Ch-ch-ch Changes, or Why I Decided to Join Powertek Corporation

I recently accepted a position to serve as the Chief Operating Officer at Powertek Corporation (www.powertekcorporation.com). Powertek is an 8(a) woman-owned small business involved with all aspects of information technology, including business engineering and program management. Nancy Scott, President and CEO, and Samar Ghadry, Executive Vice-President, are both talented and delightful leaders I look forward to supporting.  The staff they have put together is bright, hardworking, and creative.

Despite my decision to move, CSC, the company I am leaving, continues to be a  great place to work  with committed and talented employees, many of whom have become friends over the last year. So why did I leave?

Simply put, it became clear to me that my need to help grow something and bring about change within my workplace is greater than I had realized. While I valued my time at CSC, my fundamental worth there was related to what I was not what I did. It brought home the fact that my happiest times were when I was valued for the changes I helped bring about.

At the US Department of Transportation I had in many ways the perfect position, at least for me. I was able to take advantage of my experiences to provide strategic insight into the use and management of Information Technology. I used my capital-P political experiences to work with the small-p organizational politics of being a Departmental CIO. At the same time I was lucky in that the DOT CIO had responsibility for a significant operational segment of the Department, managing the desktops and telephones for headquarters and a growing percentage of the field offices as well as a data center for the non-FAA agencies.

I tell people that during my three years at the Department of Transportation, no-one ever felt that any one person was in charge of Information  Technology BUT they agreed that IF someone was in charge it would have been me. I was able to use that general opinion to cause more change than I had expected.

Powertek provides a comparable opportunity to the one I had at the US Department of Transportation. This is a chance to bring my background in the public and private sector to support the development and implementation of a strategic vision, and to utilize my leadership skills to mentor employees who have less experience and to provide operational and tactical direction. I feel very lucky and privileged to be part of a company that has been very successful thus far but with hard work has the potential to make even more of a difference in the future.

As usual I am always interested in receiving input from the larger community. If there are people out there who are willing to provide advice regarding growing and transitioning an 8a company and/or would be interested in talking about business opportunities or partnerships, please feel free to reach out to me at dmintz@powertekcorporation.com or my personal email at dmintz@ourownlittlecorner.com . You can also find me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter at technogeezer.