Category Archives: Vendor Relationship

IT LIFE

IT Professionals, whether they knew it or not when they signed up for this type of career, were signing up for some long days, long hours, on-call rotation and implementations in the middle of the night. This is our business and it sometimes does not allow for a good work-life balance.

First National Technology Solutions (FNTS) as a technology company has developed a culture of get-it-done at all costs, burn the midnight oil, do what’s in the best interest of the customer, perfection and a high motivation to succeed. There are many nights at 3:00 am where our engineers are doing server builds, adding memory to a server, changing a network configuration, etc. These may seem like thankless tasks and may go unnoticed. However, they are extremely important to our customers and the overall success of their business and ours. As the year goes on there are more and more 3:00 am work windows. It becomes a grind for our people. They feel under-appreciated and sometimes wonder if anyone notices the dedication and hard work they put in to make things right for our customers. If they make one tiny mistake in a change that could be very complex, they disappoint not only their team and peers but also upset our customers because of downtime or outages. You wonder why they continue to do it when no news is good news?

As the President of FNTS I recognize these jobs don’t seem so glamorous on paper. However, when I started my career as a lonely Cobol Programmer, I did what our engineers do today for many years. I carried a pager 24/7, got called during the middle of the night and worked 24 hour days to complete a project; no one in the office except me. I did this for the simple reason–it’s a fantastic career that is very rewarding and challenging. I also knew I was making a difference for someone that depended on me and this has created some wonderful relationships with co-workers, customers and partners.

As the Holiday season is upon us, it’s a time for our employees and customers to reflect back on the year’s accomplishments. It has been a wonderful year for our company in many ways and a proud year for me personally when I look at our company growth and our dedication to our customers. I have received some wonderful emails from customers this year showing their appreciation for our get-it-done-right attitude and our ability to partner with them on their IT initiatives. I also hope that our employees and customers can take a break from work and spend time with their family and friends. This is such a beautiful time of the year to enjoy the company of those closest to you. To our employees, I thank you for your dedication and to our customers, I thank you for your business. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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Ken Kucera is the President and CEO of First National Technology Solutions and holds a Degree in Computer Science, which he received in 1976. Since that time he has worked for a number of major corporations, including Mutual of Omaha, Citicorp, First Data Corporation and Cap Gemini America, where he provided information technology strategy and direction. Ken has served as a Director for many local and national non-profit boards, including the American Lung Association, Madonna School, AIM Institute and The Peter Kiewit Institute of Science, Technology and Engineering (IST&E). Ken was also a member of the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce Leadership Omaha Class 24.
Ken has been featured in numerous publications such as Business Week, ComputerWorld and Forbes. Kucera was a pioneer of Virtualization and OnDemand Computing in the early 2000’s