[Music]
thanks for
tuning in to the milwaukee business room
podcast i'm reporter nick williams
joining us today is genesis 10 ceo
harley littmann
and also dev 10 client director jennifer
turnquist
thank you both for joining us thank you
for having us
yes you're welcome thank you for having
us and for those who
don't know what uh dev10 is um
harley and and jennifer can you please
explain to our listeners
what this what this program is jennifer
go ahead
sure so you know nick devtown is a
program
that we created specifically to address
the talent shortages
in i.t as we all know the supply and
demand
issues make it very difficult for
employers to fill
open technical positions so what we're
doing is we're taking a different
approach
non-traditional approach by identifying
candidates
that maybe didn't come from those
traditional paths um putting them
through a very rigorous selection
process that produces a really high
quality well-rounded individual
and then putting them through specific
training depending on what the
technology is
um deploying them with our clients and
giving them ongoing coaching and
mentoring
so we're truly creating new talent uh
talent that
companies wouldn't find on their own
because they didn't exist prior to our
program
so harley what made milwaukee
an ideal location for the training
program
well milwaukee is a major tech hub
milwaukee spends 9 million dollars
on technology and has 75 000 people
working in technology related areas
so milwaukee is an important place on
the map of the united states to
have a place where we can grow our dev
10
operation and we've had a presence we've
had an office and we've been doing
business in milwaukee
ever since we started as a company 20
years ago
so we've always felt that the milwaukee
office and the milwaukee location and
the clients here
were interested in i.t talent
and especially in getting new talent as
you heard from jennifer
and the context of that is after the
great recession
training was basically eliminated across
the country
so that's partly what created this void
or this gap if you will
to train young talent out of college and
now
companies are looking for this and
they're finding that they can't find
people with java
and a year experience or people with
python and
two years experience it's just few and
far between
so we're training these people for
companies
to be able to fill that gap so we talk
about the
training during the recession and then
talk about demand
during the pandemic right we saw how
much
digital transformation was accelerated
during a pandemic
so it from your perspective jennifer and
harley how has a pandemic increased
demand for these type of tech
professionals well technology had to
take over
technology helped save the country by
being able to
improve automation take a look at amazon
it's just one example
how they stepped in and with accelerated
efficient and effective automation
was able to get products out to people
overnight which was desperately needed
across the country to the point that
through the pandemic
the need for just let's say uh
software developers rose by over three
percent
it didn't decline it increased
and just uh today or yesterday i believe
u.s uh news and world released their you
know top jobs to have in 2021
and software developers number two last
year it was number one
and i believe the year before that it
was number one so it seemed like that's
the
most in-demand job to have in the
country right now
um so i guess what does that mean for
the number of people who are trying to
get into the program
are you seeing an increase for
people wanting to become software
developers and
looking for training and maybe even
employers
asking you for help for for for
upselling their people
we are i'd like to get jennifer's input
on that but what i would just add to
that
is there's a huge demand for a whole
variety of skills within it
uh clearly the hot areas so the ones
that
people tend to know about the cloud
everybody's bringing
everything and moving everything to the
cloud you also have
ai of course artificial intelligence
which is
going to be our future and and then you
have
automation where everything is getting
automated uh
more quickly uh and that's happening
dramatically actually
i know jennifer do you have anything you
may want to yeah you know the other
thing
the other thing that i would add is if
through the pandemic we saw
an increase in the number of career
pivoters
coming into the dev 10 program so people
that had a completely different career
in some cases it was directly impacted
by coveted and they had to kind of
rewrite their story
and so they find a program like dev10
and it gives them a new
opportunity for a new pass and those are
really exciting candidates for us
because they bring a completely
different diverse background
their life experience is very different
than perhaps a college student
coming out of an engineering program so
so we saw a definite increase in that
over the past year and else i want to
ask you this
i'm told genesis is looking to increase
its workforce in the milwaukee region
can you share more details about this
yeah we're hoping to just about double
we're now
on or about 150 and our goal is to get
to 300.
and this in 2021
and what positions are you looking to
fill here
uh jennifer i'll defer to you she's got
boots on the ground
right of that 300 we're looking to have
you know well over one-third of that be
dedicated to dev ten
and then the balance of that be
dedicated to those more experienced
hires you know as harley mentioned
genesis 10 has had a presence in the
milwaukee market for
since the company was started um so
we'll continue to grow
those more experienced positions that
people need help with as well
um dev 10 is a nice blending of we can
start with that younger talent but
sometimes they need somebody with a
little more experience
so we can bring that to the table as
well nick just to give you one example
of the demand for every six
jobs in java there's only one candidate
one person available
and for net another skill set is
actually for every 10 jobs
out there there's only one person
available
so there's a big need so for people who
are looking to grow
and or change their career path uh we'll
move into something new
this would be really a a an important
opportunity for all people
because there's such a huge demand in
fact there was a recent survey
that said that 77 of all companies said
that technology is going to be the
primary factor in their ability to meet
their
business goals this year so that just
says everything
i think we've heard we've all heard this
before that every company
is a tank company now
whether you're banking or or
shipping or whatever it's retail
you're a tech company yeah um i guess
what is it
for for you um the opportunity
in 2021 with all this upskilling that
needs to happen
and restart that needs to happen are you
just projecting for
for for genesis 10 just um a a
historic year or just a a year of
a lot of growth well what we're finding
is that especially due to coven
that a lot of companies felt that their
disaster recovery plans
didn't really work out well so it's
lessons learned
and they're looking at ways of
addressing
uh the the mistakes and the challenges
that covet caused
and so what one could do with that is do
work
outside the office and do work in
a remote area so there we have seven
locations like that called delivery
centers where we do work
only in the united states and we only
employ americans here
people who are legally allowed to work
so this way
it does many things one you focus on
de-risk
when you have concentration work which
most companies
have most of their it work in their
essential headquarters or location
so that's a risk like in anything in
life putting a lot of eggs in one basket
as we all know
can lead to risk if you have an act of
war
terrorism uh employee sabotage
or another pandemic or such so
the notion of diversifying your work
through various locations that are
secure
around the country is getting a lot of
attention and we have that to offer
it also mitigates risk hr risk and
co-employment risk
someone trips and falls claims sexual
harassment
or if you have someone who's working for
a long period of time
you could have the court say they're
really an employee of the main
end user of the services so when when
those people do work at a remote
location in our
in our location they don't have that
risk because
we're the ones managing the work it's
our people there
so because of co-employment risk or hr
risk
that's another reason why they're
looking to do work outside
their central location and to do it
remotely in different places around the
united states
through various delivery centers as
they're called
harley you said something when i when i
asked you why milwaukee was an ideal
location he said milwaukee is a
is a tech hub that is something that the
city is trying to brand
they've created the milwaukee tech cup
coalition um
but whenever there's a ranking that
comes out milwaukee always tends to fall
towards the bottom
i guess i guess you break it against
chicago and minneapolis
um in detroit you try to compare it to
california
but for you to say that that milwaukee
is a tech hub
i'm sure people listening will will feel
encouraged by that
because they're trying so hard uh to
make it happen
for you i'm sure you've seen this across
the country
what makes a successful hub for a city i
mean you
you put the numbers there's 75 000 also
checklist workers in milwaukee
but in order for a company to to you
you to put that brown what does it have
to have in place
is are you looking at the number of
companies and
workers or it's the growth is it the
opportunity
it's a great question nick and i'd like
to get what jennifer's opinion on that
too but what i would say is
we have the people we have the resources
the challenge we have
and the milwaukee tech hub is working
with us uh collaboratively on this
is is getting to uh milwaukee's
companies
uh you know it's never easy uh
you have companies that are just used to
doing it the same way and
resistant to change um you know
everybody's selling to them
so they have their guardians at the gate
so when you try to make an appointment
to meet with the cio you find that
you even remotely you can't even do that
becomes very difficult so i i think the
biggest challenge we have is that the
word is not
out i think if companies were to hear
what we have to say
and meet us as jennifer knows
when jennifer meets with a company in
milwaukee her success rate is extremely
high
because once they get to see what we
have to offer and then they do their due
diligence and drill down
they tend to be pretty impressed and
that's why our success is so high
when we get an opportunity to uh
make our presentation but that's the
challenge is getting companies to meet
with us
to answer your question that i think i
see that as the only challenge
if we had more entree into companies in
milwaukee
uh we would meet our goals and exceed
that
uh pretty handily the challenge is
getting those companies to meet with us
that would be my view
yeah and a few things that i'll add to
that so harley's right i mean
i will be honest at the end of the day
this program solves a problem
almost all of our customers have but it
solves it in a different
way and change is difficult so they have
to understand how it works they have to
understand the timing of it
um so to harley's point if we get to the
right people where there's pain
because they can't feel their positions
and they're not able to grow their teams
frankly sometimes it's just
managing the attrition that they're
trying to to keep up with
this problem this this program helps
them with that
the other thing that i wanted to add is
the talent is
there we have been incredibly impressed
with the candidates that have come into
our program
and and with the graduates so there are
some
really impressive people in the
milwaukee community that just need
different skills
they have all the other elements to it
if i could jump into that jennifer
because again going back to a good
question nick saying that
i didn't see those surveys but if
milwaukee um is not doing as well as
other
places and you have to compare pound to
pound right between milwaukee and
chicago chicago's bigger so it's a
distorted picture
but i milwaukee has a really strong
employee base
and and well educated and a very strong
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labor market what i mean by that is
these are people who
want to work have a good work ethic
we've gotten
really uh very positive signals all the
way around
in our experience in milwaukee more than
other cities which we will not mention
so that's a comparison i'm not just
saying that because we're speaking to
you in milwaukee
that's really the case and just to give
validation to that
when i started genesis 10 i uh
milwaukee was the city i had i did the
most business with
in the first year when i opened up
so uh it was with johnson controls and
johnson wax
um and northwestern mutual uh you know
uh right away uh we found that you know
they were receptive to our message and
we did very well now that was
20 years ago was a while ago so we're
redoubling
our efforts here but uh it has it has
everything that we want
and uh we we it's it's in the right
location
big city bigger cities have other
problems and challenges milwaukee is
kind of like the right fit it's a big
city
but it's not so big where you have
enormous competition where the
infrastructure is so stressed
where everybody's competing for the same
talent walk is a really good marketplace
for us and for there to be huge growth
it's just a question of
getting an opportunity to meet with
potential clients
and i'm sure with people able to work
from anywhere
given remote working and how that's
skyrocketing i'm sure
genesis 10 is going to have a a long
presence
prolonging presence in milwaukee so
harley and jennifer i want to thank you
both for coming on this morning
again uh podcast comes out uh every
friday molecular.com
and uh we'll see you next week
absolutely
