Employee Profile: John Billups
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John Billups –Principal Consultant |
Department:
Technical Services Group
Year joined SyCom:
April 1999
Length of time in the tech business:
Since 1978
Area of specialty:
Cisco infrastructure and Cisco unified communications
Qualifications/Experience:
Cisco CCIE
Favorite part about working for SyCom:
The people at SyCom are incredible. We have an incredibly talented bunch of people. The energy I get every day from interacting with my colleagues is a great part of my job. And, SyCom's clients are awesome to work for.
Outside Interests (hobbies, past times etc.)
My wife and I have three teenagers, so for now life is trying to keep up with them. I personally like doing puzzles, scuba diving, skiing, and the occasional construction project. I've also been involved as a Boy Scout leader and as a baseball coach.
First-Class Training
At SyCom, we pride ourselves on our knowledge and expertise. What sets us apart is our constant passion for learning and improvement. Since I joined SyCom in April 1999 as a pre-sales engineer, I have had the opportunity to receive a huge amount of first-class training including various classroom and online classes. I have attended Cisco’s excellent CCIE Bootcamp and Cisco Networkers.
Delivering on the SyCom Mission
The SyCom mission is important in everything we do, every day. We see ourselves as experts in technology but I think that service to others is the key to success and happiness.
SyCom Motivation
Several things keep me motivated. One is the successful implementation of a complex project or solving a difficult problem. Another is seeing the look on someone's face when I've helped them to understand something that is complex and potentially confusing. Also, having the opportunity to work with the other engineers at SyCom is something I look forward to every day.
Working and Connecting with Customers
I like to understand how things work and not just how to make them work. I try to always look for new ways to describe complex technologies to help our clients understand their options and become more comfortable with the systems and solutions that we deploy. I love the fact that I can communicate with a wide range of people, from engineers right through to C-level. I love to mentor, tutor and teach. We have many customers where we have established a very strong working relationship. Working for these clients is great because it goes beyond the traditional vendor/client relationship. It is a partnership.
A Day in the Life
Generally, I have one or two client engagements on a daily basis, either doing design, implementation or troubleshooting sprinkled in with some random ad hoc troubleshooting issues.
Advice: Techie to Techie
It depends on who I'm giving it to. For technical engineers, I'd say that it is far more important to understand the technical protocols than it is to know how to configure them.
Most Interesting Project:
I think for me, designing and implementing an MPLS backbone into a major university campus was one of my most memorable projects. Plus the design and implementation of a Layer 3 infrastructure at a hospital was pretty cool. Finally, implementing a unified communications system into both a public school and a private school was great because it really rationalized their system and gave them great flexibility by combining voice and data onto one network.
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