December 13, 2023 • 24 mins
Rocky Thurston
Rocky is the Chief Executive Officer of DMI. Under his leadership, DMI develops innovative and differentiated digital offerings aimed at creating value for our customers, employees, and stakeholders. Rocky joined DMI in 2021 and served as Chief Operating Officer. In this role he was responsible for leading the company’s global business strategies that enable DMI to deliver solutions to meet the sophisticated needs of the company’s diverse customer base. Under Rocky’s leadership, DMI expanded and repositioned the company’s Commercial, Federal, and State & Local businesses to align with the company’s vision of becoming the leading digital services provider and the intersection of Public and Private sectors. Prior to joining DMI, Rocky served as the President for the $1.3B Peraton Citizen Security and Public Services business sector, where he led key initiatives that transformed IT performance across multiple Federal sectors. Prior to Peraton, Rocky held leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Perspecta, AT&T, Accenture, and Lockheed Martin. Rocky is a proud veteran of the U.S. Air Force with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the United States Air Force Academy. He also holds an MBA with a concentration in finance.
Rocky is the Chief Executive Officer of DMI. Under his leadership, DMI develops innovative and differentiated digital offerings aimed at creating value for our customers, employees, and stakeholders. Rocky joined DMI in 2021 and served as Chief Operating Officer. In this role he was responsible for leading the company’s global business strategies that enable DMI to deliver solutions to meet the sophisticated needs of the company’s diverse customer base. Under Rocky’s leadership, DMI expanded and repositioned the company’s Commercial, Federal, and State & Local businesses to align with the company’s vision of becoming the leading digital services provider and the intersection of Public and Private sectors. Prior to joining DMI, Rocky served as the President for the $1.3B Peraton Citizen Security and Public Services business sector, where he led key initiatives that transformed IT performance across multiple Federal sectors. Prior to Peraton, Rocky held leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Perspecta, AT&T, Accenture, and Lockheed Martin. Rocky is a proud veteran of the U.S. Air Force with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the United States Air Force Academy. He also holds an MBA with a concentration in finance.
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(00:00):
M and T Bank preson CEOs.You should know poward bite I heard me.
Let's be Rocky Thurston. He isthe newly appointed CEO in this past
year for DMI, a company overtwenty two hundred team members. They're headported
at Tysons, Virginia and not onlyworking domestically, but internationally as well.
And before we find out everything aboutRocky's company at DMI, I first asked
(00:24):
him to talk a little bit abouthimself, where he's from and his origin
story. I'm proud to say I'mfrom eastern North Carolina, a little town
called Greenville, North Carolina. Notmany people know where that is, but
think about it as a place wherethere's a lot of cornfields and tobacco farms.
That's where it came from. Iwas fortunate enough to go to the
(00:46):
United States Air Force Academy in ColoradoSprings, Colorado, And while there,
I was also fortunate enough to playcollege football, and I'm very proud about
proud of that, and I'll talka little bit more about that well.
From there, I was commissioned asan officer in the Air Force and served
(01:07):
our country as a flight test engineerin the Air Force, and then the
story goes beyond from there perfect well, Rocky, First of all, thank
you for your service. I'm veryappreciative of that, and I know our
listeners are, especially in the DMV. And also, as you know,
I spent some time out in thatpart of the country where you went to
school and the Air Force Academy,especially that football stadium is absolutely dropped dead
(01:29):
gorgeous. It's you know, youand I talked about app State two app
State. It's a pretty one.There are a lot of beautiful college football
stadiums, but you played in areal nice one in the Colorado Springs area.
So we've gotten a lot of talkabout when it comes to DMI and
you being the CEO, I knowit's been kind of a short term thing,
and we'll find out about that,about how it's going so far seven
months into the job and everything.But also to give some context to our
(01:51):
listeners, before you joined this companyjust a little under two years ago.
Your resume is fantastic and you've donesome very cool things. Tell everybody what
you did before joining your current company. Sure thing. Well, when I
got out of the Air Force intwo thousand, my wife and I moved
to the Northern Virginia where I workedin My first company was Mouse Allen Hamilton,
(02:15):
and I was fortunate to learn quitea bit about the government contracting business,
and I progressed my career by takingon bigger and bigger assignments, and
those assignments led me to the opportunityto learn more about the business. You
(02:36):
know. I learned about finance andHR and contracting and business development, which
I think is not the most importantarea of a company because it's about winning
and it's about growing and that thatharkens back to my days, you know,
playing sports. But just before Ijoined d m I, I had
(02:59):
a the president in a very largecompany h called Paraton that went through and
I was part of the transaction intoParaton. Many of the listeners who understand
that, uh, and that gaveme some exposure to the private equity world.
And it was sort of somewhat fortuitousthat around that same time d m
(03:24):
I was acquired by private equity.D m I had been a founder based
organization, had a tremendous run underthe founder, and they went through a
transaction to a private equity firm calledOcean Sound Partners, and I received a
phone call from from the from themand which asked whether or not I'd be
(03:50):
interested in joining d m I.But at the time it was to come
in and be the CEO of thechief operating officer, and I thought that
was a really mark move on onOcean Sound and the d m I CEO's
part, because it was important tolearn the d m I business having come
(04:11):
from a you know, a megacompany in our federal contracting business, and
then to enter a company in thesize of DMI, which is no slapch
in and of itself when I talkmore about that, but the other piece
of it was d m I isi'd like to say, a company that
sits at the intersection of public andprivate sectors. Where my background had primarily
(04:35):
existed in the public sector arena infederal contracting, the private sector business is
it's new territory for me, andit's very it's a very very interesting piece
of business that I had to learn. And while I spent you know,
a year and a half as aCEO, I by no means became an
(04:56):
expert in the private sector business.But I did learn quite a bit.
And I think that that tenure asthe CEO of prepared me to step into
the massive shoes of the prior CEOand lead this company on a new journey.
Well, thanks for sharing all that, Rockey, And a couple things
(05:16):
come to mind, especially for ourfuture leaders and entrepreneurs and CEOs, that
you want to be careful not toget over your skis. If you're going
to accept a role where you're runningan entire company, you need to know
intercally what's going on. And itmakes perfect sense that you embraced the COO
role before you ran the company severalmonths later. So I think that's fascinating.
(05:41):
The other thing I wanted to mentionand I'd love to hear about this
and for full context. I'm asports guy. I've been involved in sports
radio forever. I played sports,and I'm always in awe of people that
played at a high level like youdid. And with that said, I
know that there are a lot ofparallels to the business world when it comes
to sports and leadership and all thethings to go with team. I'm curious
(06:01):
about your years at Air Force andplaying organized football up through college. How
you took all those experiences life lessonsand use them currently as a CEO.
Well, I got to tell you, Dennis, I think about it every
day, and it's probably more thanour short to a twenty minute conversation here.
(06:25):
But there's You're right, there's somany corollaries, and I tried to
weave them in sort of into thedecision making process that I carry the responsibility
for today. But things like asan offensive alignment, I was the center
on the offensive line. You know, I knew I had to get my
(06:45):
job done. I had to executemy assignment. And I also knew that
once that one play was done,another play was coming and I had to
be prepared for that next assignment.And at the end of that when we
would score, I didn't care aboutthe glory I want. I knew that
(07:06):
that was for another position to handle. I did my job, and I
was responsible to the team to performmy job, and all those things you
think about it today, I mean, I think about service leadership, what
it really means to really take careof other people and give them the credit
right, give the credit to others. That's far more important. Why it's
(07:30):
not necessary I have the title,I don't. It doesn't matter anymore.
The others are who matter in anorganization. I think that's important. The
other thing is, you know,we operate as a team. If my
HR or if our HR finance orlegal or business b D or offerings or
whatever proposal shop doesn't work together anddoesn't run their assignment, then we're likely
(07:58):
not going to be successful. Andorganizations we have to work together. I
learned that from playing football. I'mlike old coach. You remember the name
Fisher to Berry. He has onesaying. He had this one saying,
and you're gonna love this. Andhe's from Sharrah, South Carolina. He
would say, if you ever seea turtle on a fence post, you
(08:22):
know we didn't get there by himself. That's great. I'd say that people
look at me today and this inthe role that I'm in, they say
that look at me like I havethree edges, but means so much.
I mean, how does it hellin the world is a turtle climate fence
post? It doesn't happen, That'sright. It takes a team to lift
them up. That's right to lovesomething. It's cute old saying, and
(08:45):
it makes a lot of sense.And thanks for sharing all of that.
We are here to court talk aboutDMI, and I'd first like to ask
you before we get into your programs, your capabilities and what exactly you do.
What's the mission statement of d M. I yeah, I mean our
mission is quite simple. It's tohelp our customers excel at their business and
(09:07):
mission needs by delivering the highest qualitytalent you can find. Very good.
That's basically, yeah, that's goodand certainly very clear to all your customers
and your staff and everybody else.So let's do this. There's a lot
of listeners in this series that arebeing introduced Rocky to DMI for the first
ever time. With that said,if we were just to do a thirty
(09:28):
thousand point of view of what youdo, what would you tell everybody?
I would say that we, firstof all, we sit at the intersection
of public from private sectors providing enddigital transformation services for your company, your
organization, your agency. And tobreak that down, we are When I
(09:54):
say digital, I mean it.Okay, so we do we can run
a strategy. We meet with CIOs, CFOs and CEOs all the time talking
about how they're using technology to solvetheir business challenges and needs, and so
whether it's a website, an ecommerce platform, digital marketing for McDonough's school,
(10:20):
business at Georgetown, or running theentire infrastructure for the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation FDIC, or supporting all theapplications the three hundred applications that run Willmata
our metro system. That's who DMIis, and so we bring the talent
(10:41):
and resources together to make that allhappen. And we do that. By
the way. I like to sayalso that we are big enough to deliver
and small enough to care. Yeah. I like that having worked in a
lot of large, very large organizations. It's there's some great companies that are
(11:03):
listening to this, and I lovethem all. They truly do great work.
But a mid tier like DMI hasthe ability to reach I meet with
clients all the time. I'm alwaysthere trying to support my team and making
their customer engagement more successful. Andthat's what I mean. You know,
(11:24):
one of the things that I'm takingaway is a united chad to get to
know each other. And it's notjust your sports background. I'm hearing this
from a lot of CEOs and leadersout there that they're not staff anymore,
and you don't call them staff,and it's not just a title, it's
how you really feel about people.Now because as you know, between the
hybrid world and your team members havinga good work life balance because everything has
(11:48):
changed out there since COVID, Iam super curious with hundred two thousand and
two hundred employees and on this teamthat you have, how are you able
to make sure that you get whatyou want done with your leadership, but
also making sure that they have thatgreat work life balance to get paid correctly
and they're happy people. How dohow on earth do you do that?
(12:11):
I'm learning a lot in a roleI'll be quite honest about that because it
is in my past way of working. I sort of had this regimen.
And you can imagine going to theAir Force Academy. You know, you
wake up at five point thirty,you go to breakfast, you march to
breakfast, you eat breakfast, yougo to class. You da da da
(12:31):
da dah. That's how I've operatedfor many, many years. You still
need that level of discipline to accomplishall the tasks that lie before you,
but it's also a reliance on highquality leadership around you, right, And
you have to have the team aroundyou, and you have to have the
(12:54):
faith and trust that they're gonna they'regoing to lead the way you know they
can lead. And it's a simplemeasure. News comes from the Air Force.
You hold them accountable and everybody knowsthey're accountable not just for their assignments,
but they're accountable to each other.So to manage twenty two hundred employees,
(13:18):
I gotta rely on my leadership team. Yeah, and that leaders around
us you have to well this isthat that's a common theme and I just
want to I want to interject thisreal quickly for you because I'm super fascinated
by this part of it. Whenwe talk to people about having these large
companies and having these great leaders thatyou have to hire, there's no time
to diddle around as far as makingsure that things are executed because there are
(13:41):
so many people. There's so manythings going on, And I'm curious when
you're hiring your team people about makingsure that they have your values but also
they're able to be your your generalsto make sure they speak to everybody beneath
them to once again execute that thing. How does all that communication work Because
we're still talking about a massive amountof people making sure that they do what
(14:03):
they're supposed to do. You trustingthose leaders and then getting back to you
that the job is done. Istill want to hear about that, because
the communication has got to be endless. I don't want to look at your
email folder, Rocky, it's gotto be massive and make my head explode.
But if you could go behind thecurtain a little bit for our listeners
about how that's all managed properly.Again, I don't claim to be perfect
(14:26):
at this, and you said it. It is endless and is continuous,
like, the communication has to beNonStop and it's to all levels. This
is the other complicating part of it. When you have some really really talented
engineers sitting behind the desk programming awayall day, they deserve a different level
(14:52):
of communication than their managers and theirmanagers' managers, and so you have to
have sort of a tiered constructor onthat. But then you also have to
have a way to reach everyone.The other dynamic. We have, Dennis,
which is amazing about this company.We're in seven countries, Okay,
I have five hundred employees in Indiaand they're they're extremely Everyone's got the same
(15:18):
level of importance to this company.So I've got to be able to reach
to them and and different ways.So I have a dedicated internal comms team.
It's small but mighty. You know, we have a regular discipline around
our sort of all hands kind ofcalls. We do that on a routine
(15:43):
basis. Each layer and in theorganization has a discipline around there, all
hands messaging fundamentally on a routine basis. I have a leadership team meeting every
Monday morning where we go over whatwe've got to do this week, and
then we have sort of program touchpoints during the week that are just on
a regular consistent basis. And manypeople tell me, God, it sounds
(16:07):
boring. I mean, you're justdoing the same thing. Believe me,
there's nothing boring about this. Youknow, every day I wake up something
news going to hit me, rightright, I'll have that schedule down,
something news going to hit well andall that that adage about it. Whendy,
it is at the top, itis, folks. So buckle in,
buckle in, I did want totalk to you about competition and Rocky.
(16:30):
I don't want to assume that anybodydoes exactly what you do, but
I'm sure there are some companies thatdo some similar things. But how do
you differentiate yourself from the competition whenyou're working with clients. Great question.
There's several ways, and I gotto admit it absolutely depends on the business
sector the end. But at themacro scale I mentioned a couple of them,
(16:53):
sitting at the intersection of public andprivate sectors is highly differentiated. And
I say it because there's very fewcompanies in our business today that do both
commercial work and federal work. Theydo both. We do them both,
and I figured it out a wayI worked in the other companies that had
(17:14):
had both sides. It's very difficultin those other companies to grab an expert
from your commercial industry and bring themto talk to the United States Air Force.
It's very hard to do. Wefigured out a way to do that.
So my experts in the automobile industrywho are designing the software defined vehicles
for companies you know of that Ican't name on the air and have them
(17:38):
come and talk about what they're doingto integrate EV with over the air updates
in vehicles talk to the United StatesArmy or the US Postal Service. That's
an amazing, amazing concept that we'reable to do a DMI so I can
differentiate on that and by the wayit goes both ways. So I can
bring my public sector experts who areunderstand cybersecurity and scale of delivery and have
(18:03):
them go talk to Greenville Plow andSeed and they're blown away by the concept
that we're supporting the federal government.The other thing is we have truly world
class capability and managed mobility services.We have been ranked by almost all the
accrediting agencies as number one in ourcapabilities globally. Gartner, a renowned expert
(18:30):
and accrediting capabilities, has put usas the leader for eight years in a
row mobile manage mobility services. Andthat's the idea of you know, we
carry our cell phones, our laptopsor even IoT devices Internet of thing devices
that are connected to a network.We can manage them as a managed service
for a business or for an agency. And it's the business case is amiss.
(18:56):
I was just talking to a verylarge federal agency about this yesterday and
they ask for us to provide theROI, which we gladly will do.
The other the third thing I say, and this is sort of a little
intangible, but I think it's real, and it's this concept of big enough
(19:17):
to deliver, but small enough tocare. You're going to get our best.
Our customers are going to get ourbest, and if they don't,
they come to me, and Imake sure it happens because there's nowhere else
to go. And I'm committed tothat. I'm absolutely committed to that.
There's so many other things I canhighlight. You know, the quality of
(19:37):
talent, this period of talent wehave on this organization blows me away every
day what they do for our customers. From all the other companies I've worked
at, we are a stellar teamand I'm proud of that, and we're
going to continue to grow that way. Well, thank you for sharing all
the rockey, and you can reallytell by just getting to know you a
little bit in the last fifteen twentyminutes that you've really held your nose to
the grindstone about learning about the companyand then executing things that you need to
(20:02):
do to make it successful as youmove forward in this new role. I
didn't want to put a pin inthe company just for a second and talk
about philanthropic and charity work, becauseI know that's important to you, and
whether it's through the business or privately, what do you like to be a
part of yeah, above personally andprivately. There's a couple areas. First
is the American Heart Association. Myfather passed away of a heart attack and
(20:22):
it's the number one cause of deathin the United States, and I think
we need to solve that problem,and I believe it is solvable. It
just the American Heart Association does agreat job and working on that. Second
one is in American Cancer Society.My mother is a cancer survivor through time,
(20:44):
cancer survivor man through remission twice andagain, another massive problem in in
around the world, and we needto de build more time and energy and
trying to solve that. There arethere are another a number of other personal
areas. Actually, Fishing or BerryFoundation is a great area for one of
(21:06):
them. That's a good one.Yeah. His foundation supports single mothers.
Yeah, because he grew up inthat type of household and I yes,
so he sure did. Yeah.I tell you, we could just spend
a good couple of hours talking aboutFisher in your times there at Air Force
because he was one of the greatold school coaches. So well, thanks
for sharing all that I wanted togive the Florida You, Rocky. In
(21:29):
our final couple of minutes that wehave and I really enjoyed our chat.
And maybe for our listeners and onceagain, CEOs, leaders, entrepreneurs,
future CEOs as well too, maybea takeaway or two that you like to
leave with him when it comes tod m I, what would that be?
This is doing sound a little pretentious. I don't mean it to be,
but I talk in these terms toour to our organization all the time.
(21:55):
D m I is a company ofwinners. We are winners. We
are whether it's delivering exceptional service fora client or you know, putting together
a PowerPoint presentation for board meeting.We're going to be the best. And
I think that that concept allows usto compete on a whole nother scale that
(22:22):
people just don't can't comprehend. ButI want our listeners to know that if
if you want to be part ofa company that is about winning, is
about growing, is about being betterthan you used to be and delivering unbelievable
results for our customers, then dm I is the place to be and
(22:47):
and for our customers, existing customersand future customers. You want to you
want a company that's going to deliverand stand by that commitment, then you
come to a company with a bunchof winners. That's my that's great.
You know, I know you knowthis, but as our listeners here,
Rocky, your football acumen and yourservice has paid off as a leader,
(23:08):
because if you've been into any kindof sports team, there's usually something right
above the locker room door before youhead out on the court of the field
that either says them all in orlet's win, or something positive that is
an affirmation that you see and youdo every single day. And that's my
takeaway, Rocky, as you asa leader and what sports brought to your
(23:30):
leadership as CEO. So thanks forsharing all that. I know you're looking
for always good people out there tohire, and people are probably curious about
the company if they want to checkout more about DMI, maybe they're looking
at a career. What's the websiteand contact information that they can check Out's
simple, It's DMI NC dot comand you can go right to that website
(23:52):
and well there's a little link forour openings. We have lassa checked a
couple hundred openings and that's going tocontinue to grow. So please if you're
interested in joining a great team,DMI is a great place to check out
and we'd be happy to speak withyou. I'm standing, Rocky. I
can't tell you how much I appreciateyour valuable time. I've really enjoyed the
conversation. Continue success, and thankyou so much for joining us on CEOs.
(24:17):
You should know. Thank you,Dennis, pleasure to be here.
Appreciate your time. Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs you
should know. Is part of theirongoing commitment to building strong communities, and
that starts by backing the businesses withinthem. As a Bank for Communities,
M and T believes in dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local
businesses thrive, because when businesses succeed, our community succeed
M and T Bank preson CEOs.You should know poward bite I heard me.
Let's be Rocky Thurston. He isthe newly appointed CEO in this past
year for DMI, a company overtwenty two hundred team members. They're headported
at Tysons, Virginia and not onlyworking domestically, but internationally as well.
And before we find out everything aboutRocky's company at DMI, I first asked
(00:24):
him to talk a little bit abouthimself, where he's from and his origin
story. I'm proud to say I'mfrom eastern North Carolina, a little town
called Greenville, North Carolina. Notmany people know where that is, but
think about it as a place wherethere's a lot of cornfields and tobacco farms.
That's where it came from. Iwas fortunate enough to go to the
(00:46):
United States Air Force Academy in ColoradoSprings, Colorado, And while there,
I was also fortunate enough to playcollege football, and I'm very proud about
proud of that, and I'll talka little bit more about that well.
From there, I was commissioned asan officer in the Air Force and served
(01:07):
our country as a flight test engineerin the Air Force, and then the
story goes beyond from there perfect well, Rocky, First of all, thank
you for your service. I'm veryappreciative of that, and I know our
listeners are, especially in the DMV. And also, as you know,
I spent some time out in thatpart of the country where you went to
school and the Air Force Academy,especially that football stadium is absolutely dropped dead
(01:29):
gorgeous. It's you know, youand I talked about app State two app
State. It's a pretty one.There are a lot of beautiful college football
stadiums, but you played in areal nice one in the Colorado Springs area.
So we've gotten a lot of talkabout when it comes to DMI and
you being the CEO, I knowit's been kind of a short term thing,
and we'll find out about that,about how it's going so far seven
months into the job and everything.But also to give some context to our
(01:51):
listeners, before you joined this companyjust a little under two years ago.
Your resume is fantastic and you've donesome very cool things. Tell everybody what
you did before joining your current company. Sure thing. Well, when I
got out of the Air Force intwo thousand, my wife and I moved
to the Northern Virginia where I workedin My first company was Mouse Allen Hamilton,
(02:15):
and I was fortunate to learn quitea bit about the government contracting business,
and I progressed my career by takingon bigger and bigger assignments, and
those assignments led me to the opportunityto learn more about the business. You
(02:36):
know. I learned about finance andHR and contracting and business development, which
I think is not the most importantarea of a company because it's about winning
and it's about growing and that thatharkens back to my days, you know,
playing sports. But just before Ijoined d m I, I had
(02:59):
a the president in a very largecompany h called Paraton that went through and
I was part of the transaction intoParaton. Many of the listeners who understand
that, uh, and that gaveme some exposure to the private equity world.
And it was sort of somewhat fortuitousthat around that same time d m
(03:24):
I was acquired by private equity.D m I had been a founder based
organization, had a tremendous run underthe founder, and they went through a
transaction to a private equity firm calledOcean Sound Partners, and I received a
phone call from from the from themand which asked whether or not I'd be
(03:50):
interested in joining d m I.But at the time it was to come
in and be the CEO of thechief operating officer, and I thought that
was a really mark move on onOcean Sound and the d m I CEO's
part, because it was important tolearn the d m I business having come
(04:11):
from a you know, a megacompany in our federal contracting business, and
then to enter a company in thesize of DMI, which is no slapch
in and of itself when I talkmore about that, but the other piece
of it was d m I isi'd like to say, a company that
sits at the intersection of public andprivate sectors. Where my background had primarily
(04:35):
existed in the public sector arena infederal contracting, the private sector business is
it's new territory for me, andit's very it's a very very interesting piece
of business that I had to learn. And while I spent you know,
a year and a half as aCEO, I by no means became an
(04:56):
expert in the private sector business.But I did learn quite a bit.
And I think that that tenure asthe CEO of prepared me to step into
the massive shoes of the prior CEOand lead this company on a new journey.
Well, thanks for sharing all that, Rockey, And a couple things
(05:16):
come to mind, especially for ourfuture leaders and entrepreneurs and CEOs, that
you want to be careful not toget over your skis. If you're going
to accept a role where you're runningan entire company, you need to know
intercally what's going on. And itmakes perfect sense that you embraced the COO
role before you ran the company severalmonths later. So I think that's fascinating.
(05:41):
The other thing I wanted to mentionand I'd love to hear about this
and for full context. I'm asports guy. I've been involved in sports
radio forever. I played sports,and I'm always in awe of people that
played at a high level like youdid. And with that said, I
know that there are a lot ofparallels to the business world when it comes
to sports and leadership and all thethings to go with team. I'm curious
(06:01):
about your years at Air Force andplaying organized football up through college. How
you took all those experiences life lessonsand use them currently as a CEO.
Well, I got to tell you, Dennis, I think about it every
day, and it's probably more thanour short to a twenty minute conversation here.
(06:25):
But there's You're right, there's somany corollaries, and I tried to
weave them in sort of into thedecision making process that I carry the responsibility
for today. But things like asan offensive alignment, I was the center
on the offensive line. You know, I knew I had to get my
(06:45):
job done. I had to executemy assignment. And I also knew that
once that one play was done,another play was coming and I had to
be prepared for that next assignment.And at the end of that when we
would score, I didn't care aboutthe glory I want. I knew that
(07:06):
that was for another position to handle. I did my job, and I
was responsible to the team to performmy job, and all those things you
think about it today, I mean, I think about service leadership, what
it really means to really take careof other people and give them the credit
right, give the credit to others. That's far more important. Why it's
(07:30):
not necessary I have the title,I don't. It doesn't matter anymore.
The others are who matter in anorganization. I think that's important. The
other thing is, you know,we operate as a team. If my
HR or if our HR finance orlegal or business b D or offerings or
whatever proposal shop doesn't work together anddoesn't run their assignment, then we're likely
(07:58):
not going to be successful. Andorganizations we have to work together. I
learned that from playing football. I'mlike old coach. You remember the name
Fisher to Berry. He has onesaying. He had this one saying,
and you're gonna love this. Andhe's from Sharrah, South Carolina. He
would say, if you ever seea turtle on a fence post, you
(08:22):
know we didn't get there by himself. That's great. I'd say that people
look at me today and this inthe role that I'm in, they say
that look at me like I havethree edges, but means so much.
I mean, how does it hellin the world is a turtle climate fence
post? It doesn't happen, That'sright. It takes a team to lift
them up. That's right to lovesomething. It's cute old saying, and
(08:45):
it makes a lot of sense.And thanks for sharing all of that.
We are here to court talk aboutDMI, and I'd first like to ask
you before we get into your programs, your capabilities and what exactly you do.
What's the mission statement of d M. I yeah, I mean our
mission is quite simple. It's tohelp our customers excel at their business and
(09:07):
mission needs by delivering the highest qualitytalent you can find. Very good.
That's basically, yeah, that's goodand certainly very clear to all your customers
and your staff and everybody else.So let's do this. There's a lot
of listeners in this series that arebeing introduced Rocky to DMI for the first
ever time. With that said,if we were just to do a thirty
(09:28):
thousand point of view of what youdo, what would you tell everybody?
I would say that we, firstof all, we sit at the intersection
of public from private sectors providing enddigital transformation services for your company, your
organization, your agency. And tobreak that down, we are When I
(09:54):
say digital, I mean it.Okay, so we do we can run
a strategy. We meet with CIOs, CFOs and CEOs all the time talking
about how they're using technology to solvetheir business challenges and needs, and so
whether it's a website, an ecommerce platform, digital marketing for McDonough's school,
(10:20):
business at Georgetown, or running theentire infrastructure for the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation FDIC, or supporting all theapplications the three hundred applications that run Willmata
our metro system. That's who DMIis, and so we bring the talent
(10:41):
and resources together to make that allhappen. And we do that. By
the way. I like to sayalso that we are big enough to deliver
and small enough to care. Yeah. I like that having worked in a
lot of large, very large organizations. It's there's some great companies that are
(11:03):
listening to this, and I lovethem all. They truly do great work.
But a mid tier like DMI hasthe ability to reach I meet with
clients all the time. I'm alwaysthere trying to support my team and making
their customer engagement more successful. Andthat's what I mean. You know,
(11:24):
one of the things that I'm takingaway is a united chad to get to
know each other. And it's notjust your sports background. I'm hearing this
from a lot of CEOs and leadersout there that they're not staff anymore,
and you don't call them staff,and it's not just a title, it's
how you really feel about people.Now because as you know, between the
hybrid world and your team members havinga good work life balance because everything has
(11:48):
changed out there since COVID, Iam super curious with hundred two thousand and
two hundred employees and on this teamthat you have, how are you able
to make sure that you get whatyou want done with your leadership, but
also making sure that they have thatgreat work life balance to get paid correctly
and they're happy people. How dohow on earth do you do that?
(12:11):
I'm learning a lot in a roleI'll be quite honest about that because it
is in my past way of working. I sort of had this regimen.
And you can imagine going to theAir Force Academy. You know, you
wake up at five point thirty,you go to breakfast, you march to
breakfast, you eat breakfast, yougo to class. You da da da
(12:31):
da dah. That's how I've operatedfor many, many years. You still
need that level of discipline to accomplishall the tasks that lie before you,
but it's also a reliance on highquality leadership around you, right, And
you have to have the team aroundyou, and you have to have the
(12:54):
faith and trust that they're gonna they'regoing to lead the way you know they
can lead. And it's a simplemeasure. News comes from the Air Force.
You hold them accountable and everybody knowsthey're accountable not just for their assignments,
but they're accountable to each other.So to manage twenty two hundred employees,
(13:18):
I gotta rely on my leadership team. Yeah, and that leaders around
us you have to well this isthat that's a common theme and I just
want to I want to interject thisreal quickly for you because I'm super fascinated
by this part of it. Whenwe talk to people about having these large
companies and having these great leaders thatyou have to hire, there's no time
to diddle around as far as makingsure that things are executed because there are
(13:41):
so many people. There's so manythings going on, And I'm curious when
you're hiring your team people about makingsure that they have your values but also
they're able to be your your generalsto make sure they speak to everybody beneath
them to once again execute that thing. How does all that communication work Because
we're still talking about a massive amountof people making sure that they do what
(14:03):
they're supposed to do. You trustingthose leaders and then getting back to you
that the job is done. Istill want to hear about that, because
the communication has got to be endless. I don't want to look at your
email folder, Rocky, it's gotto be massive and make my head explode.
But if you could go behind thecurtain a little bit for our listeners
about how that's all managed properly.Again, I don't claim to be perfect
(14:26):
at this, and you said it. It is endless and is continuous,
like, the communication has to beNonStop and it's to all levels. This
is the other complicating part of it. When you have some really really talented
engineers sitting behind the desk programming awayall day, they deserve a different level
(14:52):
of communication than their managers and theirmanagers' managers, and so you have to
have sort of a tiered constructor onthat. But then you also have to
have a way to reach everyone.The other dynamic. We have, Dennis,
which is amazing about this company.We're in seven countries, Okay,
I have five hundred employees in Indiaand they're they're extremely Everyone's got the same
(15:18):
level of importance to this company.So I've got to be able to reach
to them and and different ways.So I have a dedicated internal comms team.
It's small but mighty. You know, we have a regular discipline around
our sort of all hands kind ofcalls. We do that on a routine
(15:43):
basis. Each layer and in theorganization has a discipline around there, all
hands messaging fundamentally on a routine basis. I have a leadership team meeting every
Monday morning where we go over whatwe've got to do this week, and
then we have sort of program touchpoints during the week that are just on
a regular consistent basis. And manypeople tell me, God, it sounds
(16:07):
boring. I mean, you're justdoing the same thing. Believe me,
there's nothing boring about this. Youknow, every day I wake up something
news going to hit me, rightright, I'll have that schedule down,
something news going to hit well andall that that adage about it. Whendy,
it is at the top, itis, folks. So buckle in,
buckle in, I did want totalk to you about competition and Rocky.
(16:30):
I don't want to assume that anybodydoes exactly what you do, but
I'm sure there are some companies thatdo some similar things. But how do
you differentiate yourself from the competition whenyou're working with clients. Great question.
There's several ways, and I gotto admit it absolutely depends on the business
sector the end. But at themacro scale I mentioned a couple of them,
(16:53):
sitting at the intersection of public andprivate sectors is highly differentiated. And
I say it because there's very fewcompanies in our business today that do both
commercial work and federal work. Theydo both. We do them both,
and I figured it out a wayI worked in the other companies that had
(17:14):
had both sides. It's very difficultin those other companies to grab an expert
from your commercial industry and bring themto talk to the United States Air Force.
It's very hard to do. Wefigured out a way to do that.
So my experts in the automobile industrywho are designing the software defined vehicles
for companies you know of that Ican't name on the air and have them
(17:38):
come and talk about what they're doingto integrate EV with over the air updates
in vehicles talk to the United StatesArmy or the US Postal Service. That's
an amazing, amazing concept that we'reable to do a DMI so I can
differentiate on that and by the wayit goes both ways. So I can
bring my public sector experts who areunderstand cybersecurity and scale of delivery and have
(18:03):
them go talk to Greenville Plow andSeed and they're blown away by the concept
that we're supporting the federal government.The other thing is we have truly world
class capability and managed mobility services.We have been ranked by almost all the
accrediting agencies as number one in ourcapabilities globally. Gartner, a renowned expert
(18:30):
and accrediting capabilities, has put usas the leader for eight years in a
row mobile manage mobility services. Andthat's the idea of you know, we
carry our cell phones, our laptopsor even IoT devices Internet of thing devices
that are connected to a network.We can manage them as a managed service
for a business or for an agency. And it's the business case is amiss.
(18:56):
I was just talking to a verylarge federal agency about this yesterday and
they ask for us to provide theROI, which we gladly will do.
The other the third thing I say, and this is sort of a little
intangible, but I think it's real, and it's this concept of big enough
(19:17):
to deliver, but small enough tocare. You're going to get our best.
Our customers are going to get ourbest, and if they don't,
they come to me, and Imake sure it happens because there's nowhere else
to go. And I'm committed tothat. I'm absolutely committed to that.
There's so many other things I canhighlight. You know, the quality of
(19:37):
talent, this period of talent wehave on this organization blows me away every
day what they do for our customers. From all the other companies I've worked
at, we are a stellar teamand I'm proud of that, and we're
going to continue to grow that way. Well, thank you for sharing all
the rockey, and you can reallytell by just getting to know you a
little bit in the last fifteen twentyminutes that you've really held your nose to
the grindstone about learning about the companyand then executing things that you need to
(20:02):
do to make it successful as youmove forward in this new role. I
didn't want to put a pin inthe company just for a second and talk
about philanthropic and charity work, becauseI know that's important to you, and
whether it's through the business or privately, what do you like to be a
part of yeah, above personally andprivately. There's a couple areas. First
is the American Heart Association. Myfather passed away of a heart attack and
(20:22):
it's the number one cause of deathin the United States, and I think
we need to solve that problem,and I believe it is solvable. It
just the American Heart Association does agreat job and working on that. Second
one is in American Cancer Society.My mother is a cancer survivor through time,
(20:44):
cancer survivor man through remission twice andagain, another massive problem in in
around the world, and we needto de build more time and energy and
trying to solve that. There arethere are another a number of other personal
areas. Actually, Fishing or BerryFoundation is a great area for one of
(21:06):
them. That's a good one.Yeah. His foundation supports single mothers.
Yeah, because he grew up inthat type of household and I yes,
so he sure did. Yeah.I tell you, we could just spend
a good couple of hours talking aboutFisher in your times there at Air Force
because he was one of the greatold school coaches. So well, thanks
for sharing all that I wanted togive the Florida You, Rocky. In
(21:29):
our final couple of minutes that wehave and I really enjoyed our chat.
And maybe for our listeners and onceagain, CEOs, leaders, entrepreneurs,
future CEOs as well too, maybea takeaway or two that you like to
leave with him when it comes tod m I, what would that be?
This is doing sound a little pretentious. I don't mean it to be,
but I talk in these terms toour to our organization all the time.
(21:55):
D m I is a company ofwinners. We are winners. We
are whether it's delivering exceptional service fora client or you know, putting together
a PowerPoint presentation for board meeting.We're going to be the best. And
I think that that concept allows usto compete on a whole nother scale that
(22:22):
people just don't can't comprehend. ButI want our listeners to know that if
if you want to be part ofa company that is about winning, is
about growing, is about being betterthan you used to be and delivering unbelievable
results for our customers, then dm I is the place to be and
(22:47):
and for our customers, existing customersand future customers. You want to you
want a company that's going to deliverand stand by that commitment, then you
come to a company with a bunchof winners. That's my that's great.
You know, I know you knowthis, but as our listeners here,
Rocky, your football acumen and yourservice has paid off as a leader,
(23:08):
because if you've been into any kindof sports team, there's usually something right
above the locker room door before youhead out on the court of the field
that either says them all in orlet's win, or something positive that is
an affirmation that you see and youdo every single day. And that's my
takeaway, Rocky, as you asa leader and what sports brought to your
(23:30):
leadership as CEO. So thanks forsharing all that. I know you're looking
for always good people out there tohire, and people are probably curious about
the company if they want to checkout more about DMI, maybe they're looking
at a career. What's the websiteand contact information that they can check Out's
simple, It's DMI NC dot comand you can go right to that website
(23:52):
and well there's a little link forour openings. We have lassa checked a
couple hundred openings and that's going tocontinue to grow. So please if you're
interested in joining a great team,DMI is a great place to check out
and we'd be happy to speak withyou. I'm standing, Rocky. I
can't tell you how much I appreciateyour valuable time. I've really enjoyed the
conversation. Continue success, and thankyou so much for joining us on CEOs.
(24:17):
You should know. Thank you,Dennis, pleasure to be here.
Appreciate your time. Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs you
should know. Is part of theirongoing commitment to building strong communities, and
that starts by backing the businesses withinthem. As a Bank for Communities,
M and T believes in dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local
businesses thrive, because when businesses succeed, our community succeed
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