What is your role at Cargas?
My current role is President & CEO at Cargas Systems, an employee-owned software and consulting company. I get the opportunity to work with a super-talented team everyday to help our customers achieve success with their accounting, operational, and customer relationship software needs.
How has it changed during the COVID-19 outbreak?
My role has not really changed too much over the past few weeks, but some of the things I have been doing have been less of a priority as we navigate through the health crisis. The frequency of my communication with the entire team has ramped up considerably. We have had three company-wide, virtual meetings to talk about the current state of affairs in about a 5-week time span. We use the meetings to update the company on the results of surveys that we sent out to the team to check in on how they are doing and address their questions and concerns. We practice open-book management at Cargas, so we are also updating folks on the financial performance of the company, which helps them understand what they can do help during this time. I really have been at the center of our communications strategy, supported, of course, by an incredible team.
In addition to your increased job responsibilities and long hours, you’ve been highly involved on our Board in helping the Science Factory navigate this crisis. How have you managed to make time for other causes, and why is that important to you now?
It is important to make sure we are taking care of our employees and their families right now. At the same time, it is critical that we are thinking about what our community looks like on the other side of this health crisis. We need to make time to make sure organizations like the Science Factory and other organizations that serve an important role in supporting our community get assistance so they can thrive when things get back to normal.
As we look to scientists to provide us with the facts about this outbreak, we are reminded of just how essential STEM education is to our community. Could you share any reflections you’ve had on this topic recently?
I think this situation highlights the fact that we need continued collaboration between STEM champions in government, the private sector, and our health systems. We need to support and connect our STEM champions to foster greater innovation, communication, and integration - especially in times like these. We can't operate in silos, and we really need champions from all areas of the S-T-E-M acronym to band together to help us solve these types of problems.
What have you been doing to stay sane during this time? Any media recommendations?
It has been a challenge to unplug from Cargas with all of the intensity of the situation. However, I have been spending A LOT of time with my wife and three daughters (12,10,6), and it has been great to have so much time at home with them. I fly fish, so when I get a chance and the weather is nice I sneak out on occasion to clear my head.
In order to stay sane I have been really watching how much news I take in from the various media sources at this time - you can really get consumed by the constant reporting on the situation. Hats off to the
Lancaster Chambe
r for doing a great job of synthesizing the news and helping our community understand the latest on the situation in our business community.
