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| CRBJ Home > March 2006 | ||||||
Mission: Illuminating IT career paths and getting techies to stick aroundInterviewed by Nathan Leaf
Age: 55 Position: President of the newly formed Information Technology Association of Wisconsin Company at a glance: The Information Technology Association of Wisconsin was created in August by about 30 companies including CUNA Mutual Group, Hewlett-Packard, Madison Gas & Electric Co., Sonic Foundry and the Foley & Lardner law firm. It is designed to be an advocate for the IT sector. Its founders say it will offer a forum for exchanging experiences and technology information and will become an umbrella group for local technology networking groups around the state. Rice's background: Grew up in Mount Lebanon, Penn. Joined environmental affairs department of Commonwealth Edison, Chicago, in 1974. Joined Allnet as director of marketing. Joined Vanguard Telecommunications as a vice president. Moved to Wisconsin in 1985 as CEO at Norlight. Helped form Stress Photonics in Madison in 1988. Joined Marcus Communications as general manager of Marcus Fiberlink, which eventually merged into Charter Business Networks in the late 1990s. Started eXsellera, an eBay consignment store, in 2003. Education: BS in Biology from Marietta College (Ohio) in 1972, MS in Aquatic Ecology from West Virginia University at Morgantown in 1975. Personal: Wife Marilyn, a homemaker, and two grown children: daughter Aubrey and son Britton Fact file: Rice has a commercial pilot's rating, in addition to visual and instrument rating. He's been flying for about 10 years and has more than 1,000 hours of flight time logged. He formerly owned a Cessna turbo-charged 182 retractable that he used to commute from Madison to St. Louis. He sold it in October. Q. What do you like about running the Information Technology Association of Wisconsin? A. This job has got the political component that I find so exciting. It allows me to be the techie that I always am and visioneer and see where all the possibilities (are), and do it from a nonprofit perspective, whereas before I was always driven on a basic return on investment. Some of those principles still apply here. Q. Why is that attractive to you? A. At this stage in my life it's more about what can I do to help and give. Although, I think we get capitalism a little confused in this country. Because it really is, if it's done well and ethically, a way to respond to people's needs in the most efficient way. I'm a great believer in that. Q. What has work been like your first few weeks at ITAW? A. Well first of all, on Dec. 20th I just met the board ... one thing I communicated to them was that I'm all ears for about 60 days. I'm really not going to be formulating any opinions until I get my bearings and really understand the needs of the members and sort of the landscape I'm dealing with. That's my plan. Q. What have you heard so far? A. The key areas that our board is interested in are probably workforce development. ... There's a perception (on the part of students) that there's really no good career path in IT anymore. It's being out-sourced ... salaries are capped. And then that comes on the heels of the explosion of the dot-coms ... I think what happened was when the dot-coms were hiring like crazy - basically if you passed the mirror test you got the job. And so there were a lot of people who said 'I'm IT, I'm IT' who really weren't that qualified. So now that has collapsed and certainly the real IT people can find jobs. ... Our members are looking to help craft ways in which we can attract students into the (IT) programs and make those programs more relevant. Q. Are a lot of IT professionals leaving Wisconsin? A. I do know there is a talent drain. Our universities put out very talented people but those students aren't finding it attractive to stay. We want to create an environment where they will stay. We want to create new businesses. Get them interested in being entrepreneurial. Q. What are some of the challenges you face at ITAW? A. Boy, right now it's looking real good simply from the enthusiasm from members. I haven't run into an obstacle yet. Talk to me in a few months after I'm pushing on some of the fund raising levers and maybe I won't be so enthusiastic. But now it's just been fantastic. There's just been so much enthusiasm for this, so there's obviously a gap we're filling. Q. What's the biggest mistake you've made in your career? A. I'm an entrepreneur and I count on mistakes. ... If you are so afraid of making mistakes, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur. eXsellera (an eBay consignment store he started) was a market trial and I did make some mistakes there. One was I did not anticipate the level of labor associated with every eBay listing. That was double what I had estimated. The other issue was I tried raising capital in 2004 and that was a bad year to raise capital. If I had known that, I might not have started the business. ... I also spent way too much focus on the residential side. The onesey, twosey side. If I had done it all over again, I wouldn't have even bothered with that. I wouldn't even have had a retail space. I would have got 5,000 square feet of tractor-trailer accessible warehouse and started the business there and focused simply on returns, overstocks and damaged goods. Q. What has been your biggest career triumph? A. The most gratifying career moment I've had was the team that I built in this region of the country for Charter Business Networks. I got it right. Low turnover. We did a great job. We never lost a customer. Everything worked. Q. How did you get the team right? A. Hard work. If you're going to hire 10 people, there are going to be a couple that don't fit. I don't care how good you are - I don't care how good those people are - it just doesn't fit. So I had finally figured out how to hire and train and mold create a culture. And that culture was very successful. Q. What got you interested in flying? A. I was afraid of heights. I'm not anymore. It will still get me a little queasy but I've pretty much overcome it. When I was president of Norlight, I chartered a lot to get around the state. And that was sort of cool. So I just started taking flying lessons. It's just so much enjoyment for me. It is relaxing. It's a diversion and it requires a whole different set of skills and thinking. Although quite frankly, with running a business or an organization, there are a lot of similarities with flying. Q. How do you get from a master's degree in aquatic ecology to information technology? A. WVU was one of the first universities that ran (the computer programming language) SAS. Prior to me graduate students always had to do Fortran programming to do statistical analysis. And I never had to do that. I learned SAS instead. It was an enormously powerful language to get your statistical analysis done ... my degree was very statistically oriented. So I learned a lot about statistics. That's the connection into business and IT. I was very comfortable with numbers and probability and applying statistics to all kinds of things, which I found very useful in business. And quite frankly, in a lot of circles in business, people didn't have a clue about the statistical side of stuff. If you got your MBA you did, but most people didn't. I also schooled myself at night (in finance and accounting). I became somewhat an expert in fiber optics while at Vanguard and that's what I chose as sort of a niche. Q. You've attended a seminary. What drew you in that direction? A. (A former coworker) invited me and I went ahead and registered. It's an important part of my life. I spend a lot of time (working with Blackhawk Evangelical Free Church) as one of their team leaders. They're overflowing right now so we're actually offering a service at the Hilldale Theater. Sundays are pretty much devoted to helping out in that regard. Q. What do you like about doing business in Madison? A. I like Madison because it's an enormously interesting and thriving community. It's got the university. It's got technology. It's just a cool place. This is a great place to raise a family. That's one of the key things. We just stumbled into living in Shorewood (Hills) but that elementary school, it has like 55 nationalities. It is the most awesome elementary school experience on the planet. Madison just gives you those experiences. I actually like the climate here in Wisconsin though it isn't quite cold enough anymore. It's a beautiful state and it's one of the best places to learn how to fly. Q. What don't you like about doing business in Madison? A. You know, it's not particularly business friendly. And I'm going work on that. It's been getting better. In certain circles there's a suspicion of people in business. I don't know how else to describe it. Now, some of that's earned by some bad business practices. There's an ideological gap there. nleaf@madison.com madison.com ©2009 Capital Newspapers. All rights reserved. |
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