen very quickly. And the bad actors, the threat actors, that landscape is evolving while we're sleeping. 

Right? They don't sleep so.

[00:24:34] Jay: Right. Yeah. No, and I mean, I purposefully have not gotten too much in the weeds of today's cybersecurity landscape, as I'm sure you guys like to say those sorts of phrases and, threat vectors and whatever the hell you guys talk about. But I am curious like, you know, all right. I'm gonna say the two letters that I always say, I'm not gonna say, but AI, 

this isn't like a, Hey, where are we going with AI kind of question, but just like, what have you guys like tangibly seen over the past year or two as the technology has been readily available to good and bad people? have you guys seen. You know, increases in something that was driven by the ability to code things quickly and to kind of, you know, lean on the computer brain for these guys who are already doing nefarious stuff and are super smart.

But now they have tapped into like, basically entire, you know, internet at their fingertips. you know, Mike Romano. Like, what are the things you've actually seen that you're like, oh shit, this is new or worse now because we've got AI coming in.

[00:25:31] Mike R: Just the level of inbound referrals for incident response where we were 18 months ago versus where we are today. They are rolling in weekly 

and, 

 we are not an incident response firm, so, you know, there are shops out there that are dedicated to IR for the space and, but we do very well in that capacity for our clients. And if operationally. We can support an inbound request or referral, we'll address it. You know, we, our goal is to help everyone improve their security posture, even post incident. We can add value and we absolutely will given the opportunity, provided the team has the capacity, the bandwidth to do so. And, but yeah, there is no question that,overnight the world did not double the amount of actual black hats. It is all driven by AI Absolutely. There is no question. We are, in a position now where short of, you know, more direct hires and also establishing some trusted partnerships with other incident response firms. We're, not able to take on every inbound, you know, and, but yeah, there's no question, you know, that, you know, and I think all of our competitors across the industry are seeing, you know, a lot more activity and, doing everything they can, although their teams are spread thin to, jump in there, roll their sleeves up and, get it done.

[00:26:57] Jay: I'm not asking you to break out the crystal ball, but I am curious of your thoughts, like the, is there any getting ahead of it? Are we just gonna be in this world where incident response are gonna be up for the foreseeable future because we just haven't been able to catch up and we won't be able to catch up with, you know, people who want to use the technology in a way 

[00:27:15] Mike R: I mean, as long as our adversaries are equipped with the same tools that we equip ourselves with. Yes, absolutely. And You know, when quantum leaves the, the r and d labs and becomes, you know, ready made, you know, for those that, for the adversaries, you know, it is just going to, ramp up the level of activity that, we're already struggling with, you know, as an industry.

So, no question.

[00:27:39] Jay: But, and I mean, just, you know, kinda the last question on this topic is just like, what do you, what do we do? Is it just, do you like, do you unplug your computer from the internet every night? Like when you leave, like, what are you supposed to do? Like, I don't, there's no, I don't hear, you know, I don't hear a silver lining where it's like, yeah, but if you just do these things and like you're pro, like it feels like

[00:27:57] Mike R: all you can do, Yeah.

you have to stay on top of what's relevant and, as Brian indicated earlier, it's evolving so quickly. You know, that's why with respect to our insurance and our coverage, we have to be underwritten on a frequent basis. You know, and because we work with all these frameworks and we're SOC 2 and others CGS and CMMC, you know, all the hard work that goes into maintaining that posture for those frameworks makes it really easy.

When the insurer, the partner that we work with, starts asking us for evidence to support. What we say we do for our clients every day. You know, we can reach back and get access to those documents with ease, the data points, the reporting. It's all there. And, yeah, there's, no question that we're, in a market that will, that will feed our team and, and give us a lot of opportunity in the regions that we serve.

[00:28:53] Jay: It's beautiful. All right. I love the three amigos here and the vibe you guys to have together. I can only imagine your, you know, standup meetings and your executive board meetings are. probably not privy to, the public, just from the amount of fun you guys have in those meetings.

But, I wanna finish with this. it's gonna be for each one of you. This is not cybersecurity related. This is not business related. This is not Appalachia related. This is just each of you individually. So, you know, don't feel like you have to answer for something for somebody else. I'm gonna start with Brian.

If you could, this is gonna give everybody else a little leg up, obviously, but Brian, you're first. if you could do anything on earth and he knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:29:29] Brian: I would convert our company to employee owned and

 give everybody that's helped build this thing what they actually deserve.

[00:29:37] Jay: I would just like to point out that Mike and, other Mike, you're gonna look, shitty compared to that answer for all your employees. So just Mike, Brian just gave the best answer for all your employees, so make sure you show 'em that part of the podcast, Brian, when you go to your next retreat.

Now, that's a great answer. I love that, Mike Romano.

Failure is not an option. Okay. You can do anything. Anything on Earth.

[00:29:57] Mike R: I would say take the team out for some tandem skydiving. That would

[00:30:02] Jay: be a great, you know, team building event. And, yeah, and I'm, thinking that's something maybe we should, Maybe not for right now. I don't, bring that outta this call. Don't say we thought about it on Jay's call and then something happens and it's my fault. I don't have insurance for that. Mike Williams. what do you got buddy?

[00:30:18] Mike W: Yeah, I would, I mean, look. the three of us are where we are because of the people that we surround ourselves by. Like whether it's our families or whether it's our, you know, our teammates. so I would absolutely love to show some gratitude to both of those personal and professional, you know. Acquaintances in some way just to show how grateful, I we are for the support. So whether it's a trip, whether it's a gift, just anything to get, to give that back so that they truly understand how much the, their support leads to us on a day-to-day basis. 'cause we're all grinding, we're all dealing with things in our personal lives. so to be able to. Kind of put all those things together and to be able to create something as special as we have in Appalachia. you know, look, let's take everybody to Italy for a week and go crazy how about that?

[00:31:13] Jay: I think you could do that and not fail right now. So it sounds like you guys have a really good trip planned because that's the winner I think. but I do like the skydiving, and making it, company owned as well. Alright. each of you guys, have your own kind of piece of this puzzle and I appreciate you guys being on.

I love, you know, everybody I've met from your team so far. I was on you guys' podcast, which was great. I met some of your team at the conference. I'm very much. A believer that everybody in the org kind of looks back up and it's kind of obvious why everybody I've met is the way they are at this point.

'cause you guys seem to kind of lead with that, you know, empathy and compassion, but also, you know, real strong drive. So I came away with this more impressed than I came in. Mike Romano, people wanna reach out to you directly about something they heard today. How do they do that?

Yeah, just, on LinkedIn. That's the best way to track me down, you know, so message me, InMail me on LinkedIn and, Beautiful. Mike Williams.

[00:32:04] Mike W: I would say LinkedIn. I would also say that I'm probably not as, diligent on LinkedIn. As I should be so they can email me. Mike.Williams@appalachiatech.com or certainly call. I'm available and want to

[00:32:16] Jay: Beautiful. Awesome. Brian.

[00:32:18] Brian: same LinkedIn. We're really trying to drive our culture to LinkedIn because that's the professional network. but email, yep. Brian.Stone@appalachiatech.com. 

[00:32:26] Jay: Beautiful. Alright, well you guys are all fantastic. Thank you for being on. you know, we'll make it a point to come out and we'll do a four person lunch. you know, maybe when it gets a little warmer, maybe in the springtime, I'm just gonna hibernate, I think, for the rest of the year.

But, you guys are awesome. I wish you the best of luck. We'll keep following along with you and have a good day, guys. All right. Thank you.

[00:32:41] Brian: Jay.

[00:32:43] Mike R: See ya. 

​