From Slot Technician to MSP President with Adam Lopez | Ep026

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez interviews Adam Lopez, President of CMIT Solutions Las Vegas, a managed service provider specializing in cybersecurity for small to medium-sized businesses. Adam shares his fascinating career path that began without a formal tech background. Starting as a slot machine technician at Las Vegas casinos, he developed an interest in the databases behind gaming systems. Through curiosity and initiative, Adam built project management skills that propelled him through increasingly senior roles. Episode Highlights: Adam’s early tech experiences, from building circuit boards to a shocking lesson about electricity How he transitioned from hospitality management to technology through casino work The development of his natural project management abilities His career-changing experience working on cruise ships, which took him to all seven continents Navigating transitions between operations and vendor roles in technology Challenges of managing technical teams and handling workplace dynamics Making the leap from corporate roles to business ownership Practical advice on taking strategic risks and recognizing when to make career moves Adam’s journey demonstrates that career growth often requires stepping outside your comfort zone—sometimes even taking a step back to ultimately move forward. His story offers valuable insights for technology professionals at any stage of their careers. Whether you’re just starting in technology or looking to advance to leadership roles, Adam’s practical wisdom on building transferable skills, managing teams, and navigating the industry will help you chart your own successful path. Listen to learn how being open to unexpected opportunities and having the courage to take calculated risks can lead to a fulfilling technology career. #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ProjectManagement #CyberSecurity Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone. So my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career and how they’ve managed it over time to really be able to uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Adam Lopez and I had met him at a networking event. So this was for SIM, so the Society of Information Managers. We had connected on LinkedIn. I had seen his kind of his career path and found a lot of interest in kind of the trajectory that he had. So I asked him to come on and he more than graciously accepted. So with that I’ll introduce Adam. Adam: Hey thanks for having me, Manuel. Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and kind of sharing your career trajectory. Adam: Absolutely. Manuel: So what I’ve been doing with my guests is if you just kind of give us a brief summary, just kind of tell us what your current position is and kind of some of the roles and responsibilities. Adam: Yeah, sure. So currently I am the president of CMIT Solutions. We are a MSP cybersecurity company. So we predominantly do it in the cybersecurity space, but we also do MSP, which is your help desk for small to medium-sized businesses. Typically our market is small to medium-sized businesses, but we also do government as well, as well as enterprise, you know, just depending on the level. We are a franchise that’s been around since the 80s. Kind of funny story about the franchise. CMIT used to stand for Computer Moms in Informational Technology. So it was a mom that started the business and she used to go around and fix people’s computers. And so when I heard about the story, I love the story. I love the everything about that. And I was like, how do I get involved? So now, you know, now I am the president here in Las Vegas and it’s been great. You know, I work with a lot of the same people you guys work with as well, as well as I work, you know, with the casinos in town, a lot of the small to medium-sized businesses that just don’t have that understanding of what cybersecurity is. Like, you know, most small to medium-sized businesses don’t understand they need it until they’re breached, right? Kind of scenario. So those are the kind of things that we do. And then I have a team here of system administrators, network engineers, technicians, help desks that are locally here that help support me in my business. So most of the time, you know, it’s a lot of going around to understand what businesses are needing, keeping a pulse on what’s going on in cyber because it’s changing daily, if not hourly. And then also, you know, managing a team. You know, I have a huge team here that I need to make sure that, hey, they have things under control that they’re running on. I fully trust my team. I’m very happy that I have a good team. But again, to get to that point did take some time. Manuel: And now, just to kind of work our way up to that. So if you just kind of give me a brief summary of kind of where you grew up and eventually what kind of got you interested in technology. Like everybody has a different point in time that kind of where that bug or that desire to kind of learn more started. So what was your introduction? Adam: Yeah. So, you know, didn’t come from a tech background. My father was a welder. Mom was a home caretaker for elderly people. So didn’t have a lot of tech. So my first tech thing was a Super Nintendo that I bought myself. I had to work for it and pay for myself. And then I just kind of got involved with it. I saw, you know, started some cool stuff around the house, like building some these little circuit boards that you used to make. And you used to make lights go bright and dim and stuff like that. You remember those? And then my famous story is that back in the old days, when I was a kid, they had cordless phones. Remember the ones they pull out? So I had this, I got one from the thrift store because back then they were expensive. So we got one from the thrift store, you know, being thrifty as we were. And I’m going to make this thing work. So, you know, I started taking it apart. And it’s always taking it apart. It’s the easy part, right? Putting it together. So I’m taking this thing apart and not knowing nothing about electricity. I’m like, oh, I need to splice this wire. And so instead of using my finger, which I didn’t, I used my teeth with 120 volts plugged into the wall. And, and, you know, I learned that way about electricity, but also I learned, it was kind of funny. That’s how I got my, you know, kind of, it excited me. I was like, technology is this cool kind of scenario. So it’s kind of drove me. So I’ve always had that on my mind kind of scenario, what I wanted to do. I went to school for something totally different. I went to school for hospitality management at Las at UNLV, which is the feeder part. So I grew up in San Diego, you know, went to a feeder school out there called Mesa, Mesa Junior College. So, you know, got my two year associates there in hotel management. And I’m like, what do I do? You know, UNLV has one of the best hotel programs in the nation applied. I got in, I’m like, wow, that’s cool. So started that journey through UNLV. You know, not to say I put tech aside. It was just like, you know, in my day, tech wasn’t big. This was very early, you know, of the 2000s before Y2K, all that stuff. So tech wasn’t a huge thing back then. So the emphasis was more like, hey, you got to know about tech because, you know, if you’re gonna be a hotel manager, you need to know that we have terminals that people need to check in on. We have credit card machines, stuff like that. But it wasn’t the emphasis. It wasn’t the bread and butter of the career. So, you know, I kept that in mind and said, okay, how do I leverage this? So funny enough, I graduated. What do I do? I got a part-time job at a casino working as a technician. So I kind of said, I want to work on the slot machines to make sure they work correctly. So what we do, go through there, clean them out. You know, if they were broken, if they didn’t accept bills, we’d come in there, clean them out, make sure they work kind of scenario. So I worked for a small casino here in town, eventually led me to Caesars Palace here in Las Vegas, which was a fun job that I got to work at. But in this technology realm, but I noticed that I said, hey, I thought to myself like, okay, these slot machines are great. They’re built on really old Linux technology. Like this career doesn’t seem like it’s going to go anywhere. Like, you know, I don’t know. I don’t see the future. So I started understanding, okay, all these slot machines feed into a centralized database. Now this database is huge, right? It collects all the data for all the slot machine. Every time you put a dollar in, every time you put your card in, all that data and analytics then kind of compresses. And then they create the marketing programs off it. Like I need to get in there. So I started reverse engineering and said, okay, well now I know this job will probably not be here forever because technology will take that over. So where’s that next leap? And I started tracing that back and says, the database is where I need to be. So I started learning about databases. So on my own, just trying to say, hey, what does all this stuff does? So it’s a very simple SQL database, right? That collects all the data. And then they use report generators to report the stuff out. Nothing super complex. So, and again, you know, my background, not super technical, right? I grew up through more of the project management, project delivery role and the product delivery role rather than the technical hands-on keyboard. What I knew I was good at...