May 19, 2025 • 26 mins
Heinan Landa is Founder & CEO of Optimal Networks, Inc. and author of The Modern Law Firm: How to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Technological Change. After earning his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University, Heinan went on to receive his MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. As fate would have it, it was an assignment for one of his classes at Wharton that prompted him to develop the idea—and even construct a business plan—for his future technology services firm. Since 1991 Optimal has helped more than five hundred clients with their technology needs, all while maintaining an aggressive commitment to unyielding integrity, mind-blowing customer service, and some good old-fashioned fun. He’s always up for a chat about business, technology, corporate culture, nutrition, both the Marvel and DC universes, and all things Mr. Spock, so feel free to drop him a note at hlanda@optimalnetworks.com or www.linkedin.com/in/hlanda/.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M ANDT Bank resents iHeartRadio's CEOs you should know, powered
by the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let's meet Hanan Landa. He is the president and CEO
for Optimal Networks Home based in Rockville, Maryland, a premium
I T services provider specializing in serving law firms, associations,
and consulting firms. They offer range of services including managed
IT services, CIO consulting, and IT assessments, all of the
(00:29):
focus on delivering proactive and strategic IT solutions. Before we
talk more about Hanan's company, I first asked him to
talk a little bit about himself, where he's from and
his origin story.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So I actually I was born in Israel and moved
to the United States, actually to Wheaton, Maryland, when I
was two years old, and I grew up actually in
Maryland the entire time. So my family moved from Wheaton
and we went to Rockville, and then they moved to
Potomac and I went back and I went to school
(01:00):
at Hopkins Hopkins University, got a master's and a bachelor's
in electrical engineering and computer science, and then I went
to Wharton and got my MBA. But the only time
I actually lived outside of Maryland, which is a bit crazy.
And then I came back and in Rockville and started
up the business and still here today.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I think we can classify you as a lifer.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I'll take it. Well, it can do that, tank it.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm always intrigued too, about leaders at star companies of
a region that they lived in, And we'll talk about
that a little bit later in the benefits that you
have when it comes to knowing the region so well.
But I'm curious because you know, we're going to talk
a lot about optimal networks in your company that's thirty
four years in the making, which is truly incredible, and
all the things that you offer your clients. But when
(01:44):
you started to come up with an idea coming out
of school about what you wanted to do, what you
thought you were going to do, how did all this
get born?
Speaker 4 (01:50):
What was the origin?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
A great, great question. So it's worse than that. It
never happened after school. It happened during school. And I
actually went and warned to the through the entrepreneurship program,
and one of the things that they do there is
they work you through all sorts of different business ideas
so you can kind of evaluate them and see what
would be a wonderful way to actually make a living
(02:13):
and be an entrepreneur and contribute. And it was actually
very difficult for me for a while to figure out
what I wanted. I had a bunch of crazy ideas,
but there was a like a recurring theme for me
that I really like technology. I like to play with technology.
And back then, please understand, there were no PCs, the
(02:34):
you know, it was just please rewind back to nineteen
eighty nine, right, there was a barely there wasn't even emails.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
It's a simple time, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It was. But I really liked technology, and I also
like this idea of making people happy, of giving them
a good experience with technology so it could help them.
And I did it a couple times, like during like
my full time jobs and my summer internships, and in
fact every place I had worked, I kind of became
(03:05):
the de facto network administrator. Like even if I was
there for a marketing internship, suddenly I was the network administrator.
So I came out of Wharton. I actually wrote the
entire business plan for Optimal Networks at Wharton and literally
came out and started the business here. And if you're
asking why I started it here. Well, the main reason
(03:29):
was that I did not have to pay rent. I
ended up living with my parents for a good six months.
Another wrong with that, No, it worked out great. Well.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Listen, I want to talk all about what you do
and what you offer, but the most important thing, just
right off the top before we get into that, what's
the mission statement?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
When it comes to optimal networks?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Mission statements A tough one, but let me tell you
a little bit, like I give you a quick few
seconds about what we're trying to do here. Sure, and
it really goes back to the foundation of what I
told you. We're trying to make people happy and productive
their technology, right, We're trying to give them excellence in service.
We're trying to see around the corner for them and
make sure they're not surprised by all this new technology
(04:10):
coming down the pike and that they can sort of
lean into it. So we are a company that we
consider ourselves premium service, proactive, and strategic. Okay, we are
one of the few technologies out there that has a
few business bones in our makeup, and we can understand
what people are trying to do with their law firms,
(04:30):
with their associations with their small businesses, their consulting firms,
and we can really get technology to drive to help
drive them forward. So that's fun for me, and that's
what we're doing. We're based on values. We're a value
based company, and this is something that we kind of
came to terms with early early on in the world
(04:52):
of Optimal, probably like five six, seven years in intentionally
defined our values and we have them on our website
and we have them up here on the wall, and
we talk about them and I can give you stories
about them, and I'm excited about them because they have
(05:14):
really allowed us to pull together a group of fifty
plus people that resonate with these values. The first one
is tell the truth, which is just a way of
saying honesty and integrity and there's enough, there's enough junk
outside of the company. Let's make sure that we can
really trust the people inside the company, right, So there's
a bit of that. And then the second one is
(05:38):
do the right thing, which only I mean, everyone knows
what the right thing is. It only matters when it's
really hard. If you have to give money back to
a client, or you have to take care of an
employee or whatever. The case is do the right thing
when it's hard. We do that. That is important to us.
And the final benefit, which is I mean the final value,
which is sort of interesting, is everyone benefits. So we're
(06:02):
when people intersect with us, whether it's a client, a stakeholder,
a vendor, a partner, it doesn't matter even you, right like,
we want you to benefit as much from this as
we're benefit benefiting from it, and so that is important
for us. We want to win win win scenario. And
we have infused these benefits, I mean, these values throughout
(06:26):
our organization and it has made for a really amazing
set of people to work with, which I am grateful
for every day. It's really wonderful.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Well, hay On, this is a great segue.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And I usually wait a little bit down the interview
and I promise we'll talk about what the company is
and what it offers. But this is a good segue
because you're talking about culture, and I'm a sports guy.
Now in every locker room and organization has to have
a great culture. Winning is going to be very difficult.
But that applies also to the business world and families
and life and everything. We have a lot of people
(06:57):
that run companies here, but also a lot of future
leaders out there and culture comes up a lot. Tell
us why it's so important, because obviously it's leading your
mission statement about culture. Can you just expound on just
a little bit more for everybody?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Absolutely, culture is so important? And who is it who
said culture eats strategy for lunch. I don't know if
it's true. I never tasted strategy, but it sounds tasty. Listen,
Culture is three main things, right. Culture is a is
a mix of the values, it's the actual people in
(07:31):
the organization, and it's and it's how things get done right.
And so it's like and so when you're talking about
the values and the people, it's like, what do you celebrate?
What rituals do you have? What's important to you? And
if you can be intentional about these things with your
business and the people that you have together in there, everyone,
(07:57):
we're not at odds with each other. We're all trying
to do this same thing, you know, and that just
propels you so much further. Like, if you know that
the right thing to do is to take care of
the client, and you can make your decisions based on
taking care of the client, then no one's going to
question you about it. Even if you make a mistake,
it's okay, right because you did it with the values,
(08:20):
with the values in mind. And so to me, that's
that's the culture. That's that's that's the advantage of culture.
And you can, you know, you can, you can get
through a lot of very standard entrepreneurial growing pains and
bumps and you know, hits and downturns and take advantage
(08:43):
of upturns much better if you've got everyone in the
same culture feeling it and and participating in it. Part
of what you see on our website and on our
social media is we talk a lot of the fun
that we have, Like we really dive in and spend
(09:04):
a lot of time making sure that people connect not
just professionally but also personally, and so we do crazy
stuff like we've taken the whole team whitewater rafting and
we've taken them to the iFly, you know, indoor sky diving.
And this past it was it January, we went to
this place called Cookology where it's like a whole iron
(09:24):
chef cooking thing with mystery ingredients and you know, everyone
gets to get together in different formats and have fun,
and we also get to share like business vision and
make sure that people understand what their role is in
the vision and what we're trying to do and where
we're trying to go. We put on like big celebrations
to celebrate longevity. For example, so when you hit the
(09:50):
ten year mark at Optimal Networks, you get a custom
tailored Optimal blue blazer. This is not like the it's
like a master's jacket, right.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a sports guy.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, that's for you, and it's and it's amazing. So
when we have like a fancy Optimal dinner, there are
a select number of people that are in there wearing
this very unique, perfectly fitting blazer sports jacket and they
are we call them the Blue Jacket Club, you know,
(10:24):
and we bring them up and we celebrate them. And
when there's a new person added to that group, we
spend time talking about their ten years at Optimal and
their contributions, and we tell stories about them and really
it's a it's just a wonderful thing, and it's a
ritual that we have that celebrates longevity because longevity in
(10:44):
the company is important to us because when you have
people who you know, there's a method to the madness,
right when you have people who've been here for a while,
they know how to get things done, they can teach
other folks, they can mentor other folks inside the company,
and they also are much faster and better and serve
the clients right right, So it's all like win win,
win win again, everybody benefits.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, well, I find well, I'm glad you talked about
it because you know, culture and being on the right
team where everybody is on the same page as just
paramount for winning, but also having a great time. And
you know, it's it's very unique for somebody to love
a company and stay there for ten years, and it
just doesn't happen in today's climate no matter what we're doing.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
So I'm glad we addressed that.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I didn't want to bury the lead because I think
this is really important to tell everybody about what you do.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
So if you were to.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Give everybody just a thirty thousand foot view of what
Optimal Networks does, what would you tell them?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
So what we do is we provide We're an MSP,
that's what they call us. It's not my fault managed
services provider. We provide IT support and IT services to
law firms, to associations and to consulting firms, and we're
doing it at multiple levels. So we do this standard
(11:54):
you know, the help desk and taking care of the
servers and the backup and the security and all the
things that you need to do to make sure your
system is running well. And we also do projects right.
We will set up your system for you, We'll move
you from one office to another, will upgrade you, outfit
you with a whole fleet of laptops, whatever needs to
(12:15):
happen on the IT front. We're very good at that
is bread and butter. And then we also have a
small number of folks in the company, about five of
them and growing that are CIOs, and they're fractional CIOs.
They have been in the industry a long long time
(12:36):
and they do strategy. So they will come in and
they will assess whether your technology is meeting your business
and whether in these fairly tumultuous times are you on track?
Is your technology fueling what you're trying to do with
your organization, And they'll put together a plan and they
will guide that plan forward and make sure that at
(12:58):
the end of of the plan you are where you
want to be, you know, so that you can rely
on the technology to do what it is you want
to do as a company. So you've got the strategy
piece in there, you got the service piece in there,
the premium service piece in there. We're offering service twenty
four by seven and we're I will only tell you,
and I tell you this because not not from a
(13:21):
position of bragging, but from a position of pride, because
we were not always like this. But our help desk,
our support center is the cream of the cream of
the crop. I have never seen such a high performing,
amazing team and the way they take care of the
clients is absolutely mind blowing, and the clients respond. We
(13:44):
have like our you know, we do surveys on every
tech tech problem that we deal with, and we're sitting
here at like a three point nine two on average
out of four. You're just like, wow, yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know. That gets back to culture and you giving
your message down to all your staff and the team
members and the fifty plus people that work with you
to make sure clients are taken care of. I didn't
want to ask you about the evolution of technology because
as you and I talked about it, and you know,
you talked about it so well that there was no
Internet in the social media when you started the company.
So I'm curious about what you wanted the company to
(14:22):
do back then because technology was so limited. But now,
my goodness, my friend, in the last thirty years, between
phones and computers and now AI is into the mix,
it's moving very quickly. I imagine that you have to
ebb and flow very quickly with your staff when it
comes to super serving your customers. But when you started
out the company and you pick that category of who
(14:44):
you want to work with, where it is now, how
much has changed beside the actual technology in the world.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
It's dramatic, it'smatic. It's just dramatic. And most people don't
remember what it was like back then, and uh, we didn't.
We couldn't. Even there were barely computers, right, so you
could not take over a computer remotely. That wasn't the
thing because there there was no Internet networks in the office.
(15:11):
Were just starting out back then, and we were evangelizing
to our clients saying, hey, you should connect your computers
together and use a file server so that you can
store your file centrally. Like that's about the beginning of
what I remember. And then when the Internet came out,
we were like, look, you should try email. And originally
(15:34):
we had email between some of our clients, and then
when the Internet came out, we were able to connect
all those emails into the Internet and then people could
start sharing emails. So it was really dramatic, especially when
you look at it and then the whole cloud and
then you know the whole AI bit. I'll tell you
(15:55):
something that was very interesting to me, So I wrote
a book of years ago. We released it in COVID
called The Modern Law Firm, And the book itself is
a discussion about how fast technology is changing, and it
applies to more than just law firms. It's a nice
read and it talks about how you need to lean
(16:18):
into the change. But the way it starts is it
literally goes back twenty years and it asks you, do
you remember when you were using word perfect right?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And we laughed and we laugh, and do you remember
how difficult it was to open up the revealed code
and six something and then print it and whatever. And
it goes through some the way a law firm ran
like twenty years prior, and then like fast forward to today,
how law firms are working with document management systems and
(16:53):
cloud applications and laptops and how it's a whole different world.
And that part of the book book. I've had people
read it and call me and say, I was jarred,
I got you know, you made me remember stuff that
I didn't want to remember. But it just shows how
fast the technology is moving and how important it is.
(17:17):
You know, there's something called Moore's law, which is basically
the processing power doubles every eighteen months, and when you
start projecting that out, it's exponential growth, so you know,
like COVID, and so it moves so quickly that if
you're not leaning into the change, you are going to
get smothered by it. You're going to get overwhelmed by it.
(17:40):
And so that's part of what we're talking about, is
making sure that you have a good, solid, resilient plan
for your technology so that you can use it well,
make sure it's really connected to your business and helping
move you forward even as it changes.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, it makes perfect sense, and this is a great
segue also on that. I don't want to assume that
there's any company in the DMV that does specifically what
you and your team do. But with that said, when
it comes to competition, how do you differentiate yourself with
your clients.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
So there's there's a few a few ways that we differentiate.
For one, and by the way, there's lots of competition
and they are wonderful, right, There are really terrific companies
out there that are doing what we do. There's a
few areas where we are different from them. One is
our industry specialization. We are really good at the industries
(18:34):
that we have chosen as our primary targets, target markets,
and like we really understand law firms very well, we
really understand associations very well, and professional consulting firms like
you come to us as one of those companies. We
speak your language because we have people who have been
in those environments for a long long time and understand
(18:55):
what it means to be a lawyer, you know, in
the middle of a case that needs something working. End
of story, right, So you're we speak that language. It's
a big specialization. Another another place we differentiate ourselves are
these CIO services, these high end strategic services that can
really guide a business. There are a couple of other
(19:16):
companies that have those, not not many. So it's been
really uh, it's been really wonderful to find the kind
of people that we have on our team who are
really strategic but also very practical. I can really move
things along for you quite quite well. So that's that
is amazing. And then the final area is really the
(19:40):
premium level service. Sometimes folks are are very cost conscious
and they need a they just need it service. That's fine,
they should get it. That's not us. We're the company
who you come to when you are looking for nordstrums,
when you're right, when you're when you're looking for a
(20:00):
high end experience that you know you are going to
be taken care of. You've got a company of fifty
plus people who will do backflips for you to make
sure it's working, and you're willing to afford that as well.
So those are some of the differentiators outstanding.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I appreciate that, Hey, Nod, I also wanted to talk
to you about leadership, and I know we've been talking
about when it comes to culture, but you've got fifty
plus employees, the company's been around for thirty four years,
and I would say, without knowing you, because we just
met today, about leadership, that you've got great leadership and
you've got great culture. But with that said, we do
have a lot of people that think, you know, and
(20:38):
kind of define leadership in different buckets and what that
means to them. As I talk about leadership to you
and your company as president CEO, what does leadership mean
to you?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Leadership means to me is there's a concept called servant
leadership where you are there to serve your folks. So
to me, leadership is you have to create a vision.
Right where is your company? Now? Where do you want
to go? This is very very important. That's vision and
(21:10):
over time and make sure that that's very clear and
outside of that, once people get it and you have
the right people, your job is to serve them so
that they are successful. Your job is to knock obstacles
out from that they may be experiencing. To get rid
of those obstacles, Your job is to make sure the
right people are talking to solve problems. It is and
(21:34):
that feeling and that idea of servant leadership actually permeates
throughout my organization.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So I was going to talk to you about sustainability
because once again I've said it a few times on here,
and it's really truly incredible for a company to be
around for thirty four years, so a testament to you,
your team, your services, customer, service culture, everything that goes
with that that we've talked about with all that said
was the plan just to be sustainable because you obviously
grown as a company. And once again, I think people
(22:03):
like to hear this because I realize that your journey
is specific to you and your company. So I understand that,
so we'll put that there. But what that said was
it always a plan to grow to a certain level,
to be sustainable to a certain level.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Is the company still growing? Where are you right now?
With that? I'd love to hear about that.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
So first of all, you should know that flattery will
get you everywhere with me, so keep it going. And second, no,
I love the growth. I love growing the company, and
I'll tell you why. It's we have something very special here.
And when you put all those pieces you mentioned together,
(22:39):
what's happening is our clients are getting a very special,
very unique IT support experience, IT experience overall, and so
are our employees, so like our entire team, and so
are their families and the stakeholders for Optimal, So everyone
(22:59):
involved with Optimal, which is really like the third value
of everyone benefits. Everyone is experiencing something really unique and special,
and I would like to get that out to as
many people as possible. I think people have the right
to enjoy their jobs and be connected and feel comfortable
(23:20):
that their company has their back, and same with the clients.
They should feel like they're working with a competent organization
that is peaking around the corners and making sure that
they're not going to get blindsided by the next technology change,
right and and is really taking care of them deeply.
And so yeah, I'm I'm, I guess I'm really. I
(23:41):
love the growth piece of it. It lights me up.
I love adding people to our community of clients. I
love adding people to our team, and I want to
do it as fast as possible without sacrificing service quality.
It is very important.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Yeah, I think that's what I said. Well, let's do this.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I've enjoyed the comment coversation, but I want to give
you a few final thoughts to recap what we've talked about,
and then we're going to give the website. I know
that people also listen to the series. If you're hiring
the best of the best, I'll want to hear about that.
So but before we do that, to some final thoughts
and just recap what we've talked about. The floor is yours, sir.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh my final thoughts, Yes, sir, Well listen, listen. This
has been wonderful then, So I really appreciate I really
appreciate the interview and the platform to talk about what
we're doing here. The IT services we're providing are great,
but it's really because of the team we have and
the people who are living the values and the culture
(24:39):
and serving a wonderful set of clients, like one of
some of the most amazing clients, doing some of the
most amazing things out there. And it's really a privilege
for me to be here at this level, really with
this size organization. Aren't that many organizations of this size
in the IT world, and so we're really bringing something
(25:03):
special to the table, and I would love to add
to that. So, yes, yes, we are hiring. We are
always hiring, and today we're hiring an account executive. But
you keep an eye on our website on the hiring page,
there's usually some kind of position opening up, and that
is due to the fact that we are adding clients
(25:27):
and we are taking on clients, and so we are
needing to expand. So it's all wonderful and it's all good,
and I'll guess I'll give you the website. I'll give
you the website right now. I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it. So here it is you
guys writing. It's www. Dot optimal op t. I m
a L networks with an S at the end dot com,
so Optimalnetworks dot.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Com standing well, listen, I'm going to give you one
more compliment. And I always noticed this in the series
when I talk to people that have started their own companies,
and your has been around for over three decades, so
a testament to your longivet, your sustainability and your growth.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
But you have enthusiasm.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
And that always makes me happy when I get to
talk to people like you, because I'm sure that you
bring that to your staff and to your clients. I
think that people want to see that. You know, I'm positive,
I'm happy, we're having fun. We might be doing some
hard work, you might be having issues, but we're going
to get through this together. So your enthusiasm is contagious,
and I think that's really cool.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And I think a lot of people will notice that.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time
because I know how busy you are, hay On, but
thank you so much and I'm glad we had a
chance to feature you on CEOs.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
You should know.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Thank you so much, Dennis, my pleasure. Absolutely appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let's meet Hanan Landa. He is the president and CEO
for Optimal Networks Home based in Rockville, Maryland, a premium
I T services provider specializing in serving law firms, associations,
and consulting firms. They offer range of services including managed
IT services, CIO consulting, and IT assessments, all of the
(00:29):
focus on delivering proactive and strategic IT solutions. Before we
talk more about Hanan's company, I first asked him to
talk a little bit about himself, where he's from and
his origin story.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So I actually I was born in Israel and moved
to the United States, actually to Wheaton, Maryland, when I
was two years old, and I grew up actually in
Maryland the entire time. So my family moved from Wheaton
and we went to Rockville, and then they moved to
Potomac and I went back and I went to school
(01:00):
at Hopkins Hopkins University, got a master's and a bachelor's
in electrical engineering and computer science, and then I went
to Wharton and got my MBA. But the only time
I actually lived outside of Maryland, which is a bit crazy.
And then I came back and in Rockville and started
up the business and still here today.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I think we can classify you as a lifer.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I'll take it. Well, it can do that, tank it.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm always intrigued too, about leaders at star companies of
a region that they lived in, And we'll talk about
that a little bit later in the benefits that you
have when it comes to knowing the region so well.
But I'm curious because you know, we're going to talk
a lot about optimal networks in your company that's thirty
four years in the making, which is truly incredible, and
all the things that you offer your clients. But when
(01:44):
you started to come up with an idea coming out
of school about what you wanted to do, what you
thought you were going to do, how did all this
get born?
Speaker 4 (01:50):
What was the origin?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
A great, great question. So it's worse than that. It
never happened after school. It happened during school. And I
actually went and warned to the through the entrepreneurship program,
and one of the things that they do there is
they work you through all sorts of different business ideas
so you can kind of evaluate them and see what
would be a wonderful way to actually make a living
(02:13):
and be an entrepreneur and contribute. And it was actually
very difficult for me for a while to figure out
what I wanted. I had a bunch of crazy ideas,
but there was a like a recurring theme for me
that I really like technology. I like to play with technology.
And back then, please understand, there were no PCs, the
(02:34):
you know, it was just please rewind back to nineteen
eighty nine, right, there was a barely there wasn't even emails.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
It's a simple time, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It was. But I really liked technology, and I also
like this idea of making people happy, of giving them
a good experience with technology so it could help them.
And I did it a couple times, like during like
my full time jobs and my summer internships, and in
fact every place I had worked, I kind of became
(03:05):
the de facto network administrator. Like even if I was
there for a marketing internship, suddenly I was the network administrator.
So I came out of Wharton. I actually wrote the
entire business plan for Optimal Networks at Wharton and literally
came out and started the business here. And if you're
asking why I started it here. Well, the main reason
(03:29):
was that I did not have to pay rent. I
ended up living with my parents for a good six months.
Another wrong with that, No, it worked out great. Well.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Listen, I want to talk all about what you do
and what you offer, but the most important thing, just
right off the top before we get into that, what's
the mission statement?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
When it comes to optimal networks?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Mission statements A tough one, but let me tell you
a little bit, like I give you a quick few
seconds about what we're trying to do here. Sure, and
it really goes back to the foundation of what I
told you. We're trying to make people happy and productive
their technology, right, We're trying to give them excellence in service.
We're trying to see around the corner for them and
make sure they're not surprised by all this new technology
(04:10):
coming down the pike and that they can sort of
lean into it. So we are a company that we
consider ourselves premium service, proactive, and strategic. Okay, we are
one of the few technologies out there that has a
few business bones in our makeup, and we can understand
what people are trying to do with their law firms,
(04:30):
with their associations with their small businesses, their consulting firms,
and we can really get technology to drive to help
drive them forward. So that's fun for me, and that's
what we're doing. We're based on values. We're a value
based company, and this is something that we kind of
came to terms with early early on in the world
(04:52):
of Optimal, probably like five six, seven years in intentionally
defined our values and we have them on our website
and we have them up here on the wall, and
we talk about them and I can give you stories
about them, and I'm excited about them because they have
(05:14):
really allowed us to pull together a group of fifty
plus people that resonate with these values. The first one
is tell the truth, which is just a way of
saying honesty and integrity and there's enough, there's enough junk
outside of the company. Let's make sure that we can
really trust the people inside the company, right, So there's
a bit of that. And then the second one is
(05:38):
do the right thing, which only I mean, everyone knows
what the right thing is. It only matters when it's
really hard. If you have to give money back to
a client, or you have to take care of an
employee or whatever. The case is do the right thing
when it's hard. We do that. That is important to us.
And the final benefit, which is I mean the final value,
which is sort of interesting, is everyone benefits. So we're
(06:02):
when people intersect with us, whether it's a client, a stakeholder,
a vendor, a partner, it doesn't matter even you, right like,
we want you to benefit as much from this as
we're benefit benefiting from it, and so that is important
for us. We want to win win win scenario. And
we have infused these benefits, I mean, these values throughout
(06:26):
our organization and it has made for a really amazing
set of people to work with, which I am grateful
for every day. It's really wonderful.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Well, hay On, this is a great segue.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And I usually wait a little bit down the interview
and I promise we'll talk about what the company is
and what it offers. But this is a good segue
because you're talking about culture, and I'm a sports guy.
Now in every locker room and organization has to have
a great culture. Winning is going to be very difficult.
But that applies also to the business world and families
and life and everything. We have a lot of people
(06:57):
that run companies here, but also a lot of future
leaders out there and culture comes up a lot. Tell
us why it's so important, because obviously it's leading your
mission statement about culture. Can you just expound on just
a little bit more for everybody?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Absolutely, culture is so important? And who is it who
said culture eats strategy for lunch. I don't know if
it's true. I never tasted strategy, but it sounds tasty. Listen,
Culture is three main things, right. Culture is a is
a mix of the values, it's the actual people in
(07:31):
the organization, and it's and it's how things get done right.
And so it's like and so when you're talking about
the values and the people, it's like, what do you celebrate?
What rituals do you have? What's important to you? And
if you can be intentional about these things with your
business and the people that you have together in there, everyone,
(07:57):
we're not at odds with each other. We're all trying
to do this same thing, you know, and that just
propels you so much further. Like, if you know that
the right thing to do is to take care of
the client, and you can make your decisions based on
taking care of the client, then no one's going to
question you about it. Even if you make a mistake,
it's okay, right because you did it with the values,
(08:20):
with the values in mind. And so to me, that's
that's the culture. That's that's that's the advantage of culture.
And you can, you know, you can, you can get
through a lot of very standard entrepreneurial growing pains and
bumps and you know, hits and downturns and take advantage
(08:43):
of upturns much better if you've got everyone in the
same culture feeling it and and participating in it. Part
of what you see on our website and on our
social media is we talk a lot of the fun
that we have, Like we really dive in and spend
(09:04):
a lot of time making sure that people connect not
just professionally but also personally, and so we do crazy
stuff like we've taken the whole team whitewater rafting and
we've taken them to the iFly, you know, indoor sky diving.
And this past it was it January, we went to
this place called Cookology where it's like a whole iron
(09:24):
chef cooking thing with mystery ingredients and you know, everyone
gets to get together in different formats and have fun,
and we also get to share like business vision and
make sure that people understand what their role is in
the vision and what we're trying to do and where
we're trying to go. We put on like big celebrations
to celebrate longevity. For example, so when you hit the
(09:50):
ten year mark at Optimal Networks, you get a custom
tailored Optimal blue blazer. This is not like the it's
like a master's jacket, right.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a sports guy.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, that's for you, and it's and it's amazing. So
when we have like a fancy Optimal dinner, there are
a select number of people that are in there wearing
this very unique, perfectly fitting blazer sports jacket and they
are we call them the Blue Jacket Club, you know,
(10:24):
and we bring them up and we celebrate them. And
when there's a new person added to that group, we
spend time talking about their ten years at Optimal and
their contributions, and we tell stories about them and really
it's a it's just a wonderful thing, and it's a
ritual that we have that celebrates longevity because longevity in
(10:44):
the company is important to us because when you have
people who you know, there's a method to the madness,
right when you have people who've been here for a while,
they know how to get things done, they can teach
other folks, they can mentor other folks inside the company,
and they also are much faster and better and serve
the clients right right, So it's all like win win,
win win again, everybody benefits.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, well, I find well, I'm glad you talked about
it because you know, culture and being on the right
team where everybody is on the same page as just
paramount for winning, but also having a great time. And
you know, it's it's very unique for somebody to love
a company and stay there for ten years, and it
just doesn't happen in today's climate no matter what we're doing.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
So I'm glad we addressed that.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I didn't want to bury the lead because I think
this is really important to tell everybody about what you do.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
So if you were to.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Give everybody just a thirty thousand foot view of what
Optimal Networks does, what would you tell them?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
So what we do is we provide We're an MSP,
that's what they call us. It's not my fault managed
services provider. We provide IT support and IT services to
law firms, to associations and to consulting firms, and we're
doing it at multiple levels. So we do this standard
(11:54):
you know, the help desk and taking care of the
servers and the backup and the security and all the
things that you need to do to make sure your
system is running well. And we also do projects right.
We will set up your system for you, We'll move
you from one office to another, will upgrade you, outfit
you with a whole fleet of laptops, whatever needs to
(12:15):
happen on the IT front. We're very good at that
is bread and butter. And then we also have a
small number of folks in the company, about five of
them and growing that are CIOs, and they're fractional CIOs.
They have been in the industry a long long time
(12:36):
and they do strategy. So they will come in and
they will assess whether your technology is meeting your business
and whether in these fairly tumultuous times are you on track?
Is your technology fueling what you're trying to do with
your organization, And they'll put together a plan and they
will guide that plan forward and make sure that at
(12:58):
the end of of the plan you are where you
want to be, you know, so that you can rely
on the technology to do what it is you want
to do as a company. So you've got the strategy
piece in there, you got the service piece in there,
the premium service piece in there. We're offering service twenty
four by seven and we're I will only tell you,
and I tell you this because not not from a
(13:21):
position of bragging, but from a position of pride, because
we were not always like this. But our help desk,
our support center is the cream of the cream of
the crop. I have never seen such a high performing,
amazing team and the way they take care of the
clients is absolutely mind blowing, and the clients respond. We
(13:44):
have like our you know, we do surveys on every
tech tech problem that we deal with, and we're sitting
here at like a three point nine two on average
out of four. You're just like, wow, yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know. That gets back to culture and you giving
your message down to all your staff and the team
members and the fifty plus people that work with you
to make sure clients are taken care of. I didn't
want to ask you about the evolution of technology because
as you and I talked about it, and you know,
you talked about it so well that there was no
Internet in the social media when you started the company.
So I'm curious about what you wanted the company to
(14:22):
do back then because technology was so limited. But now,
my goodness, my friend, in the last thirty years, between
phones and computers and now AI is into the mix,
it's moving very quickly. I imagine that you have to
ebb and flow very quickly with your staff when it
comes to super serving your customers. But when you started
out the company and you pick that category of who
(14:44):
you want to work with, where it is now, how
much has changed beside the actual technology in the world.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
It's dramatic, it'smatic. It's just dramatic. And most people don't
remember what it was like back then, and uh, we didn't.
We couldn't. Even there were barely computers, right, so you
could not take over a computer remotely. That wasn't the
thing because there there was no Internet networks in the office.
(15:11):
Were just starting out back then, and we were evangelizing
to our clients saying, hey, you should connect your computers
together and use a file server so that you can
store your file centrally. Like that's about the beginning of
what I remember. And then when the Internet came out,
we were like, look, you should try email. And originally
(15:34):
we had email between some of our clients, and then
when the Internet came out, we were able to connect
all those emails into the Internet and then people could
start sharing emails. So it was really dramatic, especially when
you look at it and then the whole cloud and
then you know the whole AI bit. I'll tell you
(15:55):
something that was very interesting to me, So I wrote
a book of years ago. We released it in COVID
called The Modern Law Firm, And the book itself is
a discussion about how fast technology is changing, and it
applies to more than just law firms. It's a nice
read and it talks about how you need to lean
(16:18):
into the change. But the way it starts is it
literally goes back twenty years and it asks you, do
you remember when you were using word perfect right?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And we laughed and we laugh, and do you remember
how difficult it was to open up the revealed code
and six something and then print it and whatever. And
it goes through some the way a law firm ran
like twenty years prior, and then like fast forward to today,
how law firms are working with document management systems and
(16:53):
cloud applications and laptops and how it's a whole different world.
And that part of the book book. I've had people
read it and call me and say, I was jarred,
I got you know, you made me remember stuff that
I didn't want to remember. But it just shows how
fast the technology is moving and how important it is.
(17:17):
You know, there's something called Moore's law, which is basically
the processing power doubles every eighteen months, and when you
start projecting that out, it's exponential growth, so you know,
like COVID, and so it moves so quickly that if
you're not leaning into the change, you are going to
get smothered by it. You're going to get overwhelmed by it.
(17:40):
And so that's part of what we're talking about, is
making sure that you have a good, solid, resilient plan
for your technology so that you can use it well,
make sure it's really connected to your business and helping
move you forward even as it changes.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, it makes perfect sense, and this is a great
segue also on that. I don't want to assume that
there's any company in the DMV that does specifically what
you and your team do. But with that said, when
it comes to competition, how do you differentiate yourself with
your clients.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
So there's there's a few a few ways that we differentiate.
For one, and by the way, there's lots of competition
and they are wonderful, right, There are really terrific companies
out there that are doing what we do. There's a
few areas where we are different from them. One is
our industry specialization. We are really good at the industries
(18:34):
that we have chosen as our primary targets, target markets,
and like we really understand law firms very well, we
really understand associations very well, and professional consulting firms like
you come to us as one of those companies. We
speak your language because we have people who have been
in those environments for a long long time and understand
(18:55):
what it means to be a lawyer, you know, in
the middle of a case that needs something working. End
of story, right, So you're we speak that language. It's
a big specialization. Another another place we differentiate ourselves are
these CIO services, these high end strategic services that can
really guide a business. There are a couple of other
(19:16):
companies that have those, not not many. So it's been
really uh, it's been really wonderful to find the kind
of people that we have on our team who are
really strategic but also very practical. I can really move
things along for you quite quite well. So that's that
is amazing. And then the final area is really the
(19:40):
premium level service. Sometimes folks are are very cost conscious
and they need a they just need it service. That's fine,
they should get it. That's not us. We're the company
who you come to when you are looking for nordstrums,
when you're right, when you're when you're looking for a
(20:00):
high end experience that you know you are going to
be taken care of. You've got a company of fifty
plus people who will do backflips for you to make
sure it's working, and you're willing to afford that as well.
So those are some of the differentiators outstanding.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I appreciate that, Hey, Nod, I also wanted to talk
to you about leadership, and I know we've been talking
about when it comes to culture, but you've got fifty
plus employees, the company's been around for thirty four years,
and I would say, without knowing you, because we just
met today, about leadership, that you've got great leadership and
you've got great culture. But with that said, we do
have a lot of people that think, you know, and
(20:38):
kind of define leadership in different buckets and what that
means to them. As I talk about leadership to you
and your company as president CEO, what does leadership mean
to you?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Leadership means to me is there's a concept called servant
leadership where you are there to serve your folks. So
to me, leadership is you have to create a vision.
Right where is your company? Now? Where do you want
to go? This is very very important. That's vision and
(21:10):
over time and make sure that that's very clear and
outside of that, once people get it and you have
the right people, your job is to serve them so
that they are successful. Your job is to knock obstacles
out from that they may be experiencing. To get rid
of those obstacles, Your job is to make sure the
right people are talking to solve problems. It is and
(21:34):
that feeling and that idea of servant leadership actually permeates
throughout my organization.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So I was going to talk to you about sustainability
because once again I've said it a few times on here,
and it's really truly incredible for a company to be
around for thirty four years, so a testament to you,
your team, your services, customer, service culture, everything that goes
with that that we've talked about with all that said
was the plan just to be sustainable because you obviously
grown as a company. And once again, I think people
(22:03):
like to hear this because I realize that your journey
is specific to you and your company. So I understand that,
so we'll put that there. But what that said was
it always a plan to grow to a certain level,
to be sustainable to a certain level.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Is the company still growing? Where are you right now?
With that? I'd love to hear about that.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
So first of all, you should know that flattery will
get you everywhere with me, so keep it going. And second, no,
I love the growth. I love growing the company, and
I'll tell you why. It's we have something very special here.
And when you put all those pieces you mentioned together,
(22:39):
what's happening is our clients are getting a very special,
very unique IT support experience, IT experience overall, and so
are our employees, so like our entire team, and so
are their families and the stakeholders for Optimal, So everyone
(22:59):
involved with Optimal, which is really like the third value
of everyone benefits. Everyone is experiencing something really unique and special,
and I would like to get that out to as
many people as possible. I think people have the right
to enjoy their jobs and be connected and feel comfortable
(23:20):
that their company has their back, and same with the clients.
They should feel like they're working with a competent organization
that is peaking around the corners and making sure that
they're not going to get blindsided by the next technology change,
right and and is really taking care of them deeply.
And so yeah, I'm I'm, I guess I'm really. I
(23:41):
love the growth piece of it. It lights me up.
I love adding people to our community of clients. I
love adding people to our team, and I want to
do it as fast as possible without sacrificing service quality.
It is very important.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Yeah, I think that's what I said. Well, let's do this.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I've enjoyed the comment coversation, but I want to give
you a few final thoughts to recap what we've talked about,
and then we're going to give the website. I know
that people also listen to the series. If you're hiring
the best of the best, I'll want to hear about that.
So but before we do that, to some final thoughts
and just recap what we've talked about. The floor is yours, sir.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh my final thoughts, Yes, sir, Well listen, listen. This
has been wonderful then, So I really appreciate I really
appreciate the interview and the platform to talk about what
we're doing here. The IT services we're providing are great,
but it's really because of the team we have and
the people who are living the values and the culture
(24:39):
and serving a wonderful set of clients, like one of
some of the most amazing clients, doing some of the
most amazing things out there. And it's really a privilege
for me to be here at this level, really with
this size organization. Aren't that many organizations of this size
in the IT world, and so we're really bringing something
(25:03):
special to the table, and I would love to add
to that. So, yes, yes, we are hiring. We are
always hiring, and today we're hiring an account executive. But
you keep an eye on our website on the hiring page,
there's usually some kind of position opening up, and that
is due to the fact that we are adding clients
(25:27):
and we are taking on clients, and so we are
needing to expand. So it's all wonderful and it's all good,
and I'll guess I'll give you the website. I'll give
you the website right now. I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it. So here it is you
guys writing. It's www. Dot optimal op t. I m
a L networks with an S at the end dot com,
so Optimalnetworks dot.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Com standing well, listen, I'm going to give you one
more compliment. And I always noticed this in the series
when I talk to people that have started their own companies,
and your has been around for over three decades, so
a testament to your longivet, your sustainability and your growth.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
But you have enthusiasm.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
And that always makes me happy when I get to
talk to people like you, because I'm sure that you
bring that to your staff and to your clients. I
think that people want to see that. You know, I'm positive,
I'm happy, we're having fun. We might be doing some
hard work, you might be having issues, but we're going
to get through this together. So your enthusiasm is contagious,
and I think that's really cool.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And I think a lot of people will notice that.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time
because I know how busy you are, hay On, but
thank you so much and I'm glad we had a
chance to feature you on CEOs.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
You should know.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Thank you so much, Dennis, my pleasure. Absolutely appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Montgomery County, Maryland is built for business success. Here CEOs
find the resources, incentives, and support they need to grow
their businesses. From site selection to county provided incentives, Montgomery County,
Maryland is where innovation happens. Learn more at Thinkmoco dot com.
That's th hi nkmoco dot com.
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