Continuous Learning: The Drum Beat of Technical Perseverance with Justin Kelly (1/2)

What do drumming in a heavy metal band, achieving Cisco networking certifications, being part of a supportive technical community and family, and going back to school to study Windows and Active Directory have in common? All of these elements contributed to Justin Kelly landing his first role in tech. Justin, our guest this week in episode 270, is a CEO, a co-founder, and an advocate of continuous learning for his employees. This week we share the story of perseverance in Justin’s own learning journey to gain the expertise needed to work in IT.

Original Recording Date: 03-30-2024

Topics – Meet Justin Kelly, Motivated to Learn, Thoughts on Technical Certifications and Job Candidates, That First IT Job, Leaving a Good Culture and Exposure to New Things, Noticing Stress

2:29 – Meet Justin Kelly

• Justin Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Secure Bearing, LLC, an IT services provider.
  • Secure Bearing helps its customers (mostly Fortune 500 companies) with the full project lifecycle (architecture and design, implementation, migration, etc.) in the following areas – datacenter, campus networks, and network security. In addition to this, they help customers automate the operations of networking and networking security.
• Justin has worked in technology for about 14 years but has had an interest in computers since he was very young.
  • Justin says his family was gifted a computer when he was young that ran IBM DOS and had 5.25" disks.
  • One weekend Justin took the computer apart, and it never worked again. But this created a spark of interest in technology even then.
  • One of Justin’s closest friends always had computers, and Justin was able to spend time tinkering with and learning about computers.
  • Justin knew at that time he wanted to do something later in life revolving around computers. It was only later in life Justin would learn just how many niches existed when it came to working in technology.
  • John mentions the pattern of the tinkerer that we’ve seen in other guests who would take electronics apart without a fear of breaking something. Justin feels he takes a tinkerer’s approach to many situations even today.

5:14 – Motivated to Learn

• In his early 20s Justin was a heavy metal drummer. At that time, he met someone who encouraged him to try Cisco networking. This person let Justin borrow some networking equipment and an old CCNA book. CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate.
  • “It just changed my whole perspective, and I was hooked.” – Justin Kelly, on first discovering Cisco and then seeking to get into IT
  • Justin shares the catch 22 of our industry. We need experience to get a job but need the job to get the experience. John says we’re really not great about giving entry level opportunities (i.e. no previous experience required) in this industry.
• Being a heavy metal band drummer might be seemingly one of the farthest away compared to what many think is a “typical” path into IT.
  • See also Episode 174 on Dominique Top’s origin story at the Dutch Pop Academy.
  • Being a drummer was not Justin’s day job. He had been working at various warehouses to support himself. The band was just something he and other bandmates did for fun.
  • The genesis of Justin’s desire to be a drummer in this band was to connect with his brother (a guitarist in the band) since the two did not have a close relationship growing up.
  • Justin credits becoming a drummer as teaching him perseverance through pain (in this case a lot of practicing) or what he calls to the ability “sweat it out.”
  • Justin had bought a book on drumming and practiced on the drum kit his brother’s band had stored in their garage. One day while they were playing he started playing the drums along with them. Listen to Justin’s retelling of the story.
• John says teaching himself how to be a drummer sounds similar to Justin teaching himself Cisco networking via the CCNA book we mentioned earlier.
  • Justin says the motivation to learn Cisco networking was a little different than being a drummer. He had wanted to work in IT but was not close enough to break into it, and at the same time, desired to pull himself out of poverty.
  • Justin mentions going to LAN parties for video gaming at different times in his life, but he didn’t know anything about networking then.
  • “I knew nothing about networking. It was compelling to crack