August 28, 2025 • 30 mins
What happens when a family-owned computer repair shop faces the recession, changing technology, and the challenges of scaling? James Thompson of ECS Technology Solutions shares how he transformed his father’s local IT business into a thriving managed service provider (MSP).
In this episode of Now That’s IT: Stories of MSP Success, host Chris Massey dives into James’s journey of turning obstacles into opportunities, including:
- Transitioning from break/fix to managed services — and convincing his father it would work
- Building a support group for family-owned businesses to navigate unique challenges
- Scaling from 4 employees to 23 while maintaining strong culture and customer relationships
- The pivotal role of EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) in fixing leadership gaps post-COVID
- Why culture, accountability, and the “right people in the right seats” fuel long-term MSP growth
Whether you’re running a family business, leading an MSP through change, or looking for inspiration on leadership and culture, James’s story shows how resilience, vision, and people-first leadership can transform an IT business into something remarkable.
Let us help you unlock your business's full potential.
N-able Business Transformation is Expert led and Peer informed.These valuable executive programs are tailored to provide effective guidance and a faster path to a scalable and successful business.
Book a Call with Chris Massey now to learn what Business Transformation can do for you!
'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.
Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.
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Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
One, two, three go.
We couldn't maintain employeesand we couldn't maintain our
business customers.
I started working full-time.
I'm like how am I going to fixthis?
Welcome to Now that's it.
Stories of MSP Success, wherewe dive into the journeys of
some of the trailblazers in ourindustry to find out how they
used their passion fortechnology to help turn managed
services into the thrivingsector it is today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
All right, Mr James Thompson, president of ECS.
Welcome to the Now that's it.
Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh man, it's so great to have you out here in
beautiful sunny Arizona.
So you told me you never wantedto get into IT yes, but you had
a dad as a computer repair shop, right, and you couldn't avoid
it, right?
How did that play?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
out.
Yeah, yeah, no.
My original passion I feel likeI guess we could put it that
way or the first thing I wantedto try was I always wanted to be
an architect.
I was always interested inbuildings and building things,
and so that seemed like theright path for me, coming out of
high school, obviously, and sooriginally I went to school.
(01:10):
I graduated high school in 2007.
So I went to college forarchitectural architecture and
then transitioned toarchitectural engineering,
seeing that I liked science andI liked math and I liked the
numbers.
So that aligned with me alittle bit better.
And then, if anybody knows whathappened, in 2008, with the
(01:33):
recession, building pretty muchstopped.
So during that time I hadalready met my now wife, or so
soon to be wife, and we knew wewanted to be young parents and,
you know, start a family prettyearly on, and we were kind of at
the point where we were engagedand I was kind of looking at my
(01:57):
opportunities as anarchitectural engineer and
realized that there probablywasn't going to be a lot of
opportunity to get a job rightout of college and, you know, to
be able to support my family.
And it just so happened to bearound the same time my dad, who
had the computer repair shop,had lost an employee and I was
(02:18):
at a point in my life where Iwas like, hey, I could go search
for a job.
That is recession proof,hopefully.
And he also needed an employeethat he could trust.
So I knew it'd be a reliableemployee.
So I started working for himpart-time and a computer repair
shop.
I transitioned my degree to MISand that's where she started.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Rest is history, yeah so how do you go from computer
repair shop to managed serviceprovider?
Talk a little bit about sort ofthose early days.
I remember you sharing with mesort of retaining employees,
retaining customers.
It was kind of hard in thoseearly days.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So when I finally went tocollege for seven years Eight,
for me.
But when I graduated, finally,with my degree in MIS, that was
in 2014.
And I came out and we did havean employee at the time and once
I graduated, I actually askedmy professor.
I was one of my professors, theone that I trusted a lot, and I
(03:20):
asked him.
I was like, hey, my dad hasthis computer repair shop and,
you know, I think there could besomething there or I could go
get a real job and make prettygood money.
And I just kind of consultedwith him and I really leaned
into his advice and he justsimply looked at me and he said
how old are you?
(03:41):
I was like you know, at thetime, if I can math correctly, I
was 25.
And I was like I'm 25.
And he goes listen, you'restill really young, you don't
get a lot of opportunities tobuild something, so why don't
you go take that?
and so that's what got mestarted in the business
full-time yeah so when I madethat decision, our one employee
(04:03):
that we had there we actuallyhad two employees, one had to
leave for family the otheremployee looked at me and he was
a good friend of mine and hejust said hey, man, he's from
North Carolina, he's like I wantto move back, he's like I'm
going to go move back with myfamily, because I was hoping I
had a chance to take over thiscompany.
But obviously you're going tostep into that role.
And it kind of hurt me a littlebit just because we were
(04:27):
friends and I was like, oh man,I was really hoping we could do
something here.
But it made me realize that thebusiness model we had wasn't
really set up for success inthat manner.
Right, there wasn't a whole lotof opportunities the way that
we were doing business.
So we did have some businesscustomers and you know,
obviously we were havingdifficulty maintaining employees
because we were just a computerrepair shop and doing break fix
(04:50):
work for some smaller companies, and so we had two problems we
couldn't maintain employees andwe couldn't maintain our
business customers, which youknow that was a substantial part
of our revenue when we did havethem.
So it was always a big hit.
So that's when we we discoveredI hired a part-time guy.
(05:12):
And you know, when I work startwork full-time I'm like how am
I going to fix this?
You know, we were trying tofind a way to solve this
challenge of making sure that wecan maintain customers and you
know, in college I actually did.
One of my final programs wastrying.
I used the work that I wasdoing with my dad as one of my
internships and I had to walkaway with something tangible or
(05:33):
else I wouldn't get the creditsfor it.
So I did a research study onbackup and disaster recovery.
So I had already spent a lot oftime understanding that that
was a valuable resource forbusinesses and it was more of a
proactive approach to helpcompanies stay in business right
.
So I knew there was an idea ofproactive IT support, at least
(05:55):
in some manner.
I had no idea what managedservices were.
I had no clue.
So when I was talking to himabout it, he was just like, hey,
yeah, you should check out thiscompany.
I used to work for them, thisis what they're doing.
And so I did a lot of researchand I mean, everything just
started lighting up and it'slike, yeah, this is where we
need to be.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So that's awesome, james, but your dad's been
running the business acompletely different way for a
long time.
What was that convincing?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
like, oh man, what was that convincing?
Like, oh man, what was it like?
You might kill me if I say thisthe way I saw it.
Yeah, so I mean, obviously hewas comfortable, right, and this
is actually when I started tolearn, like just the dynamic of
a family owned business andreally trying to put myself in
his perspective and the age thathe was at and why he wasn't
(06:47):
willing to take so many risks.
Right, he was in a betterposition than me.
I was still really young, so Iwanted to take a lot of risk,
but it was a different businessmodel.
So when I explained it to him,obviously there was a lot of
companies where they have aminimum, so you had to spend a
minimum amount for so long.
Obviously, there was a lot ofcompanies where they have a
minimum, so you had to spend aminimum amount for so long and,
(07:08):
from his perspective, that moneywasn't guaranteed to come back
in until you sold it right.
So there was a lot of riskthere, at least to him and to me
.
But I was like, hey, I'm 25years old, we have to do this.
So I tried convincing him andconvincing him, and convincing
him, and nothing would reallywork.
So then I started to go otheravenues of trying to convince
(07:32):
him.
So we actually at that point wehad hired a commercial level
support engineer and I wastalking to him about it and I
was just like, hey, you need togo tell my dad that this is the
way we need to go, nice.
And he was like, okay, so hewent and told my dad and then it
was like, hey, we're all good,we're ready to go.
There was one other big pieceactually I should align with
(07:56):
also I was able to find so atthe time.
It was GFI Max.
Now buy in Central it's Insight.
At the time they didn't have aminimum, so that was another
huge piece to the buy-in wasmaking sure that we weren't
going to be trapped in this hugecontract.
But yeah, I was fortunate tofind that and yeah, it was
(08:17):
pretty awesome to get it started.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
That's awesome.
I am sure that parents alwayswant their children to be
successful and, deep down youknow, I want my kids, when they
get older, to to come up withtheir own ideas and be able to
bring those to the table and mesupport them.
And I'm sure, deep down your,your father, wanted this to work
.
Mm-hmm, it's just he wanted tomake sure that this wasn't gonna
(08:42):
sink ECS right and so for forhim to put that faith in you and
I think a lot of it, right fromwhen I hear you tell this story
, you obviously had buy-in fromanother staff member part-time,
but then you were able toconvince other employees as well
that this was able to go.
So you showed this sort ofsense of leadership right off
(09:03):
the bat by sort of building abusiness case for it.
Right, sure, and what that wasgoing to look like Absolutely.
Talk a little bit about.
You know it's great that youchose Enable GFI Max back in the
day, but talk a little bitabout maybe, those first
customers or that first customer.
What was that sale like?
What was that like?
How were you trying to convincethem that this was the way?
(09:25):
This was different than ECS haddone it in the past.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, it was yeah, and honestly it was a big part
of it too was getting my dadconvinced that this was going to
work, because actually thefirst customer that we got it's
going to be 10 years coming up.
We got them to sign on full timeand they're still a customer,
which is awesome.
I know a lot of msps here haveincredible stories where they've
(09:48):
had customers for 20 years plusand I I think that's just
amazing.
But you know, we're obviouslyproud about it and uh, but they
were one of his first customersand so it was kind of a big step
for all of us because it waslike I, my dad, finally bought
into the idea that we're goingto do this and me and him went
and met with one of his firstcustomers and we were just, I
(10:13):
mean, it was kind of nice thatwe already had that great
relationship because it kind ofhelped us on how we were going
to sell it.
It was kind of interesting.
We went through a lot of trialand error when it came to like
pricing and figuring out howwe're supposed to be doing this,
but they were a great sportabout it and very helpful and, I
think, just injected a lot ofconfidence for the rest of us
(10:35):
that this is something that'sgoing to work.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wow, I remember listening to you talk about sort
of the dynamic that you andyour father had.
It was interesting because Ithink you mentioned that you
actually created a support group, right yeah, for family
businesses.
Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
You know, I always knew when I went to work for my
dad, one of the deciding factorswas he needed someone that was
reliable.
So I always knew that there'dbe some friction but that we
would both show up the next day,right?
So we'd both show up and we'dcontinue to work and continue to
grow the company and worktogether.
And you know, my sister worksfor the company as well and it's
(11:10):
a truly family-owned andoperated company.
And it was kind of interestingbecause I knew I had all these
challenges but I didn't reallyknow what else was out there.
So I was at a chamber event onetime and at the chamber event I
met a basically it was apresident of a company where
they were a family owned andoperated company as well.
(11:32):
And you know it was, he was thepresident and his brother
worked for the company and hisdad worked for the company.
And I was like, oh, that'sinteresting.
I was like they're in a similarsituation that we're in.
So more of us do exist and noidea, right, it's so naive when
you're stuck in your own littlecorner, but it I asked him out
(11:53):
to lunch and thankfully heaccepted that invite and I had
him at lunch and I'm just like,hey, man, you know we have
employees now and I'm like, howdo you do this?
How I'm like how do you do this, how do you do this, how do you
do this, how do you do this andhow do you manage your
relationship with your dad?
And I was just I felt bad.
(12:13):
I was kind of reeling him withquestions, but it was a good
conversation and then towardsthe end of the launch, he's like
you know, like we've hadsimilar experiences.
He's like I bet we could make agroup of a lot of people that
would have the same type ofexperience.
And that was like you'reabsolutely right.
It's like everyone talks aboutnetworking groups and tips
(12:34):
groups and all these and I'mlike I mean basically it's like
a business support group, right,um?
So yeah, I mean we basicallystarted there.
We met again and we invited someother family-owned and operated
business operators and wecreated a group.
It was called Legacy Dynamicsand it was where family members
(12:58):
from family-owned and operatedcompanies who are executives we
would meet.
It started off once a week.
We eventually transitioned itback to twice a month.
We would meet, um.
It started off once a week.
We eventually transitioned itback to um twice a month where
we would meet and we would justcome up with topics about, I
mean it's.
You know it's not just dealingwith your family members but
it's also dealing with the staff.
And you know, especially as ason like I, had this horrible
(13:21):
fear that everyone would thinkI'm the son just taking over
dad's business and um I.
It always bothered me a lot soI worked really hard to maintain
my reputation, um, and thosewere things that I could talk
about and I could help peoplewith and people could help me
with.
And it was just kind ofinteresting because it turned
out to be a very resourcefulgroup where we're all able to
(13:43):
kind of get differentperspectives on how that we
would manage those types ofsituations and yeah, so that was
fun, amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
James, really cool story.
I love to hear about what you,what you did back then.
So let's talk a little bitabout that growth spurt that you
had.
You went from four employees toabout 23, right while While you
while adding the managedservices line of business.
What really fueled that growthduring that time period?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, you know, one of the big things for us is and
one of the things that my daddid really well was building
incredible relationships withall of his staff.
Obviously, our first managedclient was one of his first
customers.
And we had that relationshipwhere they bought in and they
were willing to come and connectwith us, and I think it's
(14:34):
really spawned because of thatright and just the amount of
passion that we put into the waythat we support our customers.
It's a similar story to a lotof people I meet here, which is
pretty incredible, because whenyou're getting customers from a
lot of our competition, you'relike no one out there cares
about their customers and that'sthe beautiful thing about the
(14:59):
people that we find here atEnable is that there's so many
of us that have the samementality and it's just going
above and beyond for thosecustomers and treating their
business like your own.
You know, I have a phrase thatI use all the time, and it's the
rising tide raises all ships.
So we do pretty much anythingand everything we can to help
our customers continue to besuccessful in whatever manner
they mean to be.
So that, paired with incrediblepeople, that that's gotta be a
(15:25):
pretty big push for why wecontinue to have success.
That's great, james.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, so 2017 through 2019, big growth spurt, and
about that time you told dad itwas time to go.
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, um, you know, it was all in good faith.
Um, you know, kind of like wetalked about, he was worried
that it wasn't going to work.
Right, when we first starteddoing managed services.
And you know, he was justworried about the success of the
at the time it was ElkhornComputer and transitioned to ECS
.
He was worried about thesuccess of ECS and making sure
(16:00):
that we had the business to helpcontribute to our family's
success and in his success aswell.
Right, and it was around thattime, you know, we were going
through pretty substantialgrowth year over year where I
think he finally realized like,okay, this is not a bad idea,
this is a great idea.
(16:21):
It's.
It's bringing value to it'sbringing value to our customers.
So maybe we'll let this go.
You know, and it was also aroundthat time.
You know, we already had kids.
My sisters, they were havingtheir.
My oldest sister, she alreadyhad her kids.
My younger, still older sisterthan me, she was having her
(16:42):
children and I was like, hey,you know, they live sister than
me, she was having her childrenand, um, I was like, hey, you
know, they live out of town.
You know, maybe it's not a badidea for you to spend a little
bit more time traveling andgoing and seeing your
grandchildren and um, and that'sreally how we try to sell it,
um, but the reality is is, youknow, long story short, the
(17:03):
reason we got into this industryhe got into this industry
altogether uh, was because he,you know, long story short, the
reason we got into this industry, he got into this industry
altogether was because he, youknow, back in 99, he actually
had a pretty horrible accidentwhere he fell off a barn roof,
and this is where the tears comein.
But, you know, he's always beena hard worker and trying to do
everything he can to support ourfamily and it's really
(17:26):
inspiring.
It's kind of built me the waythat I am now because of the
hard work and efforts that he'salways put into everything.
When he had that accident, heactually wasn't able to walk for
nine months.
He was in a hospital bed fornine months Actually, he was in
a wheelchair for another year.
After that.
They thought he was supposed tobe dead or paralyzed for life.
Wow, and he made an incrediblerecovery.
(17:49):
And then, when he came, while hewas in a wheelchair, he went to
school to get his MIS degreeand, coming out of 2000,.
He couldn't use it becausethere was the tech bubble burst,
yeah.
So he was forced to startElkhorn Computer Service and he
continued to work so hard tocontribute to our family and to
(18:11):
help us, you know, be where wewere.
So it was almost a mission forme to give him an opportunity to
relax.
You know, just once and for all, don't work.
Granted, that will never happen, because if you ever met the
guy, he cannot stop working,sure, but at least he has less
(18:32):
responsibility.
So so that's uh, that was a bigpart of the conversation is
like this is why I came here.
This is why I came to work withyou in this company, so I can
give you a chance to retire.
And we were able to make ithappen.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So that's so incredible, james.
Such a good story man.
So talk a little bit about thecomputer repair business.
How has that fared?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
yeah, um, you know, the computer repair business has
been so good to us.
Um, it continued to grow whilewe continue to grow.
So when we started offeringmanaged services, the, the
business from residential tocommercial was about 75
(19:57):
residential 25 business andabout middle of the year last
year we we just decided toreevaluate what what that looked
like and we realized that nowresidential services, even
though it continued to grow, itwas now 10 percent of our
business versus 90 percentcommercial.
(20:19):
Um, so it was around that timewhere we looked at it and we're
like, hey, you know, it's onlydoing 10 percent of our revenue.
We spend about 40 percent ofour time managing this.
Maybe it's a good opportunityfor us to look at focusing on
the part of our business that'sgrowing the most and trying to
(20:41):
give all of our energy towardsthe people that are really
trusting us to help them withtheir IT and help them grow and
thrive their business.
So, july of 2024, we decidedthat we're gonna stop
residential services andcomputer repair and, like I said
, we've been doing it for a longtime.
So we're trying to take care ofthose customers and make sure
(21:01):
that they're getting taken careof appropriately.
It was just the best move forus.
And then, yeah, actually cominginto 2025, we cut off all
break-fix and residentialcomputer repair.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
That's fantastic, man , like a lot of growing MSPs
that we always talk to.
You guys embraced EOSEnterprise Operating System.
You talk a little bit aboutthat journey.
Oh yeah, where can a little bitabout?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
that journey.
Oh yeah, where can we go withthat?
No, yeah, well, it actuallystarted after 2020 and COVID.
After we'd gone through a lotof growth and come after COVID,
we kind of realized that we hadan issue and it was horrible.
(21:51):
Leadership, right.
But I did read a lot ofbusiness books and I read
Traction before and I didn'tlike it.
Then I read a lot of otherbusiness books and then I went
back and I just I don't know whyI just re-read that book and
I'm like holy buckets, they justtook all of all these other
books and they basically crammedit into a system that would
(22:14):
allow us to run our businessmore efficiently.
So we said, hey, let's take alook at it, we'll see if it's a
good fit for us and we'll seehow it works.
And so we self integrated orself implemented I really go see
, I don't even know what theyofficially call it because we
did it ourselves, but it's it's.
(22:37):
It's been good right.
We've had our challenges, wefound ways to make it work for
us, and it's it's forced us tobe accountable.
It's forced us to continue to,you know, continue to have our L
10s, continue to have ourweekly meetings, continue to
have our check-ins.
Give us our you know, ourscorecards to make sure that
we're we're keeping each otheraccountable and making sure that
we continue to do whatcheck-ins.
Give us our scorecards to makesure that we're keeping each
other accountable and makingsure that we continue to do what
(22:57):
we need to do.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
That's good.
It's an interesting directionthat MSPs have gone and it's
been around for a long time.
And it's not just the MSPindustry that's obviously taking
the industry by storm, but alot of the folks that are in the
room this week are EOS shops aswell by storm.
But a lot of the folks that arein the room this week are EOS
shops as well.
Some that are self implemented,some that are sort of hybrid
(23:20):
EOS, eos Lite, as a lot like touse, and there's some hardcore
EOSers in here as well, buteverybody sort of says the same
thing it absolutely transformedthe way we run the day to day
operations, and so it's great tohear that that worked for you
as well.
Oh yeah, so talk a little bitabout what's next for uh, ecs
james um, yeah, obviously, 20,2025 is a whole new chapter for
(23:46):
us.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Um, so it's exciting.
Um, this is it's kind of like abreath of fresh air, right,
this is the first time wherewe're not worrying about
residential computer repair, andyou know we're still in a
transition.
So there's going to be atransition as we get all of our
customers to an appropriate planfor them and, you know, we
figure out what we're going todo with our current client base.
(24:09):
But, um, man, it's like let'sgo to the moon.
Um, we're kind of at that pointnow and I'm so fortunate I have
an incredible team, right, um, Ihave, I have Tyler who's my
operations manager.
My sister still works for forus and you know she makes sure
that all of our accounting andbookkeeping, everything's on
(24:29):
track.
And, um, and I have anincredible sales team that we
just hired.
We have a brand new.
I mean, we made four majorhires last year that really
helped bolster our management orat least our top-end support
teams.
And so I'm kind of at a pointwhere I'm like, hey, I can let
(24:50):
them run stuff and we can startlooking at what's next for ECS.
And you know, there's still alot to be figured out, but we
just know that we need to growfor our team, so that's what
we're going to be doing Awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
As an outsider, I think you have a lot to be proud
of.
Is there anything in particularthat comes to your mind that
you're the most proud of?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh man, I'm like the hardest person on myself.
I don't.
That's probably consistent witha lot of people here.
So, um, you know, I never feellike I've done enough.
Um, you know, I obviously,outside of my family um
obviously extremely proud aboutmy family and everything we've
been able to do there.
Um, I have a wonderful wifewho's extremely supportive, so
(25:34):
I'm happy about that.
But from a business perspectivein our industry, you know, I'm
extremely proud and really Ithink lucky, right, I always say
you make your own luck, but atthe same time, I feel so lucky
all the time.
But I'm lucky to have the teamthat I have.
(26:04):
We have an incredible culture.
I feel like we're one of veryfew MSPs where we've had hardly
anybody ever quit from ourorganization.
And even now the handful ofpeople that have quit from our
business, most of them haveasked to come back, which is
incredible.
You don't hear about that often.
So we've been able to create apretty awesome culture and a
(26:28):
place where people can beexcited about coming to work,
and we've had the success thatthey've all been a part of.
That, I feel like, gives themwhat they're looking for, right.
So I'm not saying all of that'smy fault, but it's definitely
exciting to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Awesome man.
So one last question I like toask, james, and hopefully you're
ready for it, uh-oh yeah.
When did you know?
Now, that's it.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Now that's it.
Oh man, like I said, I'm alwaysvery critical of myself, so I
always feel like I'm not done.
We still need to figure it out.
But I will say I feel like oneof the most valuable things that
we've done and really a turningpoint for us in our
organization where I could saythat's what set us in the right
(27:21):
direction, and that was.
It was post-COVID, when westarted, actually when we
started Traption and we had a.
We did have a hard time withhaving the wrong people in our
organization and we fixed it.
We got the wrong people out, wefound a way to bring the right
(27:43):
people in and that was it.
The bus just starts going onits own and the business really
starts to thrive on its own.
And you know, when you put agroup of the right people in the
right room, not only are theyhappy, but your customers are
(28:04):
happy, families are happy.
It's just really exciting to beable to have that experience
and being able to figure it outright.
As business owners, we're alwaystrying to troubleshoot what's
wrong, and that was one thing.
That was.
It felt wrong and it turns outit was wrong and now that it's
right, it's been incredible andhonestly, it wasn't easy.
(28:27):
That was actually one of thehardest moves I ever had to make
.
One of the things I had to dois I had to let go of a very
important person ourorganization, at least it seemed
that way but he was detrimentalto our culture and I was scared
(28:49):
to let him go because he wasfriends with one of his friends,
with our top engineer actuallythe engineer, the first engineer
that we hired for MSP whohelped us build it.
So they were friends.
So I knew if I let him go that Iwould lose him and that was a
big piece of our business.
And I basically had to jump offa bridge and just a leap of
faith and and say we're gonna dothis for our culture, we're
(29:12):
gonna do this for the people inthis business and we're gonna do
this for our culture, we'regoing to do this for the people
in this business and we're goingto do this for our future
growth.
And it's been incredible eversince.
And we did lose that engineerand we have talked to him about
coming back because he evenrealized after later that it was
the other person he was causinga lot of the stress that he had
.
He wasn't the one solving it.
(29:33):
He was the a lot of the stressthat he had.
He wasn't the one solving it,he was the one causing it and
you know that was a prettypivotal moment for us, if I
could say that word.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
That's great, james.
James, I'm so excited to havegotten to know you.
You know, over the last monthor so Excited that you're here
in Phoenix with us this week andyou're part of the business
transformation sort of community.
Now I want to wish you and theECS team the absolute best of
luck and thank you so much forbeing here.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me and obviously,
thanks for everything thatEnable does to help, support us
and give us the opportunity tocontinue to be incredible.
So thank you, guys.
One, two, three go.
We couldn't maintain employeesand we couldn't maintain our
business customers.
I started working full-time.
I'm like how am I going to fixthis?
Welcome to Now that's it.
Stories of MSP Success, wherewe dive into the journeys of
some of the trailblazers in ourindustry to find out how they
used their passion fortechnology to help turn managed
services into the thrivingsector it is today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
All right, Mr James Thompson, president of ECS.
Welcome to the Now that's it.
Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh man, it's so great to have you out here in
beautiful sunny Arizona.
So you told me you never wantedto get into IT yes, but you had
a dad as a computer repair shop, right, and you couldn't avoid
it, right?
How did that play?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
out.
Yeah, yeah, no.
My original passion I feel likeI guess we could put it that
way or the first thing I wantedto try was I always wanted to be
an architect.
I was always interested inbuildings and building things,
and so that seemed like theright path for me, coming out of
high school, obviously, and sooriginally I went to school.
(01:10):
I graduated high school in 2007.
So I went to college forarchitectural architecture and
then transitioned toarchitectural engineering,
seeing that I liked science andI liked math and I liked the
numbers.
So that aligned with me alittle bit better.
And then, if anybody knows whathappened, in 2008, with the
(01:33):
recession, building pretty muchstopped.
So during that time I hadalready met my now wife, or so
soon to be wife, and we knew wewanted to be young parents and,
you know, start a family prettyearly on, and we were kind of at
the point where we were engagedand I was kind of looking at my
(01:57):
opportunities as anarchitectural engineer and
realized that there probablywasn't going to be a lot of
opportunity to get a job rightout of college and, you know, to
be able to support my family.
And it just so happened to bearound the same time my dad, who
had the computer repair shop,had lost an employee and I was
(02:18):
at a point in my life where Iwas like, hey, I could go search
for a job.
That is recession proof,hopefully.
And he also needed an employeethat he could trust.
So I knew it'd be a reliableemployee.
So I started working for himpart-time and a computer repair
shop.
I transitioned my degree to MISand that's where she started.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Rest is history, yeah so how do you go from computer
repair shop to managed serviceprovider?
Talk a little bit about sort ofthose early days.
I remember you sharing with mesort of retaining employees,
retaining customers.
It was kind of hard in thoseearly days.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So when I finally went tocollege for seven years Eight,
for me.
But when I graduated, finally,with my degree in MIS, that was
in 2014.
And I came out and we did havean employee at the time and once
I graduated, I actually askedmy professor.
I was one of my professors, theone that I trusted a lot, and I
(03:20):
asked him.
I was like, hey, my dad hasthis computer repair shop and,
you know, I think there could besomething there or I could go
get a real job and make prettygood money.
And I just kind of consultedwith him and I really leaned
into his advice and he justsimply looked at me and he said
how old are you?
(03:41):
I was like you know, at thetime, if I can math correctly, I
was 25.
And I was like I'm 25.
And he goes listen, you'restill really young, you don't
get a lot of opportunities tobuild something, so why don't
you go take that?
and so that's what got mestarted in the business
full-time yeah so when I madethat decision, our one employee
(04:03):
that we had there we actuallyhad two employees, one had to
leave for family the otheremployee looked at me and he was
a good friend of mine and hejust said hey, man, he's from
North Carolina, he's like I wantto move back, he's like I'm
going to go move back with myfamily, because I was hoping I
had a chance to take over thiscompany.
But obviously you're going tostep into that role.
And it kind of hurt me a littlebit just because we were
(04:27):
friends and I was like, oh man,I was really hoping we could do
something here.
But it made me realize that thebusiness model we had wasn't
really set up for success inthat manner.
Right, there wasn't a whole lotof opportunities the way that
we were doing business.
So we did have some businesscustomers and you know,
obviously we were havingdifficulty maintaining employees
because we were just a computerrepair shop and doing break fix
(04:50):
work for some smaller companies, and so we had two problems we
couldn't maintain employees andwe couldn't maintain our
business customers, which youknow that was a substantial part
of our revenue when we did havethem.
So it was always a big hit.
So that's when we we discoveredI hired a part-time guy.
(05:12):
And you know, when I work startwork full-time I'm like how am
I going to fix this?
You know, we were trying tofind a way to solve this
challenge of making sure that wecan maintain customers and you
know, in college I actually did.
One of my final programs wastrying.
I used the work that I wasdoing with my dad as one of my
internships and I had to walkaway with something tangible or
(05:33):
else I wouldn't get the creditsfor it.
So I did a research study onbackup and disaster recovery.
So I had already spent a lot oftime understanding that that
was a valuable resource forbusinesses and it was more of a
proactive approach to helpcompanies stay in business right
.
So I knew there was an idea ofproactive IT support, at least
(05:55):
in some manner.
I had no idea what managedservices were.
I had no clue.
So when I was talking to himabout it, he was just like, hey,
yeah, you should check out thiscompany.
I used to work for them, thisis what they're doing.
And so I did a lot of researchand I mean, everything just
started lighting up and it'slike, yeah, this is where we
need to be.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So that's awesome, james, but your dad's been
running the business acompletely different way for a
long time.
What was that convincing?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
like, oh man, what was that convincing?
Like, oh man, what was it like?
You might kill me if I say thisthe way I saw it.
Yeah, so I mean, obviously hewas comfortable, right, and this
is actually when I started tolearn, like just the dynamic of
a family owned business andreally trying to put myself in
his perspective and the age thathe was at and why he wasn't
(06:47):
willing to take so many risks.
Right, he was in a betterposition than me.
I was still really young, so Iwanted to take a lot of risk,
but it was a different businessmodel.
So when I explained it to him,obviously there was a lot of
companies where they have aminimum, so you had to spend a
minimum amount for so long.
Obviously, there was a lot ofcompanies where they have a
minimum, so you had to spend aminimum amount for so long and,
(07:08):
from his perspective, that moneywasn't guaranteed to come back
in until you sold it right.
So there was a lot of riskthere, at least to him and to me
.
But I was like, hey, I'm 25years old, we have to do this.
So I tried convincing him andconvincing him, and convincing
him, and nothing would reallywork.
So then I started to go otheravenues of trying to convince
(07:32):
him.
So we actually at that point wehad hired a commercial level
support engineer and I wastalking to him about it and I
was just like, hey, you need togo tell my dad that this is the
way we need to go, nice.
And he was like, okay, so hewent and told my dad and then it
was like, hey, we're all good,we're ready to go.
There was one other big pieceactually I should align with
(07:56):
also I was able to find so atthe time.
It was GFI Max.
Now buy in Central it's Insight.
At the time they didn't have aminimum, so that was another
huge piece to the buy-in wasmaking sure that we weren't
going to be trapped in this hugecontract.
But yeah, I was fortunate tofind that and yeah, it was
(08:17):
pretty awesome to get it started.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
That's awesome.
I am sure that parents alwayswant their children to be
successful and, deep down youknow, I want my kids, when they
get older, to to come up withtheir own ideas and be able to
bring those to the table and mesupport them.
And I'm sure, deep down your,your father, wanted this to work
.
Mm-hmm, it's just he wanted tomake sure that this wasn't gonna
(08:42):
sink ECS right and so for forhim to put that faith in you and
I think a lot of it, right fromwhen I hear you tell this story
, you obviously had buy-in fromanother staff member part-time,
but then you were able toconvince other employees as well
that this was able to go.
So you showed this sort ofsense of leadership right off
(09:03):
the bat by sort of building abusiness case for it.
Right, sure, and what that wasgoing to look like Absolutely.
Talk a little bit about.
You know it's great that youchose Enable GFI Max back in the
day, but talk a little bitabout maybe, those first
customers or that first customer.
What was that sale like?
What was that like?
How were you trying to convincethem that this was the way?
(09:25):
This was different than ECS haddone it in the past.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, it was yeah, and honestly it was a big part
of it too was getting my dadconvinced that this was going to
work, because actually thefirst customer that we got it's
going to be 10 years coming up.
We got them to sign on full timeand they're still a customer,
which is awesome.
I know a lot of msps here haveincredible stories where they've
(09:48):
had customers for 20 years plusand I I think that's just
amazing.
But you know, we're obviouslyproud about it and uh, but they
were one of his first customersand so it was kind of a big step
for all of us because it waslike I, my dad, finally bought
into the idea that we're goingto do this and me and him went
and met with one of his firstcustomers and we were just, I
(10:13):
mean, it was kind of nice thatwe already had that great
relationship because it kind ofhelped us on how we were going
to sell it.
It was kind of interesting.
We went through a lot of trialand error when it came to like
pricing and figuring out howwe're supposed to be doing this,
but they were a great sportabout it and very helpful and, I
think, just injected a lot ofconfidence for the rest of us
(10:35):
that this is something that'sgoing to work.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wow, I remember listening to you talk about sort
of the dynamic that you andyour father had.
It was interesting because Ithink you mentioned that you
actually created a support group, right yeah, for family
businesses.
Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
You know, I always knew when I went to work for my
dad, one of the deciding factorswas he needed someone that was
reliable.
So I always knew that there'dbe some friction but that we
would both show up the next day,right?
So we'd both show up and we'dcontinue to work and continue to
grow the company and worktogether.
And you know, my sister worksfor the company as well and it's
(11:10):
a truly family-owned andoperated company.
And it was kind of interestingbecause I knew I had all these
challenges but I didn't reallyknow what else was out there.
So I was at a chamber event onetime and at the chamber event I
met a basically it was apresident of a company where
they were a family owned andoperated company as well.
(11:32):
And you know it was, he was thepresident and his brother
worked for the company and hisdad worked for the company.
And I was like, oh, that'sinteresting.
I was like they're in a similarsituation that we're in.
So more of us do exist and noidea, right, it's so naive when
you're stuck in your own littlecorner, but it I asked him out
(11:53):
to lunch and thankfully heaccepted that invite and I had
him at lunch and I'm just like,hey, man, you know we have
employees now and I'm like, howdo you do this?
How I'm like how do you do this, how do you do this, how do you
do this, how do you do this andhow do you manage your
relationship with your dad?
And I was just I felt bad.
(12:13):
I was kind of reeling him withquestions, but it was a good
conversation and then towardsthe end of the launch, he's like
you know, like we've hadsimilar experiences.
He's like I bet we could make agroup of a lot of people that
would have the same type ofexperience.
And that was like you'reabsolutely right.
It's like everyone talks aboutnetworking groups and tips
(12:34):
groups and all these and I'mlike I mean basically it's like
a business support group, right,um?
So yeah, I mean we basicallystarted there.
We met again and we invited someother family-owned and operated
business operators and wecreated a group.
It was called Legacy Dynamicsand it was where family members
(12:58):
from family-owned and operatedcompanies who are executives we
would meet.
It started off once a week.
We eventually transitioned itback to twice a month.
We would meet, um.
It started off once a week.
We eventually transitioned itback to um twice a month where
we would meet and we would justcome up with topics about, I
mean it's.
You know it's not just dealingwith your family members but
it's also dealing with the staff.
And you know, especially as ason like I, had this horrible
(13:21):
fear that everyone would thinkI'm the son just taking over
dad's business and um I.
It always bothered me a lot soI worked really hard to maintain
my reputation, um, and thosewere things that I could talk
about and I could help peoplewith and people could help me
with.
And it was just kind ofinteresting because it turned
out to be a very resourcefulgroup where we're all able to
(13:43):
kind of get differentperspectives on how that we
would manage those types ofsituations and yeah, so that was
fun, amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
James, really cool story.
I love to hear about what you,what you did back then.
So let's talk a little bitabout that growth spurt that you
had.
You went from four employees toabout 23, right while While you
while adding the managedservices line of business.
What really fueled that growthduring that time period?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, you know, one of the big things for us is and
one of the things that my daddid really well was building
incredible relationships withall of his staff.
Obviously, our first managedclient was one of his first
customers.
And we had that relationshipwhere they bought in and they
were willing to come and connectwith us, and I think it's
(14:34):
really spawned because of thatright and just the amount of
passion that we put into the waythat we support our customers.
It's a similar story to a lotof people I meet here, which is
pretty incredible, because whenyou're getting customers from a
lot of our competition, you'relike no one out there cares
about their customers and that'sthe beautiful thing about the
(14:59):
people that we find here atEnable is that there's so many
of us that have the samementality and it's just going
above and beyond for thosecustomers and treating their
business like your own.
You know, I have a phrase thatI use all the time, and it's the
rising tide raises all ships.
So we do pretty much anythingand everything we can to help
our customers continue to besuccessful in whatever manner
they mean to be.
So that, paired with incrediblepeople, that that's gotta be a
(15:25):
pretty big push for why wecontinue to have success.
That's great, james.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, so 2017 through 2019, big growth spurt, and
about that time you told dad itwas time to go.
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, um, you know, it was all in good faith.
Um, you know, kind of like wetalked about, he was worried
that it wasn't going to work.
Right, when we first starteddoing managed services.
And you know, he was justworried about the success of the
at the time it was ElkhornComputer and transitioned to ECS
.
He was worried about thesuccess of ECS and making sure
(16:00):
that we had the business to helpcontribute to our family's
success and in his success aswell.
Right, and it was around thattime, you know, we were going
through pretty substantialgrowth year over year where I
think he finally realized like,okay, this is not a bad idea,
this is a great idea.
(16:21):
It's.
It's bringing value to it'sbringing value to our customers.
So maybe we'll let this go.
You know, and it was also aroundthat time.
You know, we already had kids.
My sisters, they were havingtheir.
My oldest sister, she alreadyhad her kids.
My younger, still older sisterthan me, she was having her
(16:42):
children and I was like, hey,you know, they live sister than
me, she was having her childrenand, um, I was like, hey, you
know, they live out of town.
You know, maybe it's not a badidea for you to spend a little
bit more time traveling andgoing and seeing your
grandchildren and um, and that'sreally how we try to sell it,
um, but the reality is is, youknow, long story short, the
(17:03):
reason we got into this industryhe got into this industry
altogether uh, was because he,you know, long story short, the
reason we got into this industry, he got into this industry
altogether was because he, youknow, back in 99, he actually
had a pretty horrible accidentwhere he fell off a barn roof,
and this is where the tears comein.
But, you know, he's always beena hard worker and trying to do
everything he can to support ourfamily and it's really
(17:26):
inspiring.
It's kind of built me the waythat I am now because of the
hard work and efforts that he'salways put into everything.
When he had that accident, heactually wasn't able to walk for
nine months.
He was in a hospital bed fornine months Actually, he was in
a wheelchair for another year.
After that.
They thought he was supposed tobe dead or paralyzed for life.
Wow, and he made an incrediblerecovery.
(17:49):
And then, when he came, while hewas in a wheelchair, he went to
school to get his MIS degreeand, coming out of 2000,.
He couldn't use it becausethere was the tech bubble burst,
yeah.
So he was forced to startElkhorn Computer Service and he
continued to work so hard tocontribute to our family and to
(18:11):
help us, you know, be where wewere.
So it was almost a mission forme to give him an opportunity to
relax.
You know, just once and for all, don't work.
Granted, that will never happen, because if you ever met the
guy, he cannot stop working,sure, but at least he has less
(18:32):
responsibility.
So so that's uh, that was a bigpart of the conversation is
like this is why I came here.
This is why I came to work withyou in this company, so I can
give you a chance to retire.
And we were able to make ithappen.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So that's so incredible, james.
Such a good story man.
So talk a little bit about thecomputer repair business.
How has that fared?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
yeah, um, you know, the computer repair business has
been so good to us.
Um, it continued to grow whilewe continue to grow.
So when we started offeringmanaged services, the, the
business from residential tocommercial was about 75
(19:57):
residential 25 business andabout middle of the year last
year we we just decided toreevaluate what what that looked
like and we realized that nowresidential services, even
though it continued to grow, itwas now 10 percent of our
business versus 90 percentcommercial.
(20:19):
Um, so it was around that timewhere we looked at it and we're
like, hey, you know, it's onlydoing 10 percent of our revenue.
We spend about 40 percent ofour time managing this.
Maybe it's a good opportunityfor us to look at focusing on
the part of our business that'sgrowing the most and trying to
(20:41):
give all of our energy towardsthe people that are really
trusting us to help them withtheir IT and help them grow and
thrive their business.
So, july of 2024, we decidedthat we're gonna stop
residential services andcomputer repair and, like I said
, we've been doing it for a longtime.
So we're trying to take care ofthose customers and make sure
(21:01):
that they're getting taken careof appropriately.
It was just the best move forus.
And then, yeah, actually cominginto 2025, we cut off all
break-fix and residentialcomputer repair.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
That's fantastic, man , like a lot of growing MSPs
that we always talk to.
You guys embraced EOSEnterprise Operating System.
You talk a little bit aboutthat journey.
Oh yeah, where can a little bitabout?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
that journey.
Oh yeah, where can we go withthat?
No, yeah, well, it actuallystarted after 2020 and COVID.
After we'd gone through a lotof growth and come after COVID,
we kind of realized that we hadan issue and it was horrible.
(21:51):
Leadership, right.
But I did read a lot ofbusiness books and I read
Traction before and I didn'tlike it.
Then I read a lot of otherbusiness books and then I went
back and I just I don't know whyI just re-read that book and
I'm like holy buckets, they justtook all of all these other
books and they basically crammedit into a system that would
(22:14):
allow us to run our businessmore efficiently.
So we said, hey, let's take alook at it, we'll see if it's a
good fit for us and we'll seehow it works.
And so we self integrated orself implemented I really go see
, I don't even know what theyofficially call it because we
did it ourselves, but it's it's.
(22:37):
It's been good right.
We've had our challenges, wefound ways to make it work for
us, and it's it's forced us tobe accountable.
It's forced us to continue to,you know, continue to have our L
10s, continue to have ourweekly meetings, continue to
have our check-ins.
Give us our you know, ourscorecards to make sure that
we're we're keeping each otheraccountable and making sure that
we continue to do whatcheck-ins.
Give us our scorecards to makesure that we're keeping each
other accountable and makingsure that we continue to do what
(22:57):
we need to do.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
That's good.
It's an interesting directionthat MSPs have gone and it's
been around for a long time.
And it's not just the MSPindustry that's obviously taking
the industry by storm, but alot of the folks that are in the
room this week are EOS shops aswell by storm.
But a lot of the folks that arein the room this week are EOS
shops as well.
Some that are self implemented,some that are sort of hybrid
(23:20):
EOS, eos Lite, as a lot like touse, and there's some hardcore
EOSers in here as well, buteverybody sort of says the same
thing it absolutely transformedthe way we run the day to day
operations, and so it's great tohear that that worked for you
as well.
Oh yeah, so talk a little bitabout what's next for uh, ecs
james um, yeah, obviously, 20,2025 is a whole new chapter for
(23:46):
us.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Um, so it's exciting.
Um, this is it's kind of like abreath of fresh air, right,
this is the first time wherewe're not worrying about
residential computer repair, andyou know we're still in a
transition.
So there's going to be atransition as we get all of our
customers to an appropriate planfor them and, you know, we
figure out what we're going todo with our current client base.
(24:09):
But, um, man, it's like let'sgo to the moon.
Um, we're kind of at that pointnow and I'm so fortunate I have
an incredible team, right, um, Ihave, I have Tyler who's my
operations manager.
My sister still works for forus and you know she makes sure
that all of our accounting andbookkeeping, everything's on
(24:29):
track.
And, um, and I have anincredible sales team that we
just hired.
We have a brand new.
I mean, we made four majorhires last year that really
helped bolster our management orat least our top-end support
teams.
And so I'm kind of at a pointwhere I'm like, hey, I can let
(24:50):
them run stuff and we can startlooking at what's next for ECS.
And you know, there's still alot to be figured out, but we
just know that we need to growfor our team, so that's what
we're going to be doing Awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
As an outsider, I think you have a lot to be proud
of.
Is there anything in particularthat comes to your mind that
you're the most proud of?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh man, I'm like the hardest person on myself.
I don't.
That's probably consistent witha lot of people here.
So, um, you know, I never feellike I've done enough.
Um, you know, I obviously,outside of my family um
obviously extremely proud aboutmy family and everything we've
been able to do there.
Um, I have a wonderful wifewho's extremely supportive, so
(25:34):
I'm happy about that.
But from a business perspectivein our industry, you know, I'm
extremely proud and really Ithink lucky, right, I always say
you make your own luck, but atthe same time, I feel so lucky
all the time.
But I'm lucky to have the teamthat I have.
(26:04):
We have an incredible culture.
I feel like we're one of veryfew MSPs where we've had hardly
anybody ever quit from ourorganization.
And even now the handful ofpeople that have quit from our
business, most of them haveasked to come back, which is
incredible.
You don't hear about that often.
So we've been able to create apretty awesome culture and a
(26:28):
place where people can beexcited about coming to work,
and we've had the success thatthey've all been a part of.
That, I feel like, gives themwhat they're looking for, right.
So I'm not saying all of that'smy fault, but it's definitely
exciting to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Awesome man.
So one last question I like toask, james, and hopefully you're
ready for it, uh-oh yeah.
When did you know?
Now, that's it.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Now that's it.
Oh man, like I said, I'm alwaysvery critical of myself, so I
always feel like I'm not done.
We still need to figure it out.
But I will say I feel like oneof the most valuable things that
we've done and really a turningpoint for us in our
organization where I could saythat's what set us in the right
(27:21):
direction, and that was.
It was post-COVID, when westarted, actually when we
started Traption and we had a.
We did have a hard time withhaving the wrong people in our
organization and we fixed it.
We got the wrong people out, wefound a way to bring the right
(27:43):
people in and that was it.
The bus just starts going onits own and the business really
starts to thrive on its own.
And you know, when you put agroup of the right people in the
right room, not only are theyhappy, but your customers are
(28:04):
happy, families are happy.
It's just really exciting to beable to have that experience
and being able to figure it outright.
As business owners, we're alwaystrying to troubleshoot what's
wrong, and that was one thing.
That was.
It felt wrong and it turns outit was wrong and now that it's
right, it's been incredible andhonestly, it wasn't easy.
(28:27):
That was actually one of thehardest moves I ever had to make
.
One of the things I had to dois I had to let go of a very
important person ourorganization, at least it seemed
that way but he was detrimentalto our culture and I was scared
(28:49):
to let him go because he wasfriends with one of his friends,
with our top engineer actuallythe engineer, the first engineer
that we hired for MSP whohelped us build it.
So they were friends.
So I knew if I let him go that Iwould lose him and that was a
big piece of our business.
And I basically had to jump offa bridge and just a leap of
faith and and say we're gonna dothis for our culture, we're
(29:12):
gonna do this for the people inthis business and we're gonna do
this for our culture, we'regoing to do this for the people
in this business and we're goingto do this for our future
growth.
And it's been incredible eversince.
And we did lose that engineerand we have talked to him about
coming back because he evenrealized after later that it was
the other person he was causinga lot of the stress that he had
.
He wasn't the one solving it.
(29:33):
He was the a lot of the stressthat he had.
He wasn't the one solving it,he was the one causing it and
you know that was a prettypivotal moment for us, if I
could say that word.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
That's great, james.
James, I'm so excited to havegotten to know you.
You know, over the last monthor so Excited that you're here
in Phoenix with us this week andyou're part of the business
transformation sort of community.
Now I want to wish you and theECS team the absolute best of
luck and thank you so much forbeing here.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me and obviously,
thanks for everything thatEnable does to help, support us
and give us the opportunity tocontinue to be incredible.
So thank you, guys.
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