It’s true that not all super heroes wear capes, nor do they all look like Jason Momoa, for that matter. Saving the day in the business world rarely entails stopping a large boulder from hitting a bus, or preventing aliens from taking control of the world. No, some of the most impactful acts in real life aren’t likely to draw a crowd, or involve something getting blown to bits.
Still, Ron Nylen can take credit for diffusing a critical situation that pushed his employer, Toshiba America Business Solutions (TABS), to the brink of losing its largest customer. Nylen, who today serves as TABS’ manager, solutions technical support, answered the distress signal many moons ago after one of the manufacturer’s MFPs was blamed for an intermittent network scanning issue that had become an urgent and costly problem, jeopardizing the business relationship.
With the stakes high and armed with his IT acumen, Nylen pounced and spent many hours reviewing thousands of frames of captured network traffic to the lowest level of detail. The true culprit? He was able to isolate the exact communication from the customer’s DNS server that was causing the issue by cycling an inaccurate response every 17 times.
While not a scene repeatedly played out in a Marvel adventure, Nylen’s discovery enabled the client’s sheepish IT department to rectify the situation, thus resolving the issue and saving the relationship from falling into the wrong hands (in this case, another service provider).
“It was the ultimate test of my skills, and taught me if you have the skill to locate them, the technical facts will speak for themselves, stronger than any countering bluster or speculation, even if the odds are stacked heavily against you,” said Nylen, a 2023 ENX Magazine Difference Maker. “As they say in the packet capture community, ‘The packets don’t lie.’”
Path Forward
A longtime employee of TABS, Nylen’s initial focus was network engineering. But when the OEM launched its first network device and created a connectivity technical support position to maintain it, Nylen seemed an optimal fit. A good friend at TABS recommended Nylen for the gig, and it’s provided a fulfilling career.
One of the best parts of Nylen’s work is the ability to empower his team to do its finest work. The opportunity to thrive can frequently be stifled, however, and often unintentionally.
“By purposefully establishing a space where new ideas and processes are encouraged and appreciated, our individual creativity has bloomed, and has become greater than the sum of its parts,” he noted. “It’s very satisfying to hear teammates express they are accomplishing some of the best work of their career.”
Nylen credits his penchant for prioritizing the many demands on his time and attention, and addressing them through tenacious attention to detail, as being key to his value proposition. Distractions can oftentimes make it a challenge, thus maintaining focus and vision can make an impact.
Nylen’s road to becoming an IT savant enabled him to cross paths with a number of brilliant minds and key influencers, perhaps none more important than Dean McKerrow. It was McKerrow who taught Nylen the value of keen attention to detail, and not being hesitant in calling out technical facts, no matter how unpopular.
“And by his example, [McKerrow] demonstrated a work ethic many have attempted to follow but have rarely matched,” he added.
Sky’s the Limit
The last two years have provided some watershed moments for Nylen and Co. The idea behind Elevate Sky Knowledge, an information repository and case management tool, arose from one-on-one chat. The AI-powered search tool—one solution in the overall Elevate Sky hub—enables service managers, help desks and field techs to resolve support issues quickly. Watching it grow from concept to reality proved exciting for Nylen and his team.
The crowning achievement, however, may have been this year’s LEAD Beyond conference in Las Vegas. “The scale overshadowed anything we had supported in the years previous, so every member of the team had to dig deep to fulfill our responsibilities, and it was an impressive success that we’re very proud to be a part of,” Nylen said.
Much of the coming year will be focused on championing Toshiba’s Elevate Sky Services, the integrated cloud services infrastructure. But Nylen notes there are some surprises the company has in process.
Nylen believes the secret to self-improvement lies in maintaining perspective about one’s accomplishments and standing within an organization. “Getting stuck in an auto-pilot routine can lead to missing insights, so taking time to regularly recharge physically, mentally, and creatively is critical to fostering a fresh perspective,” he added.
Outside of the office, it’s family, friends, dogs and outdoor activities that serve to recharge Nylen’s positivity and creativity. And for Nylen, it doesn’t get any better than surfing. Even under less-than-optimal conditions, he exits the water in a more positive frame of mind.
“Even after surfing for decades, I still learn from the ocean—how insignificant we are, how to go with the flow, and how to be present in changing conditions—that helps to stay grounded,” he said.
