Paving a Path in IT: From Family Business to Industry Leader with Sirinda Glasgow | Episode 001 Part 1

Episode Information Show Notes Paving the Path in IT: From Family Business to Industry Leader with Sirinda “Sindy” Glasgow Host: Manuel Martinez Guest: Sirinda “Sindy” Glasgow Episode Summary: In this inaugural episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Sirinda “Sindy” Glasgow, a seasoned IT professional with deep roots in Las Vegas. Sindy shares her remarkable journey from helping her father’s technology company to becoming a leading figure in the IT infrastructure scene in Las Vegas. Her story is one of perseverance, adaptability, and lifelong learning. Key Topics Covered: – Introduction to Career Downloads and Sirinda Glasgow – Early Life and Education – Entry into IT – Working in the Family Business – Skills and Training – Challenges and Gender Dynamics in IT – Transition to Mirage Resorts – Career Growth and Mentorship – Career Decision to Stay or Leave Actionable Advice: – Stay curious and never stop learning. – Embrace challenges as opportunities for growth. – Build a network of mentors and peers who support your career development. Connect with Us: – Follow Career Downloads at https://www.careerdownloads.com – Join our community on YouTube, X/Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, FaceBook, YouTube Music – Subscribe to our newsletter for updates and exclusive content. Next Episode: Join us next week as we continue our conversation with Sindy and the decisions she made that led to to her current role. Transcription Manuel: Hi. I’m Manny Martinez. Are you looking to level up your career? Then welcome to Career Downloads. Each episode I’m going to hit the refresh button with different guests and dive deep into the journeys of these inspiring professionals. I’ll unpack their educational paths, explore their job histories, and discover the strategies they use to navigate the ever-evolving job landscape. So whether you’re just starting your journey or you’re really looking to make a more strategic move, you’ll be able to gain valuable insights and actionable advice from the diverse minds in the industry. So plug in, download the knowledge, and join me on Career Downloads. All right. So on today’s episode, I have Sirinda known as Sindy Glasgow. And I’m going to be getting additional info about her and her career. So let me give you a quick introduction about Sindy. So I’ve known her for quite a few years now. And I’m pretty sure that if there’s any type of infrastructure, IT software that has been deployed in Las Vegas, there’s a good chance that Sindy has had her hand in either setting it up or getting in touch with the people that have deployed it. So with that, I’d like to introduce Sindy. So welcome. Sirinda: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Manuel: And of course, so I’m really excited to really get to know more about you. So I know we’ve talked before in the past about your career, you know, kind of things that you’ve moved up. We have similar paths. I know if this is the second time that we’ve crossed career paths. Sirinda: Yeah. Manuel: So I just really, I want to start and kind of go back a little bit and understand. I know that you’re born and raised here in Vegas. Sirinda: Not born. Manuel: Oh, not born. Sirinda: We moved here when I was five. Manuel: Okay. Sirinda: So almost. Manuel: Almost so pretty close. Sirinda: Yeah. Manuel: And what made you stay in Vegas all that time? Sirinda: Well, interesting story. My grandparents retired here and bought a little motel. And we would come visit. And when my grandfather passed away, my mom and dad decided to move down here. So it was the two of them and my brother and myself. And we’ve been here ever since the motel. I did live in the motel for a little bit. So that was kind of interesting, you know, childhood playing in the alley and swimming in the hotel or motel swimming pool. And a lot of the lounge performers in Las Vegas, so old school, stayed at my grandma’s motel because it was a weekly rental. And I guess that was kind of a one off. There weren’t as many weekly rentals at the time. Manuel: Right. Sirinda: Yeah. So kind of interesting. I used to watch them all leave for their shows when I was a little kid. Manuel: Nice. That’s interesting. Yeah. So obviously, you continued on, you went to school here, graduated from UNLV, correct? Sirinda: I did not graduate. So that’s interesting. And there are other people in technology that you’re running to that didn’t graduate. It was really hard to find classes for what I was doing at work while I was going to UNLV. So I actually started in IT while I was at UNLV. And I was challenged for finding classes that were relevant to the work I was doing. And little by little, I got busier at work, challenge finding classes. I literally left because I didn’t know what to major in and they weren’t going to let me register until I declared. And I’m like, you don’t have the classes I need for what I want to do. So I didn’t finish. Manuel: Okay. So interesting. So that when I kind of looked, I must have missed up my timeline. So then you actually started working in IT prior to going to college? Sirinda: Just around college. So before that, I worked kind of retail jobs. So I didn’t really work in IT until I started college, but right away. And interesting enough, it was very similar. My dad worked for a technology company and then started his own business. So my first 13 years were working for him. Company was called Computer Business Solutions. They called on some of the hotel casinos here in town, lots of small businesses. In fact, really close to where we’re meeting right now, a couple of his customers, I would deliver terminals, cables. And I did that for, like I said, about 13 years. And I started as a runner, like delivering things. Manuel: Okay. Sirinda: One day I came back from my college classes and my desk had a big toolbox on it. And it had all the equipment to do cabling. So RS232 cabling, pin crimper, soldering iron, if I needed it, like cable stripper, like everything to do the cable connections. Because back then, for those mid-range systems that were proprietary, you’d order these really long cable lengths, you’d hire someone to run them and you’d end up with like a spool of cable at the end. And then they’d turn it over to the tech team to do the ends. And they would come preconfigured. That’s how they would ship to us. But the customer doesn’t want like 50 extra feet under their desk. [Laughter] This is that big, thick coax type cable. Manuel: Right. Sirinda: So they bought me the toolbox to go clean up cabling everywhere I went. And next thing you know, I’m actually doing the installs in the data center. I’m doing the installs of, you know, customer would convert from one system to the next and I’d show up and I’d do all the cabling. Manuel: So is that something your dad obviously at the toolbox had shown up? So do they kind of go through and show you, hey, this is how this works? Sirinda: He showed me quickly how to do that. His company, so he started, when they moved here, he was just delivering Coke for Coca-Cola. And he delivered to a company called NCR, National Cash Register. And they gave him a test. They really liked him. He had delivered for quite a while. And they were looking for people and think about trying to find tech talent when it was so new. So they gave him a test and they hired him as a Programmer. Next thing you know, they made him a Salesman. He’s like million dollar salesman, quite a few years. His manager went to work for a company called MAI Basic Four. My dad followed him. And again, continued to sell very well, not just for NCR, but for Basic Four. And he ended up buying his business from them. They said, how can we promote you? You’re going to need to move to California. He said, let me buy the office, which he did. And around the time I went to work for him, he was selling Basic Four, which was proprietary, like disk platters. I’m really dating myself. [Laughter] So yeah. Well, they started to go out of business. And he had sent me to IBM for RS6000 training. So Basic Four at the end had an AT&T 386 Unix box, not to get super technical, but yeah, it’s what I do. And then IBM’s RS6000, AIX is a Unix-based operating system. I was trained at IBM in Southern California. So then I was installing RS6000s all over the valley. And typically, we’d have point of sale or accounting systems. We had a lot of the title companies here in town, a big company called Las Vegas Auto Parts that was here. That’s their warehouses or their old warehouses close by here. Manuel: Right. Sirinda: Yeah. All types of businesses, some of the nurseries, Star Nursery, which is a local Las Vegas staple. I installed point of sale equipment and it all connected back to an RS6000. So that’s kind of what I did for several years. Manuel: So then, again, not trying to date it, right, but starting back then, there wasn’t, I can’t imagine that there were many females in that industry. So I mean, you were probably like the one. So what was that experience like as you were coming in and you’re like, Hey, I’m here to kind of, you know, clean up your cab...