How did it get to where I am today? I mean, hard work, but also education. I think that from an early part of my childhood, my parents definitely emphasized academics. Um, where did I How did I get there? But when I was in high school, I decided I want to go to West Point and whether I had gotten it or not, I did get in. But it changed how I approached my teenage years Like I went from being an A B student to straight A's. I went from being in the student body to being in the student government. I went from being on the track. Team captain attracted him. I went from being a member of my community, to volunteering, to help others in my community so that it's sort of shaped me to become a holistic person because I wanted to get in the West Point. The reality is I didn't realize that what I was doing was becoming a better person. I guess the you know, the other critical thing that contributed was certainly my experience at West Point in Ranger school and, um in the military having an opportunity to lead others at a very early age in terms of what incidents and experience to shape my career path. When I left the military, I definitely wanted to go into sales. I think that every company sells a product or service. I know you guys air connecting with nonprofits as well. Even a nonprofit is selling a service that they do, and they want donor to contribute to that charity or or cause s. So I thought I'll just start off in sales or sales and marketing and then see where my career takes me from there. I started off working for J and J and selling surgical instruments, and I wasn't great at it. I don't want to say I was bad at it. I'll just say I wasn't good at it. I got a call from a headhunter said, Do you want to sell software? I said no. They said, Well, it's mechanical engineering software And so I started there and that I still have ended up in the technology field, not because I'm a techie, quite the opposite. I'm not, but that's what started. I was part of that first dot com. During that time frame, I knocked out my MBA. Um, so, yeah, I went down to a technology and technology sales path, and I always found myself wanting to go to smaller and smaller and smaller companies. You know, I started off with the government, which is the largest employer in the United States, and I went to J and J. And then I went through mid path and I went to a dot com startup, and then my next company was seven people when I showed up. So I was always going to smaller, smaller companies until eventually I became a co founder of one in terms of what inspired me to work on my business idea. It wasn't my idea. And in fact, there's nothing particularly unique about the business. Were a bar a value added reseller or solutions provider if you want our systems integrators and other sexy term people using out there, but we're a bar, we re sell other people's stuff, and there's 10,000 bars in the United States, so we're not unique from that perspective. I was actually approached by my four co founders to it was their idea to launch this business, and it was, um, because I'm a disabled veteran and in the U. S. Government who we were attempting to sell to women owned small businesses get priority set aside. Minority owned businesses get set aside. Veterans and Dick label veterans are all part of the government's small business program. A lot of people may not realize, but the U. S government everything they buy in the billions and billions and trillions of dollars of stuff they buy every year they want 21. Excuse me. They want 21% of it to go to small businesses. So even if a big company wins the business, they want them to subcontract out to smaller businesses. And that was the idea around thunder cat technology. My call sign in Baghdad was Thundercats six. Hence the name under cat technology.

So we started off selling products that exist in and around the data center. So data storage, networking applications and again we re sold other people's technology. So think about the Netapp or an HP or a Dell or any EMC for servers and storage and then networking. Think about some folks like Riverbed or Juniper or Cisco and then some applications. But mostly we stayed in and around the data center has how the product or service evolved. Over time. We did not pivot like here we are 12 years later, and we still sell products in and around the data center. Um by I would say we're doing significantly more cyber than we were. Even, you know, 68 years ago. There's definitely been more of a focus on our cyber practice. And now, a couple years ago, we made a decision to become Cisco Gold Certified, which is an elite certification as a reseller of Cisco Products and Services. And so that has definitely Robinson now selling more, uh, Cisco. But But there's been no major pivot. I'm sure you have a lot of guests here where things have significantly evolved in terms of who we sell to that has evolved

mhm. My business was we acquired the business from another company that was trying to get out of the products business. They wanted to be in the services business. So we, you know, we got off to a running start. We really did get off to a running start. Obviously, we had, uh, generates, um, capital to get things going. But, you know, I'm not one of these stories where I maxed my credit cards and was working, you know, 18 hours a day, six days a week and had to mortgage my house. I'm not one of those. I can't claim to be that brave. Over the first few months, it was very important for us to, you know, get our first deals in. Because again we started with six or seven employees right off the bat. Now the majority of us were co founders and didn't necessarily need to get paid. But we did have some folks in the back office that we were expected to pay on most of our early sales reps worked on a commission on Lee plan, but things did not change that much. Over the first few months. They changed with growth over the first couple of years. But But again, I'm sure you have Cem Cem. Great hairy stories from other entrepreneurs. But we didn't really struggle out the gate. We've had other challenges over the years.