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The path that takes you from the start of your career to its eventual peak isn’t always a straight line.
This is precisely what our CEO Earl Foote talked about with host Jake Loveland on the Tenaciously Human Leaders podcast. Check out the full episode to hear each lesson Earl learned in his process of becoming a leader in the Utah business community.
To start the discussion, Earl shared some of his background. Contrary to what you might assume, Earl didn’t begin his education or career focusing on technology; for a time, he was more interested in artistic pursuits.
“I started my journey as a teenager as a little more of an artist, and focused on architecture,” says Earl.
An avid learner, Earl concurrently took college courses while in high school, studying to eventually become an architect. During this time he applied to a few different jobs listed in the classifieds and eventually began working with engineering firms.
While this wasn’t precisely the sort of work Earl was looking to engage with, it was during this time that he first began getting involved with business technology. With a hobbyist’s proclivity for the technical side of things, Earl was uniquely positioned in these businesses to help them migrate to more modern, digital platforms.
He helped the engineering firms he worked for pivot to digital solutions like AutoCAD. At the same time, his brother was pursuing a formal education in IT. Earl began borrowing his brother’s books and materials, learning more about IT in his off-hours, and qualifying for certifications.
Not long after that, Earl began his new career when he and his brother started PCNirvana which later became Nexus IT…
In 1998, Earl established his first company in the IT space. They mainly handled business-to-business contract IT services and offered some ad-hoc support for individual consumers.
However, it wasn’t long until he saw the writing on the wall. In 2004, Earl refocused his company to provide only fully managed, outsourced IT support, well ahead of the upcoming boom in managed services.
“And that’s been the space we’ve been in since,” says Earl.
Earl credits his upbringing and his parents’ influence as a key factor in where he is today. He and his siblings were expected to apply themselves, learn, and be independent by the time they reached adulthood.
“It wasn’t always easy, but I’m grateful for the way I grew up,” says Earl.
It was the nature of his childhood and the influence of his parents that pushed Earl to be where he is today. By the time he was old enough to start a family, Earl knew he wanted to be able to provide for them—the most direct way to do so was to build successful, lasting businesses. This is the core of his entrepreneurial spirit.
“I’ve always had an innate desire to be a self-made person,” says Earl.
Make sure to listen to the full episode of Tenaciously Human Leaders to discover more about Earl’s journey and the many lessons he’s learned so far.