the Aldis podcast is brought to you by Aldis International supplying your expert Ai and digital transformation staffing needs across the US and Europe today you are listening to our service now Series where we interview the best and brightest of the industry to share their story advice and views on the exciting world of service now and digital transformation [Music] you're listening to the Alis podcast service now series I'm your host JP Valentine Our Guest today is Paul Hanley Paul is the chief technology officer of the Professional Services business unit at chenega Paul welcome to the show my friend hey JP how are you I'm good sir I'm good delighted to have you on finally I know we've been talking about doing this for quite a while so we've got you here so lots to cover but Paul let's start with yourself please as we do all of our guests could you give us a little bit of background of your journey and Technology from where you got started some of the RS you've held along the way and What's led you to where you are today as a CTO for the the pro Ser of strategic business unit for chega looking back at at my career I've been in in federal Contracting and federal service since 1989 until uh June of 1999 working as an employee of the National Park Service and started out like many young people wanted to be a ranger I had had come out of University with a degree in archaeology uh was interested in that and before I knew it I was driving the elevator up and down the Washington Monument working the night shift so all of my friends from college would show up at the Washington Monument and see me there in my park ranger uniform where I would recite my my interpretive assessment of what it meant to go up and down the Washington Monument and how important that was nice quite quite the the start and considering where you've landed now so how what were some of the Segways because it's certainly nontraditional before long they realized that I wasn't really elevator driving material and so I I moved into the headquarters of the local National Park office and at the time one of my duties was issuing parking passes to VIPs basically who you wanted to park uh down on the National Mall and areas just south of Capitol Hill and it was an arduous process and I was sitting there in front of a computer so I dusted off my my programming skill skills that I learned in college and automated the parking permit printing process and and got rehook on computers at that point and just about that time the Park Service had invested in uh GIS computers big sunpark stations uh and no one knew really what they were for they were just sitting in the office when I arrived uh and I very quickly had moved into another division in the in the Horticultural Vision uh of the national capital parks and was working for a terrific person I had one of the things that that I have to say is that I had a lot of terrific mentors along the way not only in the Park service but subsequent to that and at that point the my mentor was like go ahead if just as long as you don't break it you can turn the computer on and see what you can do and before long I was the geographic information systems coordinator for the park and never looked back became the regional coordinator lots of conferences and on the job training and then just grew it from there and then the web came around so this is like 1996 the web was still gray screens and animated gifs and as a Park Service employee I was like you know what the world needs to see the national parks on the web so we there was a few of us that got started putting Parks up on Park brochures basically up on the web and that got the notice of the director of the Park Service who called me into his office and said how would you like to turn this into a real thing and so very quickly I became the head of the national park services web project called parket at the time and put together a a gang of pirates and thieves and we built an early content management system so that the authors in back then it was 390 some OD Parks could all contribute and really add their own color and local story to a national publication that was quickly being consumed by a global audience so you know parnet was a great success this was 1997 and then in 1998 I was approached by some folks out of the Department of interior who had this idea of putting together something similar to what I did for the park service but for a bunch of agencies and we together created recreation.gov which is still quite a anybody who does outdoor recreation uses recreation.gov to this day and basically with the the culmination of that I knew I had to get out of the government I was 30 I was looking at another 20 years in the same office I had graded myself out of going out into the field so I quickly left joined forces with a couple of guys and formed event Centric which was a conference planning software platform and then at the same time the two other principles and I formed a Government Contracting firm called dit and before I knew it I was working in daa in a cube doing map interfaces for a global combat support system so that's a cool PA go from national parks to to geospatial Technologies for the defense sector which using a lot of what you've learned but in a very different format you were obviously had some success there and and which led you then into some more senior positions so talk to us about the path towards just before you join chenega cuz I know was some fairly sizable companies involved as well yeah so you know along the way it's all about Innovation right so if you take a look somewhere in there I I went to graduate school to learn how to manage information technology and part of that master's program was courses on Innovation and I realized that Innovation was one of those things I was really good at and Innovation is really about introducing disruptive Technologies and then doing all the things around that introduction of a disruptive technology to help it take root and then working on culture and capacity building within the organization so that you can optimize what you've gained from that Innovation so that it's really a beneficial Loop and you cycle through that over and over again and it turned out that's really what I had been doing in every job I had ever had uh and so you know I parlayed that into working for Tata we were introducing firewalls and clean pipe around the world uh you know just a series of other companies and gradually it dawned on me and it wasn't really all that gradual but but pretty quickly it it dawned on me that the role that I was looking for was the chief technology officer role that's how I ended up there from driving the elevator up the Washington Monument to being the CTO love it quite the journey and getting that CTO role is what helped you ultimately land where you are currently so a lot to cover here before we jump into the service now specific stuff and tell us about chega as a business give us the overview of who you are what you do mission of the business and on 's different business units so a little bit on that and then we can jump into the cool work that you guys are doing with service now so chenega it starts with the chenega people right so we're an Alaskan native Village Corporation we're the largest Alaskan native Village Corporation and the chenega people are a tribe that lives in Prince William sound and chega itself as a as an ongoing business has four main units in the government sector we have the military and intelligence unit um we have the environmental health and Facilities unit and then we have our security unit and then the unit I represent is our Professional Services which is the youngest and smallest group and may not surprise you we're the folks that are generating a lot of new Innovations in the federal space doesn't surprise me at all I know it's that you and I have talked about previously so look your role covers a a broad range of responsibilities and I feel like on a different day we could do a different episode more geared towards our Ai and action series but for the purpose of of service now can you give us some insight into the work you and your team are doing with your your various customers in the public sector how you're helping them benefit from service now and its capabilities in automating processes and just help help us understand what it's like to be part of this service now group within your particular strategic Services business unit it's not a surprise that service now is growing dramatically in the federal space a a long while back we had vet kundra came forward and with his Cloud first ideas the government's been on a long path towards realizing some of the ideas he introduced to us more than a decade ago and part of that is adopt these platforms that can help the men and women that are chasing the mission at these various agencies optimize what it is that they do and if you think about it and you look at service now's Mission itself it aligns very well with what you know we're trying to do in government right we're trying to help the citizenry we're trying to optimize the way we do business we're trying to do a better job helping the employees who are trying to chase that mission and service now uh is integral in each one of those areas um and so it's pretty exciting to have come from the government and then come back and help people who I understand how their motivation is Adopt a platform like this that kind of clears away the noise of the custom government developed apps or the C products that are one off that have come before and it clears away a lot of that Tech debt that is just it spreads so widely throughout the federal government and probably every large organization you can think of how do we do it or I could talk about it in lots of different ways but what I'm interested in is that connection between people right between the folks that I bring on for chiga to help our federal customers they need to be a good match for the customers within the federal space because it's a unique challenge right it's constantly being asked to do more with less very few people have the ability to make the buying decision uh so many of the people that you encounter in this space don't feel empowered to to say yes to anything and also along the way there's tons of people who can say no who aren't really invested in what it is that you're doing and service now is a tremendous platform for us in that regard because it breaks down those barriers you're not Reinventing the wheel every time you deploy service now you're helping the the customer understand what are the some of the best practices what are the things that we've learned already how can we optimize what it is that you're doing and then teach and and Coach culture change around that so that they can meet their mission you and I were talking about our current largest customer in in the service now practice we went from the idea it was what January 1st and we we went from that idea to 6 months later having an atto and four modules deployed into production and that you could never do that with a different [Music] platform you are listening to the oldest podcast when you're looking to scale your team or if you are interested in showcasing your company in a future episode reach out today or if you're in the market for a new role visit our website to view open positions www.al this.com we obviously create a lot of content for diservice now community and one of the things we're trying to put the spotlight on is the tremendous opportunity for service now professionals that exists within the public sector government space because for the reasons you mentioned it it's right for disruption it needs to catch up and service now is is leading the way we're giving organizations of all shapes and so is the opportunity to advance their capabilities and automate a lot of processes so I'm so glad that you touched on it one of the other things that has always stood out whenever you and I talk or we we speak to different groups within cha is the working environment than the culture and I know culture has talked about a lot and people want to showcase it but there's a real impression and there's a real feedback from everyone who's involved in chenega at any level that it's an incredibly fun and enjoyable place to work in no small part due to leaders like yourself but we we'll park that for another day but I want I I do want to get your take on that because it it very much stands out to oser Alis the the environment that CH get the feedback from the people so I want to get your take on why that is what's your view on it what you do to contribute to it and what you would tell potential future Chena employees about the environment you know you got me thinking about it when we were talking about it earlier and I was just trying to figure out and I got to believe that it comes from the elders the board of directors they're all members of the Chena tribe they came down to Virginia this past year and shared their vision for where the corporation's going how we can play a part and we have this saying as many companies do right Extraordinary People exceptional performance I I'm certainly not extraordinary but I get the I got the feeling from our leadership that exceptional performance is something that each and every one of them takes to heart and it's interesting this not everyone's an Alaskan native right I'm not Alaskan native and in the senior leadership of Professional Services where you look across the corporation our tenure is way out of way off the charts in terms of how long leadership is staying in the corporation and I think that has something to do with it people see a future within the organization and there's something about the culture of of being a double bottom line company where we're working to support a village and the the the children and the men and women of the Chena tribe benefit directly from what it is that we're doing so maybe there's something there but it's a fantastic place to work I'll tell you that yeah there's definitely something there because it it it's unlike many of the businesses out there there's a cool backstory and it relates to something that people can get behind but all of that wouldn't really matter if the people dayto day were not good people to work with which I can attest that they absolutely are which which leads nicely into what I wanted to talk to you about next which is looking ahead the year ahead particularly in your business unit where you're working on a lot of the more exciting and new stuff focusing on service now specifically what are some of the things that you're excited to see come to fluish whether it be expansion of the platform within existing customers or some potential proposals out there looking at the opportunity for service now what are you hoping to to accomplish in the next year and what are you looking forward to there's a couple of things I I think that it's interesting to see the trend right so service now we're coming at it from a service management perspective right the our heritage in this space is itsm and and understanding how to identify and predict issues and that will affect your service delivery and combat them so that you can do it in a sustainable way so all really core right so we're going to continue to see growth in itam and itom and all the things that are traditionally part of itsm but the thing that's really interesting is this drive towards customer centricity and understanding our customer and so that's going to be big across all of our customers today whether we start in security or in it M we're branching out and thinking of employees Within These Federal branches as customers much the same way our federal clients think of the American citizenry as their customers uh and so we're approaching the service now deployments and implementations in those agencies with a customer Centric point of view so that's one thing and I think that's going to drive you've mentioned Ai and you guys are Le leaders in the AI thinking and thought space generative AI is going to play a big role in how agencies use service now CH not only chatbots but Predictive Analytics threat hunting all those things are things that I see that we're going to be investing more time and energy in we're also really interested in using that kind of technology to help our analysts because not only are we implementers but we've got folks sitting in front of the screen using service now as part of their day-to-day job and Predictive Analytics generative AI those are all tools that are going to help the analysts do a better job addressing the issues predicting them maybe combating them before they begin looking at those patterns that are hard for humans to see those are areas that we're really interested in thank you for that Paul and and obviously the AI topic is something that you and I intend on covering in a different episode um for AI in action but I want to finish on getting your take and I suppose a message to our service now audience as to why they should be looking towards the the public sector for career advancement because you and I speak about it frequently it's a niche within a niche but there's tremendous opportunity due to the various government agencies who who need to bring their technology forward so when you're speaking to potential candidates and particularly those who are coming from maybe other Industries and other sectors what is it that you would tell them about why they should be looking here within this space um for career advancement and career opportunities as my background shows it's been storyed and I've done my fair share of of time on my own and many of the folks that I've interviewed through you guys and other channels in the service now space are really looking at this as a gig economy kind of thing I'm going to move from one gig to the next and that's okay and that's great for a lot of people but it can be exhausting and I'm not sure you get the benefit of being at a place long enough so that you can understand all of the things that are affecting your ability to be good service now developer um implementer um partner to your customer uh and so I would want you to think about the federal space and chiga in particular because we don't think of you as just a an implementor we think of you as a member of the Chena family right we're actually working hard to train folks as I'm a big proponent of scaled agile and to be a good member of an agile team is to be a cross functional player somebody with t-shaped skills both wide and deep and it's hard to get the Deep skills if you're bouncing from gig to Gig and what we offer is a longer term engagement where you can develop a broad set of skills across the federal landscape is quite diverse right agencies are doing a whole host of different things you can get both Broad and deep experience working with us well thank you so much for coming on and talking to us today we really appreciate it as I said pleas looking for we've been looking forward to doing this for quite some time now and yeah just glad to get your take on chenega the opportunity your own journey and I'm sure there's going to be a lot more that we can cover in the next episode for AO and action but also getting you back on the show again down the road for the service now series cha as I know from forand knowledge is is an incredible place to work so people listening who are in the service now Community there's a there's a great opportunity so Paul we wish you the team and everyone at chenega the best of luck in the year ahead and look forward to having you back on the show again in the near future thanks again [Music] JP thanks for listening to this episode of the alest podcast if you enjoyed today's episode don't forget to subscribe rate and review we are available on Apple podcast Spotify and any Android podcast of choice you can also head over to our website www.al this.com to listen to more podcasts view our open rolles and stay up toate with industry news thanks for listening and stay tuned for more great episodes coming very [Music] soon