LIU002: Do You Need a College Degree to Succeed in IT?

Kevin Nanns (0:04 - 0:15) Welcome to Life in Uptime. I am one of your hosts, Kevin Nanns, Adjacent Node everywhere on social media, and I am joined with my co-host, Alexis Berthoff. Alexis, how are you today?

Alexis Bertholf (0:15 - 0:46) I'm doing great, and we have a really special guest for you guys today. His name is Wes Noonan. Now, Wes is currently a Cisco Solutions Engineer, and he was the co-author of a book called Firewall Fundamentals. Now, Wes had no formal college degree. He carved his own path into the IT industry through hands-on experience and his passion for problem solving. Known for his reflective and thoughtful insights, especially on LinkedIn, I'm super excited to have him here today. Wes, how are you?

Wes Noonan (0:47 - 0:50) I'm doing good. Appreciate you all inviting me on this thing.

Alexis Bertholf (0:51 - 0:51) Absolutely.

Kevin Nanns (0:53 - 0:59) Now, all that was very impressive, but more importantly, Wes, were you Alexis's mentor at Cisco?

Wes Noonan (1:01 - 1:11) I don't know if I should admit to that, but yes, I was. I am responsible for the good parts. The bad parts was somebody else.

Alexis Bertholf (1:12 - 1:17) Well, blame it on childhood trauma or something like that. Isn't that what everyone blames their problems on nowadays?

Kevin Nanns (1:18 - 1:58) That's what I blame my problems on. Well, thanks for joining, Wes. Wes's career has an interesting shape to it because, I don't know, at least for me, I come from the place where you go to college and you major in what you want to do, and then you're stuck doing that for the rest of your life. That's what I was growing up. That was my mindset of what I had to do. But Wes, you have a different path. You don't have a college degree. You went into the military and you were able to transition from the military and you now work for the largest networking company in the world.

Wes Noonan (1:59)Correct.

Kevin Nanns (2:00 - 2:08) Could you tell us a little bit about why you decided to forego college, get into the military and start your path?

Wes Noonan (2:09 - 3:43) Sure. Yeah. So this is going to the way back machine. In high school, I was in JROTC, did a lot of that. And in high school, I was a little bit of a punk, quite frankly. So college just didn't feel like where I wanted to be. I actually had some scholarships lined up to go to college. And my parents, we were living in Germany at the time. My stepdad was in the army. They took off for their anniversary and I took a train from where we were living down in Ansbach to Frankfurt and signed my paperwork to join the Marine Corps. Decided that was where I wanted to go. I did drill team in high school.

The Marine Corps silent drill team is hands down the best drill team in any military anywhere on the planet. Phenomenal, phenomenal group. And so I decided that's what I wanted to do. Right. And in order to do that, you've got to join as infantry, open contract. So I joined as 03, open contract, right? Rifleman. I was going to be a bullet catcher, basically. And that's how I got my start, right? I get to boot camp and decide, you know, this is what I want to do. Get to about week 11 and they sit you down and ask you, you know, hey, what are you going to do? And so I make the comment. I say, you know, I'm 03, open contract. I'm going to join the silent drill platoon. And the drill instructor starts laughing at me, right?

He goes, Noonan, how tall are you? I said, I'm 5'9". He goes, yeah, you got to be 5'11 to 6'1".

You ain't going to make it, kid. Next. And that was the end of my drill team. Wow. So yeah, it was kind of an interesting start. I didn't even join the military to join, you know, to do IT.

Alexis Bertholf (3:43 - 3:46) Also, you were in Germany at the time.

Wes Noonan (3:47 - 4:27) I was in Germany. Yeah, yeah. My parents got back and asked if anything exciting had happened while they were gone. And I was like, oh, a little bit. And I showed my mom the paperwork and I had signed a six-year contract, actually. But I was too young to sign a six-year contract without parental consent. And my mom refused to sign the paperwork. Right now, fast forward, I get into week 11 to discover my whole dream of what I was going to do in the Marine Corps for the next six years is not going to come to pass. Well, my mom refused to sign that six-year contract. She would only sign a four-year contract. Told me, look, if you really like it, you can re-enlist and stay in, no big deal. But I'm not going to sign for six years out of the gate. So the wisdom of mothers. Mom was always right

Kevin Nanns (4:28 - 4:34). Yeah. Mom's always right.

Alexis Bertholf (4:34 - 4:36) So how did you go from...

Kevin Nanns (4:36 - 4:37) Oh, man. Go ahead, Alexis.

Alexis Bertholf (4:37 - 4:48) Everyone talk at once. I was going to say, so how did you go from wanting to be in the infantry to actually getting into IT? Were you good at computers before? Is this something that was introduced to you while you were in the military?

Wes Noonan (4:49 - 6:10) Yeah, no, I had never really used computers before in my life. So, you know, my family wasn't a family, you know, this is back in the eighties. We didn't have the money for computers, things of that nature. Right. We were lucky we had a VCR and a TV. And so I joined the Marine Corps and I'm doing infantry stuff. Right. I wind up, you know, fairly smart guy, I think. And so rather than just being an 0311 infantry guy, I was 0313, which means I got to drive an LAV. And so we'd gone on a deployment, what they call a West Pack. And so I'd done the West Pack. And when you come back, you frequently have temporary duty that they give you for six months, which is kind of, it's kind of lazy duty.

Right. I mean, you've been on a deployment, you've been gone. And so it's kind of six months of easy work before you go into the next cycle of a deployment. And so I get back and the first sergeant that I had when I first joined the Marine Corps was the first sergeant assigning duties. And he goes, hey, Noonan, what do you want to do? And I said, you know, Top, I don't know. What do you got? And he goes, well, I've got supply and I've got comm. And I thought the idea of sitting in a warehouse in the heat in California, handing out gear just did not sound very much fun. And he goes, hey, what do you know about computers? And I said, you know, Top, I know as much as anybody. I mean, I know how to turn them on.

And he goes, great. I'm going to send you to Division ISMO. You're going to be our new computer tech. That was my first introduction to computers.

Alexis Bertholf (6:11) And how old were you then?

Kevin Nanns (6:12) You're hired.

Wes Noonan (6:13 - 8:32) I was 20 years old at that point. Yeah. So I get started with that.

And then in classic military, just, I don't know, dysfunction, it's supposed to be a six month deployment, they lose my paperwork. So instead of going to Division ISMO for six months, I wind up there for 15. So I spent 15 months just training on small computer system specialists. So, you know, PC break fix, monitor repair, the Marine Corps ran Banyan Vines Network. So I learned Banyan Vines server administration, you know, learned how to do cabling, all of that fun stuff. And then kind of a funny story. I was kind of skating in the military. By that I meant I had two places to live. So I had main side, I could live on base in main side, which is where Division ISMO was. But I still had my barracks in Las Flores with my old unit, First LAR, which was closer to the beach. So if I was going to the beach, I would stay in Flores. If I was going to like Temecula, I'd stay in main side. And I was only keeping one of those rooms clean. So like 15 months in my room in Las Flores gets inspected. And they're like, who in the F lives here? Like, who is this person? Because nobody had any idea who I was. And so originally, they think that I've gone like AWOL or something. And I'm like, no, no, no. You guys told me to go here and nobody gave me any paperwork to say come back in six months. Like I've been doing what I've supposed to be doing. But anyhow, I get back in three months to get out. And I think, all right, I like this computer stuff. Like, you know, being in infantry, there's no translatable job skill, right? But this computer stuff is pretty cool. Like, I like it. And it intrigues me. So I go to reenlist and try to do what they call a lateral move, a lat move, and switch from 0313 to 9986 at the time was the MOS. And the career planner goes, well, reenlist first, and then we'll lat move you. And I'm like, ah, no.

This is how I got in the Marine Corps in the first place. Right? Lat move me into computers, and then I will reenlist. And they wouldn't do it. So I left the Marine Corps and the rest is history. Yeah.

Alexis Bertholf (8:33 - 8:51) So where did you go after that? What was, you knew you liked computers. I know some people, at least the people I've talked to, sometimes finding a job as you're transitioning out is really difficult. There's some programs for it today, but I imagine those weren't in place back when you got out of the military.

Wes Noonan (8:52 - 10:42) No, no, there was none of that. So I moved back home to San Antonio, Texas, and I got a job at a little father and son shop doing cabling. Right? So all of the computer stuff that I did didn't really do any of that for the first year or so when I got out of the Marine Corps. I'm working for this guy and his son, and they had a big contract with Union Pacific. And I would travel all over the state of Texas running cable, right? So this is back in the days of having to like splice and polish fiber. You know, category three had just come out, category three cabling. Everything else was phone cabling. You know, learning how to work 66 blocks and 110 blocks and all of that fun stuff. So I kind of went from doing PC break fix in the Marine Corps and server administration in the Marine Corps, and then a little bit of cabling to I'm doing hardcore cable plant design and installation, you know, running conduit, running panduit raceways, all of that fun stuff. And then story as old as time, right? If you're not the father of the son, you got no future in a father and son company. And so I wound up leaving and getting a job with an independent school district, Edgewood in San Antonio. And they brought me on board as a full tilt server admin and did that for, I guess, six months while I was kind of sort of going to community college. Um, and then got a phone call from a friend of mine in the Marine Corps and he goes, Hey man, uh, I don't know how close San Antonio is to Houston, but there's a job for Banyan Vines admin in Houston. That's paying like $68,000 a year. I don't get out soon enough. You should see if you can get the job and I'm making $21,000 a year. And I'm like, heck yes, let's go to Houston. Uh, and, and that's how I wound up moving to Houston was, uh, for this Banyan Vines job.

Kevin Nanns (10:43 - 10:50) Wow. And at this point you had no certifications, nothing other than your experience in the military and your previous work experience.

Wes Noonan (10:50 - 11:01) Yeah. Nothing other than, than my experience in the military. I actually thought I had Banyan Vines certifications, right. Which is kind of a funny story because I got hired for this job. Go ahead.

Alexis Bertholf (11:01 - 11:03) Uh, Wes, what is Banyan Vines?

Wes Noonan (11:04 - 13:41) Ah, now you're making me feel old Alexis. So Banyan Vines was a network operating system that came out in the mid eighties, uh, in late eighties, um, that was used predominantly by banks and the military. Right. And so this is pre-TCP/IP and the internet and all that kind of stuff. None of that existed in the timeframe that I'm talking about. Um, not at least to the that you could run mail on, you could do file sharing, things of that nature. Uh, and that's what the Marine Corps used, right. They used it for messaging, uh, and they used it for storing data, things of that nature. Um, but it was on its, its way out, right. Um, there was a, a new, new player in town. Um, the small company called Microsoft had, uh, just come up and they released something called NT, uh, 3.51. Um, Novell Network was dominating the market. They had 60, 70% market share. It was crazy. Um, and the job in Houston was actually with a bank. So that's why they use Banyan Vines, but they were in the process of migrating from Banyan to Novell. Well, they hired me through a contract company because I was Banyan Vines certified, right? I had this knowledge. Well, the certificates that you get in the Marine Corps are different from actual Vines certifications.

And about three months into the gig, we all realized, while I have all the knowledge, the Marine Corps certificates I had weren't certified. So I wound up having to go take a Banyan Vines course real fast because Banyan required you to take the course in order to take the exam. You couldn't just go take the exam. So I took the course, took the exam, got certified, but I knew Banyan Vines was not the future. And I had in front of me on one hand, Novell Network, and then on the other hand, this new company, Microsoft. Um, I could get the Novell Network experience on the job because that's what, what Bank United at the time, that's what Bank United was moving towards. So in 1997, I think it was, I decided to take Microsoft courses. So I went and got my MCSE, right? Paid like 10 grand out of pocket.

There was no financing. There was no nothing, right? The financing was an 18% credit card kind of a thing in order to get Microsoft certified, because I thought that that's the future I would have in technology. I was betting big on Microsoft. Yeah, it's a huge gamble. Like I say, it worked out.

Alexis Bertholf (13:43 - 13:53) Wow. Which I think it's safe to say a lot of certifications have, have they come down in price since then? I don't know that I've heard of anyone recently taking a certification that costs $10,000.

Wes Noonan (13:54 - 14:48) Yeah. So this was through Southern Methodist University. They had a program for technical training that was based on, at the time the MCSE was, I believe it was six certification exams that you had to take and pass in order to get your MCSE. You had like four core exams and then two elective exams. And so this was the whole curriculum, right? And this was my first introduction actually to teaching and training was actually taking these classes. And I enjoyed the curriculum so much that I decided to become a Microsoft certified trainer. And a year later, I wound up teaching Microsoft curriculum at Southern Methodist University. So it's kind of funky how, how the world turns, right? You, you, you expect to do one thing and you think you're going to do X. And next thing you know, you're doing Y. You know, I thought I was going to do Banyan Vines.

Now I'm doing Microsoft. And then I think I'm just going to learn Microsoft. The next thing I know, I'm teaching people Microsoft.

Alexis Bertholf (14:49 - 15:07) Yeah. I think that's a lot on, especially how technology changes, right? I mean, especially in this industry, you just never know what's coming out, what's going to be next. If you stuck with Banyan Vines, I mean, I've never heard of Banyan Vines. I'm not going to lie. This was, today was the first time.

Wes Noonan (15:08 - 15:40) Yeah. Banyan Vines was, was a career that was going to end, you know, around you know, 1999, 2000, like that was the end of it. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a testament to one of the things I think you have to have to be successful in this industry, right? Which is an insatiable curiosity. Like if you're not every day curious and intrigued about something you don't know about technology, I honestly don't know why you stay in this industry. Cause that is the one thing that makes it fun for me is it's the constant challenge of learning.

Kevin Nanns (15:42 - 16:08) That's how I tell a lot of people who are interested in IT and they want to get into IT. And the first question I ask them is, you know, are you actually curious about how technology works? That's like the number one indicator for me that you are going to be successful in IT or not, is if you have a general curiosity of how things work, you want to figure them out just for the sake of learning. It's not just, you know, just to get paid, just to figure out cause it's my job, but genuinely curious on how things work.

Wes Noonan (16:08 - 16:09) A hundred percent.

Kevin Nanns (16:11 - 16:27) Okay. So you got your Microsoft certifications. Now going from server admin and Microsoft certified into networking, I feel like that's quite a leap.

How did you bridge that gap?

Wes Noonan (16:27 - 17:08) So that was another thing that was interesting. So when I was teaching the Microsoft classes, you know, I would teach exchange administration or SQL administration or active directory administration. The class that I enjoyed teaching the most though was actually the Microsoft TCP/IP class. Like I loved it. There was something about networking and, you know, the OSI model and how that all worked, the structure that it provided just clicked in my brain. Like I loved it. I joke that I can take any situation and apply the OSI model to it to fix it. Not just technical, like, you know, you've got issues in relationships. Let's work through the OSI model and we'll figure out how we fix this problem. Right?

Kevin Nanns (17:09 - 17:11) Do you work top down or bottom up?

Wes Noonan (17:13 - 17:18) It depends, but as a general rule of thumb, always start at layer one, right?

Kevin Nanns (17:18 - 17:20) Always start at the I agree.

Wes Noonan (17:22 - 18:04) But yeah, so I'm doing that and then this company Cisco's out, right? And they're talking about how they're going to change the internet and all of this fun stuff. And again, you got to keep in mind perspective, right? This is back in the late nineties, right? Cisco wasn't the force that it is today. And so they wanted to develop, SMU wanted to develop some network curriculum. And so I decided to write a course for them. So I actually developed the CCNA and at the time it was Nortel Networks. So it was a CCNA Nortel class because we weren't delivering certified Cisco training, right? This was all homegrown homebrew. And we would turn out people and get them their CCNA.

Alexis Bertholf (18:05 - 18:11) Oh, I was going to say, was this pre-CCNA or you guys became like certified to teach people in the CCNA?

Wes Noonan (18:12 - 19:08) It was in the early days of CCNA. So we were never certified by Cisco, right? I want to be clear about that. I don't even know that we were necessarily certified by Microsoft, but we were able to use various publications that were out, exam guides, things of that nature. And then we would teach people what they needed to know. So that was kind of a focus of the course that I built. So I actually started off with cabling, right? You get to punch down an RJ45 and you get to wire up your switches physically. And then we talk about how you configure a switch, right? And we get into IP addressing and we get into routing protocols and we get into layer two protocols and spanning tree and all of that fun stuff. But we literally started off with, here's a bunch of cable and here's a punch down tool. And you need to know the difference between T568A and T568B. Otherwise you're not going to be able to talk.

Alexis Bertholf (19:09 - 19:35) Was it a bit intimidating to you because you went from doing cabling, doing a lot of general computer work, then to the Microsoft admin, the Microsoft certifications, teaching those, which is probably where you got your feet wet in teaching other people. But then you pivoted into teaching networking, even though, correct me if I'm wrong, you hadn't worked in networking beforehand.

Wes Noonan (19:36 - 21:37) I had done dabbling in networking. At the time, you kind of had to be a jack of all trades because there wasn't the specialization that exists today in technology. And so it was very common for you to have experience on a help desk and experience with PC support and experience with server support and experience with networking support. By no means was I a routing guru though, and so yeah, it's super intimidating. That's one of the things that I think people constantly think it only happens to them, which is imposter syndrome. And folks don't realize everybody experiences this, whether they'll admit it or not is a different thing, but everybody has an imposter syndrome. And here you've got me. I've got no college degree. I've got no teaching certification. The closest I've got is I'm a Microsoft certified trainer. And here I am teaching at Southern Methodist University on this technical curriculum. It was intimidating as all get out and you're constantly doubting, are you good enough? But you would teach people and it's a funny story. Actually, I was in some training this February and I'm in a class at Cisco and one of my coworkers at Cisco, who I hadn't really met, he's like, hey, you're from Houston, right? I go, yeah. He goes, did you used to teach at SMU? And I said, I did because you used to use markers and you would put markers together to show how a packet is built, to show how the TCP headers work and how the IP headers work and how the data payload works and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I go, yeah, yeah, that was me. And he goes, dude, I still remember that to this day. Now we're talking 25, 26 years later. So you hear stuff like that and you go, all right, maybe I was okay at what I did.

Kevin Nanns (21:38 - 21:40) It just took you 25 years to realize that, right?

Wes Noonan (21:41 - 21:44) Correct. The other 24 years I was like, ah, I was terrible.

Alexis Bertholf (21:46 - 22:06) Was there a moment during all of this when you realized this is what I'm supposed to be doing? Even with the imposter syndrome and all the hurdles and being pushed around, was there a moment you realized, yeah, I belong here. If you're reading this, you can get a free t-shirt. Please email summerset.banks@packetpushers.net for details. Even though I'm still making my way, I'm doing this my way, maybe I didn't follow a traditional path.

Wes Noonan (22:07 - 23:30) Yeah. It was when I was teaching. There's times where I was in class where you would see things and I've got a ton of stories around that. I had a guy that went to class and he was a butcher at Kroger. That was his career. It's what he'd done for years. And he wound up becoming an outstanding Microsoft technician. You realize, man, you're changing people's lives. And that's pretty cool. I had another guy that he was a lawyer, law degree, the whole nine yards, but he didn't have a passion for it. He didn't enjoy it. And Kevin, to your point, he was curious about technology. And so he took these classes because he actually wanted to go from law to IT because he enjoyed IT. He didn't enjoy the law. So you're able to influence folks and help folks achieve more than maybe they thought that they could. And that's a pretty good ego stroke. That's when I was like, you know what, I'm where I need to be. I'm enjoying what I'm doing. Don't get me wrong. There's ups and downs. And there's been a lot of lessons learned since that time. I look back at 25 years ago and sometimes go, man, how did that guy make it out? Because holy smokes, he was not very smart. But time wisens us all.

Alexis Bertholf (23:32 - 24:02) I think that's one of the biggest things, especially doing what Kevin and I do on social media. I mean, the technology is awesome. Don't get me wrong.

Like you said, you can't work in this field unless you're curious and you actually are passionate about the technology. But I think a bigger thing for me is the people and being able to get those DMs and comments saying, hey, you know, this really helped me that I was able to use this in a meeting with my boss. You gave me a new idea of what technology I want to pursue. That to me is always more meaningful.

Wes Noonan (24:05 - 25:16) Yeah, you're spot on. But it's interesting, right? So Alexis, when I was your age, I didn't have that insight. When I was your age, I was the guy that was like, you know what, just get out of the way. Just get out of the way. Let me sit in front of the keyboard and I'll fix it. So I wasn't the most helpful person early in my career. I was arrogant. I was kind of an a-hole about things. I knew what I knew. And early in my career, I had a boss tell me one time, he goes, Wes, when you talk, there's always an implied, comma, you dumb at the end of everything you make. And he goes, you're going to have to work on that if you want to go somewhere in this industry. Like you're only going to go so high and then that's going to be a barrier for you. And nobody had ever said that to me. I'd never thought about it that way. I didn't think I was doing that, but I was. And so you have folks that mentor you that help you figure out your path through this, right? Because none of us gets here on their own and nobody gets here by accident. You've got an army that supports you and helps you whether you realize it or not.

Kevin Nanns (25:18 - 25:33) So speaking of mentors, I'm curious, Wes, how did, so Wes, you are Alexis's, quote unquote, mentor. How did that happen? How did you guys get paired up and become the mentor of our fair Alexis here?

Wes Noonan (25:34 - 25:39) So this is kind of funny and I may overshare a little bit here, but- It's fine.

Kevin Nanns (25:39 - 25:40) It's perfect.

Wes Noonan (25:40 - 26:28) So I had a buddy of mine, a coworker, a guy named Chris Moye. And Chris was an SE manager who was in charge of this program. And he and I had worked on some projects within Cisco. And one of the things I think I've got a little bit of a reputation for is I'm pretty direct about what's going on, right? If there's an issue, I say, hey, there's an issue. Here's how I think we should fix it. And one of the things that was a challenge for Cisco was the CSAP program that they had is a great program, but frequently there's a gap between what the students are taught in CSAP and how it actually works in the field, right? Because you can't tell everybody all the ugliness out of the gate, right? Otherwise, nobody would want to do it.

Kevin Nanns (26:29 - 26:32) And for those who don't know, what is CSAP? Sorry.

Wes Noonan (26:32 - 26:40) CSAP is the Cisco Sales Associate Program. My apologies. I'm used to Cisco acronyms there. So this is a program that Cisco has- Go ahead, Alexis.

Alexis Bertholf (26:40 - 27:17) I was going to say, it's basically a one-year accelerator. So as part of Cisco's initiative to diversify their workforce, typically being a Cisco lessee is a very senior role, right? You've worked a couple of jobs. You've got hands-on experience. It's something that you move to a little bit deeper into your career. But to try to diversify the train of thought, they wanted to make an accelerator program that would help younger people get into their sales engineering team or solutions engineering or systems engineering. It's changed names several times. I believe it's solutions engineers right now, right?

Kevin Nanns (27:18 - 27:18) It is now.

Alexis Bertholf (27:18 - 27:55) It is. So to help bring some younger people into the field, they decided to do this program. It's actually been around for, I think, 20 years now.

And it's gone through several phases. It changes a little bit. But when I joined, it was an accelerator program out of college where you could join Cisco with no experience.

And within one year, you'd have taken your CCNA, CCNP. You did a bunch of labs, whiteboarding. You had assigned mentors. You got architecture training. And everything was super deep and hands-on and very intensive. And then you get pushed in front of customers and told to support them. It was wonderful.

Wes Noonan (27:57 - 28:51) Yeah. So Chris hits me up and goes, hey, we've got a new crew coming through. I need somebody who can tell them how it actually works in the field.

We're turning them loose to the field and they're not prepared. So would you be interested in mentoring and helping out? And I'm like, sure, man, let's do it. And so off we went. Technically, Alexis was officially actually the second mentor that I had in the program. I had one prior to Alexis. But I haven't looked back on that. It's been an incredible source of joy for me to see all of these folks that I've been able to help in any way get to where they want to be in their lives and their careers, all of that fun stuff. So yeah, it was a little bit of dumb luck, a little bit of knowing the right people and having a reputation that's a good reputation.

Kevin Nanns (28:53 - 29:14) So many places don't provide mentorship. Don't have a dedicated person be like, hey, go mentor the new hires. And the fact that you were given that opportunity and it worked out really well is awesome because, man, I wish I had a mentor at some of the places I worked at. They just kind of throw you to the fire and go, good luck. Here, you're on call. Go have fun.

Wes Noonan (29:16 - 30:27) Yeah, it's definitely one of the things that I think Cisco does well. There's both structured and formal mentorship within Cisco as well as unstructured and informal. I probably fall a little bit more into the second category than the first. I mean, I have done some structured mentoring, but the reality is I'm not a leader at Cisco. And what I mean by that is I'm not an SE manager or a director or a VP or something like that. I'm just an SE, just like any other SE at Cisco. I've been doing it a good long while, so I've got a little bit of experience that backs me. But it's been interesting because I've mentored other SEs. I've mentored SE managers. I've mentored AMs or AEs, account executives. And they all provide growth to me. That's the secret of mentoring is everybody thinks when you mentor somebody, you're doing it for the benefit of Alexis, which is true. But I'm also selfishly doing it for my benefit because it makes me a better engineer. It makes me a better person. It makes me a better leader by doing these things.

Alexis Bertholf (30:27 - 30:32) I actually taught Wes how to post on LinkedIn, believe it or not.

Wes Noonan (30:32 - 30:37) She did. She drugged me kicking and screaming into LinkedIn.

Alexis Bertholf (30:38 - 31:08) I think what I said was, hey, Wes, you added me as a friend on Facebook. And I've noticed that when you post on Facebook, you post these giant wall of text rants about hunting, about the traffic in Houston, about the local fire department. You realize you could post those same rants on LinkedIn about technology. And he was like, really? You think anyone would care? And I was like, oh, there's so many people who would care.

Wes Noonan (31:09 - 31:30) That is a hundred percent true story. I think I actually told you nobody is interested in listening to an old man ramble about technology. And she's like, you would be amazed at how many people want to hear the stories that you have. So it's all Alexis's fault. That's what I'm sticking with.

Kevin Nanns (31:31 - 31:37) Well, yeah, it's half a social media is just people ranting and raving and kind of just putting it out there and seeing what sticks.

Wes Noonan (31:37 - 31:55) Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, right? It's another old lesson that many people have heard, right? Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. That's one of the things I like about LinkedIn is I try to say, okay, here's a problem, but here's a solution. And sometimes it sticks and sometimes it's just me griping.

Alexis Bertholf (31:57 - 32:19) Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, if we could backtrack just a little bit, I think we skipped ahead. You were teaching at Southern Methodist University. How did you actually go from teaching networking at university to getting into Cisco and not only that, but getting into sales at Cisco?

Wes Noonan (32:20 - 37:41) Yeah. So that is a circuitous route. So when I was doing the CCNA curriculum back in, you know, 99, 2000, 2001, 2002, that's when I was convinced I was actually going to join Cisco. I actually interviewed, Cisco used to run a tech facility here in Houston. And I actually interviewed for that tech role. I was working in IT at the time and wanted to join Cisco because it's Cisco. And it's funny, again, small world. I go in for my technical interview and the lady across the desk that's doing my technical interview, I actually see her walking down the hall and I'm like, what are you doing here? She's like, what are you doing here? And I say that because she was one of my students. So I had taught her Microsoft and Cisco CCNA a couple years ago. And she's like, well, I'm here to do your technical interview. And I'm like, okay. She's like, well, since you've taught me pretty much everything I know about networking, there's not really much for me to interview you about. What do you want to know about the job? Right. So we start talking. And the long story short is we couldn't make the money work. Cisco wasn't paying what I needed to get paid at the time. And so I wrote off Cisco. I wind up getting a job where I'm doing a lot of hardcore Microsoft stuff, Microsoft Cluster Server, like I'm getting deep in the weeds on Microsoft. And I'm enjoying it. Not doing a whole lot of networking at that point. I mean, I know networking basics and fundamentals, but my primary focus is on the server side of the house, the application side of the house, wind up getting laid off. And it started doing some security stuff at that time. And because of some contacts I had through the Microsoft communities, that's when I did the majority of the book publishing that I've done. So I'm not working. I got plenty of time to write. So I start writing books for folks and produce hardening network infrastructure and a CISSP study guide with Roberta Bragg. I wound up doing firewall fundamentals with Ido Dubrowski, a Hacking Exposed book. I did a whole bunch of books. People can look them up. But I really got into the security side of the house.

I get hired by an old boss of mine that had been at the company that I'd been laid off. He goes, hey, I'm building a new team to do what we were doing over there. I need somebody to run the lab infrastructure to help with, at the time, we didn't know it was called this, but it was shadow IT. We were basically trying to run our own engineering-led IT department because IT wasn't responsive enough to what R&D engineering needed. And I started doing that. Hardcore Microsoft, hardcore in security. And then there's this new cat on the block, this company called VMware, that they're promising to revolutionize how the data center works. And they're talking all this nonsense about how you can run multiple virtual machines on a single piece of physical hardware. And I saw the new pony I was going to attach my wagon to. And I said, okay, I've done a bunch of security stuff. I've done Microsoft stuff. I've done Novell stuff. This VMware stuff and virtualization looks pretty interesting. And this is 2005, six, seven, eight timeframe. And so I go hell-bent on virtualization. At the time, I ended up building the largest VMware deployment in Houston. At the time, we had a few thousand virtual machines running on about 120 ESX hosts and was loving it. Was doing that and got to a point in the career where the company I was at had gone through a lot of changes. It was time for me to leave. And again, I'm compute-centric at this point. I'd heard about this UCS platform that had, or I'm sorry, that Cisco had. And had Cisco actually come out when I was working at NetIQ at the time and wanted to sell me UCS for all of our virtualization servers. And I'll never forget telling the AM at the time, he still works at Cisco, guy's name is Lloyd Gazdia. I said, Lloyd, Cisco makes crap servers. I'm not interested in crap server 2.0 from Cisco. We're a Dell shop. Talk to me about switches and routers that we need. And that was the end of the conversation. That's how dismissive I was about it. But I'd been reading about how it worked. And so I actually took a job doing UCS deployments for a company. They had just purchased UCS, wanted somebody to deploy it. So this goes back to, I'd never done it before, but I was curious if it would work the way I thought it would work based on what I'd read and what I'd seen, the learning that I'd done. And so I got the job, did that deployment, and then had a buddy of mine that again, it's so much about who you know in this industry. He was at Cisco. We'd worked together at NetIQ. And he goes, hey man, they're hiring engineers at Cisco. And the guy's name is Chad Uretzky. I said, Chad, I said, dude, I'm not a hardcore network guy. Like I'm doing so much servers and data centers and storage and virtualization. He goes, Wes, we have a ton of network guys at Cisco. We need people who know servers. And long story short is that's how I got on board at Cisco. Not for my networking knowledge, for my server and compute knowledge.

Alexis Bertholf (37:41 - 37:45) That's crazy. It's crazy that you wrote off UCS at first too.

Wes Noonan (37:46 - 38:23) Oh, and you know how I am about UCS. I'm passionate about UCS. It is hands down the best compute platform I've ever seen in my entire life. It is truly revolutionary what it does, right? That's not me drinking the Cisco Kool-Aid. That was me using it as a customer. But yeah, I was that guy that was like, no, no, no, Cisco's just a networking company. That's all Cisco makes, which is even less true today, right? That was back in 2010, 2011 when I made that statement. Now, don't get me wrong, we make some cool networking gear. Cisco is so much more than a networking company.

Alexis Bertholf (38:23 - 38:53) So how going from the traditional, very traditional military leadership structure over into university and then into corporate or like very corporate America, right? You didn't just join a small corporation, you joined a huge corporation. How did your military training early on impact your transition into corporate life or was it a bit of a transition?

Wes Noonan (38:55 - 40:09) Oh, it was a huge transition, right? So there's an expression that I use that probably not the most PC, but it entertains me to tell the story. The chain of command in the military, right? How does the chain of command work? I take this here chain and I beat you with it till you obey my commands. Like that's the military mindset. You've been given an order, you go do that. Well, then you join the civilian side of the house and you're like, go do this. No, no, I said you need to go do this. Why do I got to go do that? Like, no, if you're going to talk to me like that, you can do it, right? And so you have to learn that what works in terms of motivation and getting things done in the military definitely does not translate to the civilian world, right? You can't just, you know, issue blind orders without providing more information, right? Folks want to know why they're doing things. And even in the military, they should be doing that. They don't always. And so that was a struggle, right? Figuring out how to communicate because I was used to communicating in the military with my military peers where, you know, we could be crass and we could be harsh with each other. That doesn't always translate to the civilian side of the house.

Alexis Bertholf (40:09 - 40:23) I was going to ask what, uh, what would you say the biggest difference actually, actually is if you could put your finger on it? Is it just chain of command? I've had a few experiences with chain of command, which we can laugh about later on.

Wes Noonan (40:25 - 41:55) Yes. Yeah, it's, it is how to sum it up. So, so in the military, everybody is there for, for one cohesive purpose, right? Everybody has one job that they're driving towards, period, end of story. Everybody's volunteered to be there. So you're not there by accident, right? You chose to be in this situation. And so the motivation and what it takes to get people to do something sometimes really is as simple as just telling them to do it and boom, it gets done. That's not the way it works in the civilian world, right? People have choices. They can choose to leave. You treat people badly, they'll leave the company and go somewhere else, right? I'm proof of that. I have left companies because of situations like that. And so you have to learn how to speak to people and not at people, if that makes sense. That was a struggle for me coming out of the Marine Corps. Some of it's also my personality, right? That I think is the biggest thing is just that, that fundamental culture shift of not everybody is working at Cisco, for example, because they have this passion for the mission and the cause and what Cisco is doing. Some people are working at Cisco because it's just a good paycheck. And you have to acknowledge that, right? And realize that what it takes to sometimes get them to do what you may need isn't the same way as you can do it when you were in the military.

Kevin Nanns (41:57 - 42:32) Isn't, I don't know, I come from the public sector, so I don't have a ton of experience in the corporate world. But my vision of the corporate world is very militaristic, where leadership wants everyone to have a common goal, all to reach quarterly, whatever numbers. And they call things like the war room. And they hype it up so that it feels like they're trying to channel their inner military. Has that been an experience for you or is that, am I just completely imagining it wrong?

Wes Noonan (42:32 - 42:58) No, no, I think they do try to do that, right? I think what the difference is, is you get a bunch of, you get a platoon of Marines and you get them fired up about whatever it is. And they're hooting and they're hollering and they're ready to go to war, right? If you try to do that same thing about, hey, we need to get this training done this quarter. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Kevin Nanns (42:58 - 43:00) People are going, whoo.

Wes Noonan (43:00 - 44:26) Yeah. They're not hooping and hollering. All right, let's go, take this mind tickle. It just doesn't work that way, right? And so you wind up having to change a little bit about how you communicate. I think you can still bring that value, that concept of esprit de corps that the military has mastered. That doesn't translate throughout the corporate world. But I think a little bit of it is good to have. I've been on teams that have great esprit de corps and they are the most fun teams to work with, right? Because we're excited about what we're doing. We'll still gripe about the things we don't like, right? But we get it done. And then I've been on teams where it's just silence. Like, all right, let's do this thing. Okay, let's do that thing. And it's not that that's a bad team, but I don't have as much fun on those teams. I'd have a lot more fun on the teams where everybody talks and jokes and you feel like you're in the boat together. Because especially in sales, right, it's easy to be on an island. It's easy to be, you know, here's my customers and I only need to worry about my customers. Nothing else matters. And I think that's a trap you can fall into, especially it translates to technology, right? I'm a networking guy. That's a server issue, right? I'm a storage guy. That's not my problem. That's your problem. You know, that finger happens in IT all the time. It's not healthy.

Kevin Nanns (44:27 - 45:11) Yeah. And it's really easy to do. It's really easy trap to fall into because everyone's overworked. Everyone's super busy and they don't want to deal with things. But in the end of the day, they all have a common goal of accomplishing, you know, whatever service to the customer or getting whatever product done. It's we're all in it together, but it is really easy trap to get into. So my dealings with people who've been in the military, one of the benefits that I see is that they're always really confident. Is that something that the military teaches you or is that just, you know, it's just my projecting of me having imposter syndrome all times and everyone's more confident than me? I don't know. It seems like something that I experience a lot.

Wes Noonan (45:12 - 46:47) No, the military definitely emboldens that culture, right? I mean, if you think about the fundamental mission of the military, right, if you boil down all the excess, your job is to potentially go kill people who want to do you or your nation harm, right? Like you just fundamental break that down. That takes a certain kind of mindset, right? That takes a mindset of being invulnerable. That takes a mindset of being invincible because you're going to put yourself in a situation or potentially be put in a situation where you're going to be very vulnerable. And if you don't have the confidence to act, that's how people die, right? So not trying to bring the, you know, make this a depressing podcast, but that's kind of the reality. Well, that can translate to technology, right? That can translate to the corporate world. You know, I use various expressions, right? One is a very PC and the other is a very non-PC expression, right? One expression that I'll use that's PC is, you know, walk in like you own the place. Like walk in, walk with a purpose. We used to joke about that in the Marine Corps. Nobody stops you if you're walking like you're walking with a purpose. But if you're just kind of wandering around, some gunny is going to be like, what are you doing over there? Why are you guys wandering around? Right? But if you walk with a purpose, people assume you're going somewhere and you're doing something and they'll leave you alone.

Kevin Nanns (46:47 - 46:50) I have the same strategy when I go to Home Depot.

Wes Noonan (46:52 - 47:46) I'm with you. Otherwise, hey, look at these solar panels and do you have a generator? Trust me, I'm with you there, right? The other expression that I'll use, and this comes out of Pulp Fiction, right? In the restaurant, when everybody's watches and wallets and everything gets stolen, right? And Jules is like, give me back my wallet. And they go, well, how do we know which wallet is yours? And he goes, it's the one that says bad MF on it. So that's the other thing that I actually teach a lot. Alexis has heard this. Be a bad MF. You're the baddest person in the room. Never, ever forget that. Don't be arrogant about it. Don't be pretentious about it. But always remember, you are the baddest person in whatever room you're in. And then act accordingly.

Kevin Nanns (47:47 - 47:49) How do you... okay, so that's easier said than done.

Wes Noonan (47:50) It is.

Kevin Nanns (47:51 - 48:12) It is great advice. But how do you make that mental jump? Because I'm picturing myself, if I'm just coming out of the military or college or whatever, and I'm getting my first job in IT, I am petrified. I am thinking that everyone knows everything and I don't know anything. How do you exude that confidence when you don't have a ton to back it up?

Wes Noonan (48:13 - 49:57) Yeah. So I think one of the secrets is you have to acknowledge and be comfortable with failure. Right? One of the aspects about technology jobs in general is you're actually paid for when things fail. Like I told people when I was in IT all the time, I'm not paid for what happens from eight till five. Eight till five is the easy part. I'm paid for that phone call at 2.30 in the morning that says something's down. That's when you kick it into gear. That's when you take action, right? And if you accept that failure is just the nature of the beast, failure is what happens in this job, then it becomes very easy for you to take action, right? Because if you fail, who cares? You figure it out and you fix it. The military has a philosophy around this. They call it an OODA loop, right? O-O-D-O or D-A, I should say.

Observe, orient, decide, and act. Right? So observe your situation, orient yourself, figure out where you're at, make a decision, and then take an action. And if the action is the proper action, cool, you've fixed the problem. And if the action was not the proper action, cool. Go back to observe, orient, decide, and act. That's that OODA loop, right? It allows you to make very rapid decisions and it allows you to recover very quickly in the event that a decision resulted in a failure. And so I think if you approach technology from that perspective where it's okay to fail, there's a tremendous amount of liberation in just acknowledging that, right?

That you do not have to, in fact, be perfect.

Kevin Nanns (49:59 - 50:31) You know, I've been watching a lot of House recently, the whole TV show with you, Lori, and every single episode they fail. The very first thing they try never works. It's always obviously the last thing they try that works. But throughout the entire episode, he says, well, now at least we know what it's not. And that is a win in itself. And that's what it reminded me of. Just trying something, your best guess, your best observation, and then if it's not cool, that's progress. As long as you're making progress, then you're fine.

Alexis Bertholf (50:32 - 51:18) I was going to say, I think the other thing when it comes down to building confidence, especially something that's been big with me, I am slightly earlier in career than both of you, is acknowledging, no, no, no. But just acknowledging that when you do something the first couple of times, it is going to be uncomfortable. It might suck. You might feel awkward. You might be anxious, right? You might feel like you're doing it wrong. You might be doing it wrong, right? But the only way to push through that and get to where you actually are confident and you know what you're doing is to go through those first awkward tries. I've got a little story. I know I'm not supposed to be the one telling stories here, but this was my first time.

Kevin Nanns (51:18 - 51:19) It's our podcast. We can do whatever we want.

Alexis Bertholf (51:20 - 53:42) Wes and Kevin, you both have heard this story before, so you know who I'm talking about. But when I was, this was my first customer I had ever worked with when I officially became an SE at Cisco after I graduated my training program. He worked in a government for a company that contracted with the government. They weren't allowed to have their cameras on. It was my first customer presentation ever, like ever. I was so nervous. And so I get on and I was presenting. They were upgrading some 3650s to 9200s and I was presenting on the differences between the 9200s and 9300s because Wes, as you know, we always want customers to buy the 9300s because they are just miles better than the 9200s. And I was so nervous giving this presentation. And everything I said, this guy on the other line, he's like, fantastic. That's fantastic. That's so great. Yes. Incredible. And I'm like, wow. I walked away. I was like, wow, that was the easiest customer presentation. Are they all like this? Is everyone this nice? He basically just said, yes, that's great to everything I said. And so we were working together for like three years and finally we get together at Cisco Live and we're out at the bar and I was like, hey man, I got to tell you, we realized we were the same age. And I was like, hey man, I got to tell you, that presentation I gave you guys, that first one, when we met three years ago, I was so nervous. That was my first customer presentation ever. And he goes, oh my God, that was my first call with a vendor ever. I was nervous because I was getting on the phone with Cisco and I thought you were going to think I was dumb. And so anything you said, I just said yes to because I thought, because you were Cisco, you were so much smarter than me. And I was like, damn, we had such a good laugh. We still laugh about it. But neither of us knew because he didn't have his camera on. And so I'm assuming that this is like some senior IT guy who's just playing along with my presentation to make me feel better about myself.

And in reality, it was another guy the same age as me and we were both going through it. Everyone's got their own struggles, but you build confidence the more reps you put in.

Wes Noonan (53:43 - 54:01) If it was easy all the time, there would be no confidence involved. That's the key of having and gaining confidence, is if there's not a struggle involved, there's nothing to be confident about. So I like to keep that in mind.

Alexis Bertholf (54:02 - 54:13) So Wes, we've talked a lot. I know you have hours of stories that you could tell. Are there any throughout your career that stood out to you that you'd like to share?

Wes Noonan (54:14 - 57:49) There are two stories, actually. And they're going to deal with two different aspects of I think what makes a good, long, successful career. The first is, this is back in 99. It was one of those jobs that I left because of the culture. I just joined. I've been there maybe a month. We're doing a big MPLS design. And I'm sitting in a room with a bunch of technology folks. Again, I've only been there about a month. They're doing a roundtable and asking everybody their opinion on what we should do, how we should architect it, all the things that go into building an MPLS network. And it comes to me. And so I make the case on some technical things that I think we should do and how we should do the routing and all that kind of stuff. And I finish. And I kid you not, guy across the table from me just says, this guy doesn't even have a college degree. Why are we even listening to anything he has to say? Like, I'm not flat-footed very often in my career. That one floored me. Like, I didn't even know how to respond. I was dumbfounded by his statement. And afterwards, I go to my boss and I'm like, WTF just happened. And he looks at me and he goes, Wes, you're too good for this place. Find someplace else to work. You deserve better. And a year later, the company was out of business. But you're going to deal with those people. They're out there. It took a shot to my confidence. I'll admit that. But then I got it back. The other story is a life lesson. And this one, gentlemen, God rest his soul. John LaPage was my boss at the time. And we were sitting down this early in my career. And I told you I was arrogant. I was a bit of an a-hole. And I kept bumping heads with this one guy in the department. And my boss calls me in and I walk in expecting us to have a conversation about how we're going to move this guy off the team because Wes, you're right in everything that you're doing. And that's just how we're going to fix the problem. And so I sit down across the table from John. And John goes, Wes, so here's the situation. You are my right-hand man. There is nothing I could ask you to do that you're not technically capable of doing. But I've got a situation where I can save the hand or I can save the body. And the instant he made that statement, I realized this conversation was not going to go the way I thought. And he tells me, Wes, you've got a good career in front of you, but you've got a lesson you need to learn. And while I think I could teach you that lesson, I don't have the time to do it. But I think this will teach you the lesson that you need fast and you're going to be okay. And then he gave me the opportunity to resign. Right. Wow. Which I did. Right. Because I didn't want to be fired. Like, you know, he actually wrote me a letter of recommendation that I still keep to this day. Phenomenal, glowing letter of recommendation. And he was right. I would not have learned that lesson any other way.

That lesson being, you have to work with people. No matter how good you think you are, you have to be able to work with others.

Alexis Bertholf (57:50 - 58:11) In the moment, I guess, how long did it take you to absorb that? In the moment, I feel like if I was sat down and I had that conversation, I would have gotten all hot-headed. And, you know, did you realize, was it because it was someone that you respected that much that you realized, oh, he's doing this for my benefit? Or did it take you a couple months to walk away and really reflect?

Wes Noonan (58:11 - 59:00) No, that's the beauty of John as a boss, is he actually took the time to explain. He took the time to explain what I needed to learn. So he didn't say, you know, hey, you've got to figure this out. And then he sent me on my way. He said, you've got to figure this out. And here's ways that you can figure this out. Here's how you can make adjustments to what you do and what you say that will get you where I know you can be. We left, I gave him a hug, like, you know, cried a little bit, in all honesty. He let me sit there until I could dry my eyes. And then he gave me a hug and he said, Wes, you're going to be fine. And he was right.

Alexis Bertholf (59:01 - 59:05) That would destroy me. That would absolutely destroy me.

Kevin Nanns (59:06 - 59:08) I'm tearing up a little bit over here. It's beautiful.

Wes Noonan (59:09 - 59:39) He was a good man. And fast forward, the guy that I kept bumping heads with, this happened after the fact, right? This wasn't happening at the time.

But he wound up dating John's daughter and they wound up getting married and they've got kids. He actually got out of technology. He's a custom car builder, makes absolutely gorgeous, like phenomenal custom rebuilds, old Camaros, old vets, things like that. So it worked out for everybody involved. I say, John was a great boss.

Kevin Nanns (59:42 - 59:43) Amazing.

Alexis Bertholf (59:46 - 1:00:06) Well, Wes, I've got one more question for you to wrap up the episode. If you were sitting across the table from your 18-year-old self right now, or maybe 17-year-old self, whatever age you were when you decided to tell your parents that you were joining the Marine Corps, what would you say?

Wes Noonan (1:00:07 - 1:00:11) Oh, see, y'all didn't prep me for that question. Surprise.

Alexis Bertholf (1:00:12 - 1:00:13) I came up with it on the spot.

Wes Noonan (1:00:14 - 1:01:20) Yeah. What I would say is do it, right? At the time I had a choice. Again, I likely would have had a full ride scholarship on an ROTC scholarship to the college of my choice, but I didn't think I was ready for college. Like I still had too much, you know, piss and vinegar. Like I was still too fiery and I needed to learn how to be part of something more than just be. And that is what the Marine Corps gave me. Um, and if I had the opportunity to go back in time, I would make sure that I did it because there's, there's points in your life where you realize your life was on a trajectory and it's shifted in a better fashion. If I didn't join the Marine Corps, odds are good. I would have wound up in prison or certainly not in the situation that I'm in today. The Marine Corps taught me a lot of humility, taught me a lot of discipline that I didn't have. So my advice to 17 year old me would be do it. Go join.

Kevin Nanns (1:01:21 - 1:01:22) Quoting Chet, do it lady.

Alexis Bertholf (1:01:25 - 1:01:42) All right. Well, Wes, thank you so much for spending time with us today. For our listeners on the other end, I hope you found this extremely insightful. If you have any questions about career, military certifications, any of the things that Wes talked about today, Wes, where can they find you?

Wes Noonan (1:01:42 - 1:01:47) The best way to reach me is going to be on LinkedIn. Easy to find.

Alexis Bertholf (1:01:48 - 1:01:50) I believe your banner is still old man yells at cloud.

Wes Noonan (1:01:51) It is.

Alexis Bertholf (1:01:52 - 1:02:14) Beautiful. Well, I'll link it in the comments. And if you guys have guests or ideas or things that you would like Kevin and I to talk about, leave them in the comments, DM us on social media. If you don't know where to find us, um, I'm Digital Byte. Kevin is Adjacent Node. And this is the end of the first episode of Life in Uptime.