Career Downloads

What happens when a bank doesn't know what to do with you, so it puts you in a chair and tells you to "look busy"? For Joshua Leavitt, that chair became the start of an entire career in technology.

Joshua Leavitt grew up in Las Vegas working construction, paper routes, and gas station shifts before landing a job as a coin vault clerk at a local bank making $7 an hour. After organizing coworkers over a bonus that never materialized, ...

What happens when the career your family picked for you isn't the one you actually want?

Iana Relampagos grew up in a Filipino household where the path was already decided. Be a nurse. Be a doctor. Chase the stability. So she enrolled in pre-nursing at UNLV, even though her favorite classes had always been computer classes. Two years in, her grades started slipping and her heart wasn't in it. She switched to computer science, then e...

What happens when the advice that builds your first business is the same advice that destroys it?

JC Rolison grew up in South Central Los Angeles without knowing a single person working in technology. He was a standout athlete, signed with UCLA out of high school, then played at Alabama State and majored in criminal justice. Sports were the plan. Tech was never part of the conversation.

After college, JC started a clothing brand with...

He broke the family computer in 8th grade trying to teach himself DOS. The repair shop he took it to hired him for the summer. That is how Jesse Taylor's career in technology began.

Jesse Taylor is the Senior Manager of Cloud and Systems Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His path to that role spans Apple retail, college newspaper IT, media companies, a hotel property that declared bankruptcy, and a first month on t...

What do you do when healthcare is your calling but the patient side is not your path? Rachel Papka figured that out the long way.

She started at a hospital as a PBX phone operator. Worked through ER registration, landed in radiology, and was asked to become a super user when the hospital adopted its first electronic medical record. There were no certifications for healthcare technology at that time. No clear career path. She learned...

Show NotesWhat does it look like to build a tech career when no one hands you anything?Jordan McConnell ran network operations at Langley Air Force Base with a top-secret clearance, supporting 100,000 people across 15 bases. When he left active duty, the civilian job market didn’t care about any of that. So he took help desk calls getting yelled at, rebuilt from the bottom, and funded every...

Show NotesAt age seven, Juan Mazo told his family he would bring his mom’s family to America one day. By 26, he had done it. His mom hasn’t paid rent since 2015. And then he fell into depression.Juan built a tech career that most people would call a success from PC repair out of his aunt’s restaurant in Connecticut to hedge fund IT support in New York, to running the IT departme...

Show NotesKim Snyder graduated with three degrees in accounting, MIS, and entrepreneurship. Companies had no idea what to do with her. They weren’t ready for someone who wanted to do all three. So she built the career herself. Over the next 30+ years, Kim went from QA engineer to tech consultant to finance consultant to business owner, coach, and speaker. Her path wasn’t linear. ...

Show NotesWhat do you do when you get laid off at the biggest project management conference in the world? You work the room, go home, and build your own company.Parmjit Kaur did not set out to be a project manager. She wanted to be a Bollywood actress, then a doctor, then a teacher, then a radio host. What she became was one of the more interesting career stories you will hear – born in Sco...

Show NotesHe has spent 30 years in tech sales. He has almost never gone through a formal interview.Every major opportunity in Rodney Detrick’s career came from a relationship he had already built. Not a resume. Not an online application. Someone who knew him, trusted him, and opened a door. This episode is about how that happens – and what else Rodney has learned in three decades of s...

Show NotesThe people you least expect are watching your career. Rhonda Lemke built nearly 30 years in technology on that truth.Her career started at Arthur Anderson, where she worked as a secretary and executive assistant. A mentor asked her at 19 to quit her job, move in with her, and go to college. That moment set everything in motion. From there, Rhonda worked her way through help desk managem...

Show NotesWhat does it take to walk away from a 20-year career in hospitality and start over in tech at 38 with no degree, no certifications, and no hard skills? For Michael Steffen, it started with a jiu-jitsu training partner telling him he was miserable and handing him a Security+ study guide. He passed. He volunteered at DEF CON for three years. He’s now in targeted account sales in cy...

Show NotesHis father got tired of him playing video games. So he threw a book at him. Thirty years later, Dennis Moriarity is Chief Information Officer at Link Technologies in Las Vegas, and the book his dad threw “Learn C in 24 Hours” started everything. Dennis grew up in LA and wanted to be a police officer. He applied to the LA Sheriff’s Department at 18 and didn’t get in. He started a...

Show Notes

Bri Haralson wanted to be a chef. Sixteen years later she’s the Director of SLED at Cribl, one of the most connected people in the Southwest public sector tech community, and about to step into her next leadership role.

Nobody mapped this out. That’s kind of the point.

Bri grew up in Arizona, one of the rare native Arizonans. She started college for culinary studies at Northern Arizona Uni...

Show Note

Ever wonder how someone goes from desktop support to protecting a professional sports team’s entire digital infrastructure?

Andrew Ferrall’s career path shows that there’s no single route to landing your dream job in technology. As IT Security Architect for a professional sports organization, Andrew protects one of the most recognized franchises in professional sports from cyber threa...

Show Notes

Sometimes the career you’re meant for finds you through the most unexpected path.

Art Green III, Senior IT Workforce Programs Instructor at Tech Impact, joins Career Downloads to share his journey from college athlete to tech instructor helping disadvantaged students launch IT careers. His story is a masterclass in resilience, adaptability, and finding fulfillment through service.

Guest Backgrou...

Show Notes

Mike Green didn’t start out planning a career in technology. As a passionate art student in small-town New York, he faced a tough decision: pursue a field he loved with uncertain job security, or pivot to the growing computer industry. He chose computers, and 25+ years later, he’s never looked back.

Today, Mike manages the Digital Services Division for Clark County, Nevada IT, leading four...

Show Notes

The Week That Changed Everything Ray Freeman’s tech career includes a chapter most people would rather forget. After the 2008 financial crisis, Ray lost his job, his wife lost hers, and their six-bedroom Houston house became a financial prison. Eventually, Ray spent a week sleeping in his car while working contract IT jobs.

Today, Ray is President and Chief Strategy Officer of RTS Premier Soluti...