Categories
Meet Damon! Damon is the Senior Vice President of Technology for Spero Financial. Technology Wizard and Star Wars aficionado, Damon is sure to keep our organization safe from technology threats and from forgetting about May the Fourth (Be With You)! Damon’s passion for people makes him an invaluable member of Team Spero as he works to make the technology used within the organization work effectively and efficiently for our employees and our members. Continue reading to learn more about his background in both Information Technology and Bitcoin mining!
WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND?
Damon’s career began in 4th grade, talk about an early start! At this time, Damon’s family had purchased their first computer, and Damon was captivated. After getting his hands on it, Damon decided that he wanted to do “something” with computers, although he didn’t know what yet. From then on, Damon said he would tinker with, break, fix, and learn more about computers. He then went off to college where he majored in Computer Science; however, Damon switched his major after realizing many computer classes were just math, which he wasn’t interested in.
After college, Damon began his professional career in Information Technology by landing a job with a Help Desk. That’s where he realized he enjoyed the hardware side of technology more. He quickly moved into a position that required him to be hands-on, doing physical repairs on PCs, printers, network equipment, and more. After this move, Damon became a Server Administrator and Senior Infrastructure Engineer, where he worked with a team managing and maintaining thousands of servers.
As he continued in his career journey, Damon set his sights on leadership roles - as he discovered his passion for people. After gaining a leadership position, Damon then found Spero (formerly SC Telco). He joined the team in the middle of a rebranding, a new location opening, a remote work transition, a new ITM infrastructure, and a merger.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF ADVICE?
Damon couldn’t just share one, he said he has two favorite pieces of advice!
“Do the right thing when no one is watching and do the right thing when everyone is watching. Have both integrity and courage.”
“Choose the path less traveled.”
He further explained, “Life is hard. If you don’t continually exercise the muscle of getting through difficult things, when difficult things happen you won’t know how to react. Putting yourself in situations where you could quit but choose not to allows you to be calmer when life gets hard.”
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR CURRENT POSITION?
Damon says his favorite thing about his current role is being able to see how technology helps and enables Team Spero and our members. Damon loves the challenges that get thrown at him each day and is motivated by Team Spero who he refers to as, “the rockstar team!”
WHAT IS ONE THING YOU WOULD TELL YOUR 25-YEAR-OLD SELF IF YOU KNEW THEN WHAT YOU KNOW NOW?
“Don’t let your wife talk you out of building a Bitcoin miner!”
Damon shared the story of building a computer to mine Bitcoin. During this time, Damon and his wife were having their second and third children and, in the middle of this, Damon was building a computer to mine bitcoin. Damon shared that his wife urged him to “quit playing with nerd stuff and focus on the family” so he stopped building the computer.
Years later, Bitcoin exploded and had he stuck with it, Damon (with a smirk) says, “I could have been a billionaire, had I just built a dang computer.”
