Anthony Lopez - Vice President of IT at Fastaff

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Hello, my friends. Today we are talking to Anthony, the VP of IT at Fastaff, and we discuss the technology that powers the travel nursing industry, leveraging your strengths as a company, and working together with partners through mergers. We also discuss how to manage your time so you have margin in your schedule for when unexpected events arise. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO Podcast. Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:30) This is the Modern CTO podcast. So what was the technology scene like when you were a kid in Denver?

(Anthony at 00:00:46) Technology scene, yeah. So the Atari was one of the big games. Now it's kind of retro popular now. My son enjoys some of the old video games that came out. But really, from a computer standpoint, one of my first computers was an 8088 IBM PC DOS 1.0. But yeah, I was very fascinated at a young age, and it really kind of set the path for me. It was that or being a marine biologist—technology or being a biologist.

(Anthony at 00:01:26) So looking forward from a career standpoint, I thought it'd be a bit more lucrative to take the technology path, but very interested, and it continues to be, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:38) The narwhal is my daughter's favorite aquatic animal. It's the unicorn of the sea.

(Anthony at 00:01:45) It is the unicorn of the sea. Yeah, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:49) So you chose this path of technology. Did you start working right out of high school? Did you do some college? What was your first job like?

(Anthony at 00:01:57) Yeah, so it was a position with a company here in Denver that specialized in collections, custom collections of information. Beginning at that company, IHS Engineering at that time, kind of went through the evolution of technology. And this was going back to when 16-millimeter film and fiche were kind of the mediums and the capability that allowed for data, documents, hard copy to be in a form that was easier to manage, easier to reference. And so with that particular position, I was a full-time student and working at IHS and really getting a career path going in both ways. Finished college and then continued just working there at IHS Engineering through a series of promotions and acquisition activities, was able to kind of expand my scope and role there in the organization and then making the jump from microfilm and microfiche into electronic data capture using a technology that was built in-house at the time.

(Anthony at 00:03:14) It's proprietary to get this digitized, get it into more contemporary medium at the time, which was CD-ROM, and from there, DVD as the collections kind of grew.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:26) And I saw you spent some time at RE/MAX at the same time that I was doing real estate software, and so I was like, that is so cool. What were you working on at RE/MAX?

(Anthony at 00:03:36) Yeah, so RE/MAX was a fantastic company, great culture. Dave and Gail Liniger, just amazing people, very entrepreneurial feel as large as that organization was. My role there was to lead technology and information systems for the organization. Projects included the integration of some of the master franchisees and their technology using EDI to collect information.

(Anthony at 00:04:05) So World Headquarters doesn't sell real estate. They sell franchises. And so in that particular role, it was, how do we get in aggregate centralized data into the organization where it kind of fed systematically up through to headquarters? And so, very interesting and exciting stint there with RE/MAX International. Was responsible for supporting the e-business team as well with the deployment of a portal and an extranet that was used for our membership to interact and take advantage of services and education, training, et cetera, around real estate franchising that was supporting about 60,000 users at that time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:54) The real estate business is a very interesting one because, like you said, at the very top, they're selling franchises. The first time that I walked in, we're doing some work with Realty. And I walked into their headquarters in New Jersey, and it's this giant circle, and there's all of these different—you see the logos. You see the Coldwell Bankers or the Better Homes and Gardens. It's like all their business unit logos.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:18) And for a moment, I just realized—this was one of my first realizations. This was about ten, maybe ten, fifteen years ago—about how markets worked. It really opened up my mind to understand how venture capital works, how private equity works, how things get consolidated. And I think that's important. If you know the full spectrum of the market and you know the goals, you can plan better.

(Anthony at 00:05:44) Mhmm. Yeah, that's absolutely right. There are just learning within the learning as it relates to the industry, and real estate was no exception to that. Healthcare staffing certainly is not an exception to that. It's a very interesting industry in that, yeah, there's quite a bit going on. Just like the old telecom boom days where there was a number of different companies out there, through time, consolidation, mergers occurred for various and sundry reasons. It certainly is a key part of, I think, any industry. And certainly we're seeing some of that here in the staffing business for sure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:26) How did you get into that? I think—did you go from RE/MAX directly there, or did you have something in between?

(Anthony at 00:06:31) I did. So I left RE/MAX at the time of the Great Recession. Things were really contracting. Had an opportunity present itself to me to kind of switch industries where one of the—at the time, the CFO that I'd worked with at RE/MAX had left a couple of years prior—had an opportunity to lead an IT organization for this company that presented some interesting challenges for me that really kind of revived, I think, some interest and curiosity in different areas of IT for me that really intrigued me. And then healthcare staffing, what we do, why we do it.

(Anthony at 00:07:13) It has an impact that goes beyond the day-to-day duties of any technologist in your organization or anybody in the organization, for that matter. What we do is we help to find those high-acuity nurses that will go bedside and travel within a matter of hours to help improve, help save lives, and really impact the health and well-being of our folks across the US. So it had that intrigue to me beyond even technology, like doing something to help enable the industry that would better support humanity.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:48) I like that. And you were able to find parallels in your experience that prepared you for this.

(Anthony at 00:07:55) That's absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the experience that I cultivated over the years, certain aspects of technology translates from one industry to the other. It's universal. But there's just that intrigue in other areas of how can we further exploit, take advantage, create automation, expand what technology can do to move the company forward.

(Anthony at 00:08:17) And again, in our case, it's getting nurses on the ground or bedside as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:25) So you must have been really useful during the whole pandemic.

(Anthony at 00:08:29) Yeah. It was a very interesting time, right? Caught everybody off guard. It was very surprising. You know, and I would say that, leading up to the decision that was even made here at the organization, Fastaff Travel Nursing, to work remote, there was a plan. And so, part of my objective as I joined the company was to assess and really help to build the team and the strength that was needed to carry and grow the business. So I've got a fantastic team that are very experienced, have a lot of talent, very innovative, very passionate about what they do. And so soon after me joining the company, it was really helping to build that team.

(Anthony at 00:09:11) So things have improved. The Great Recession was over. There was more funding for IT and other aspects of the business, so building the team was paramount and important. And so pretty early on after that, we began to assess, how do we enable the business? How do we enable our users to be more productive with the services and technology that we offer? When I started, everybody had a desktop. Everybody had a traditional kind of workstation that folks use. And so you were tethered to your location, physically, your office desk. And there was a decision strategically that we made, is that we want to be independent. We want to be independent of a physical location and that you can perform your job whether you're in the office, at Starbucks, in your home office. And so a lot of the activity that started years ago really helped lead us to the ability to go virtual in a very, very short term.

(Anthony at 00:10:12) And it was literally overnight. And so that was converting everybody to laptops over a period of time, allowing for virtual desktops for those employees that would have their own equipment that would be able to get spun up very quickly. So a lot of those pieces were in place. It really supported—again, it delivered to the overnight transition from the office and operating with several hundred people here in the office with the buzz, with the dynamicness of how we operate, to going virtual. But the equipment was there. The services were there.

(Anthony at 00:10:46) The capabilities that we did around virtualization helped support that. And it was really kind of a proud moment for the team and a point to even celebrate that we were able to support the business, to create the services that would allow for the expansion of the business to be twice the size as it was per year prior. So we doubled in nurses on assignment for the pandemic. It really was kind of a testament to the team's dedication to making sure that we were doing our job in servicing our internal customers as well as our external customers.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:23) Do you make any custom software?

(Anthony at 00:11:26) We do. Yep. So we have—about four years ago, we went into kind of a surveying of the landscape around applicant tracking systems, front office software, what could be bought versus what should be built. And that's just a practice that I think is very important for any leader, and that's really understanding kind of what's out there that you can take advantage of and leverage. We had a front office staffing solution that was not being developed from a contemporary feature and functionality perspective, and there was no roadmap to really get it to the point where we needed it to help create velocity within our business.

(Anthony at 00:12:11) So about four years ago, we, with the other executive team members, went on kind of a window shopping spree of software to see what was out there, what would make the most sense for our organization, what are the capabilities that you get out of the box, and then what are the gaps? What were some of the items and features and functionality sets that we really need for our particular business that wouldn't be provided? So we made the decision to go with a new applicant tracking system at the time that really helped to accelerate delivery of capabilities, a lot of unified messaging, very dynamic and automated processes that help to keep engagement there with our nurses, kind of relieving a little bit of the manual interaction that was necessary in the past through a lot of the messaging capabilities and offerings of the front office solution. And one of the gaps or one of the other areas that we knew was also kind of a differentiator in the market was the extension of capabilities through integration in our front office to create a custom application that allowed a nurse to register with us, to provide profile information for us and for them, to manage and maintain a central location, and give us all of their professional documentation that was necessary to get them travel-ready.

(Anthony at 00:13:30) Big gap, big opportunity at the time, really leading the industry in that regard. And so we had a year-long project to design, develop—partnered with a great product development company at the time—to really get this design and application, which there's an Android version as well as an iOS version, that helps to kind of give or empower that nurse through a very convenient application to register and, again, contribute the profile information that was key to getting them on the road as quickly as possible.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:05) What are some of the examples of traveling nurses? Like, for example, you know, maybe a hospital has a shortage, or do you do stuff for in-home healthcare? Like, why do we need traveling nurses?

(Anthony at 00:14:20) Yeah. Good question. So Fastaff Travel Nursing is a pioneer around and the industry leader around rapid response travel nursing, which means that we send experienced high-acuity nurses into the most urgent, crucial situations nationwide. Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, floods, fires, flu outbreaks, and then more recently, the COVID pandemic, where we had nurses that were processed and traveled within twenty-four to forty-eight hours to be bedside with a lot of the critical patients that, unfortunately, we experienced some of the complications as it relates to COVID. So rapid response is just that.

(Anthony at 00:15:04) So that's kind of the niche within the industry that we play in. The other side of the business is U.S. Nursing, which is the nation's leading provider of replacement nurse staffing for labor strikes and other work stoppages and disruption. Very similar. We recruit in a very accelerated fashion. Nurses get them on a plane to help fill a gap that may exist where nurses that are unionized, working at a particular hospital system, decide to strike. Babies will continue to be born. Emergency rooms will continue to get filled. Patient care is paramount, very important. Lives are at stake. That side of the business helps to deliver nurses to save lives in those situations where there's a bit of a disruption and some work that needs to happen between the hospital system and the unionized nurses. All of this is very accelerated and happens within hours.

(Anthony at 00:16:04) It's a fascinating model that is still mind-blowing today.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:09) Yeah. I don't know exactly how to talk about it, but I was thinking about this because growing up, I've got family in Las Vegas, right? And they own a furniture store, and they put furniture into all the event venues because there's constantly events happening there. And so one of the things I would hear, you know, my family member talk about constantly is, you know, every couple years, they'd be dealing with some issue because there was a strike, right? And getting furniture in for the event venues or people getting their drinks or the hotel being able to operate or the casino being able to operate, right? Because there would be these strikes and how they wouldn't like the people who are doing work even though there was a strike, because there were some of those types of people and that whole tension there. But when you bring it to nursing, it's like any human is going to be completely understanding and receptive of this because you could potentially be the patient in that hospital.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:06) You could be the person having that baby. You could be the person in that car accident, and you need the nurse to be there.

(Anthony at 00:17:12) That's absolutely right. It is a different situation, scenario, as you think about it. It is still a disruptive situation in terms of labor. But yeah, as you said, lives are at stake. It could be—it could be that unionized nurse's parent, grandparent that needs care. And, you know, it's interesting because it is different. I mean, there is a lot of tension when you think historically about different unions, labor disruptions. Healthcare is different. I mean, certainly people have their opinions about replacement nurses for a period of time, and that period of time could be one to five days, typically. That doesn't extend beyond seven days.

(Anthony at 00:17:53) So it's a very short window where we have nurses helping to support and bridge that gap. But there are nurses that certainly that strike that really understand that there is that obligation, that importance, that vow that all nurses took to really care for patients. So there's understanding, there's a bit more understanding, I believe, with nurses that are trying to resolve their dispute with the hospital system, whether that's, you know, typically compensation, benefits, etcetera, and those replacement nurses that are there for that brief duration because there's no threat of that temporary nurse that we provide replacing them. This is very clearly a very temporary, and hospital systems care for their nurses, their full staff nurses, and really work genuinely to kind of resolve any, you know, challenges or issues. And their intent is always to work through and help meet in the middle or address concerns that are there because they value those full-time nurses that are in that dispute.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:00) In my experience, and I haven't really thought about this until this conversation right now, but nurses are really exceptional people. I mean, I'm thinking back right now as we talk to all the different—so my brother's a physician, and my stepmom is a physician as well. She was the medical director of a county hospital for twenty years, and she's had a private practice for the past ten. And so I've met quite a few nurses, and they're usually very hardworking, intelligent, compassionate people.

(Anthony at 00:19:31) This is very true. My daughter is a nurse, and very proud of her. And, you know, they are cut from a special cloth. What they do is amazing, and it's not for everyone. They're a very, very special group for sure that care, have that passion, have that drive and that commitment.

(Anthony at 00:19:49) You know, we're humans. Sometimes there are concerns, we can reach certain points, thresholds where you need a bit of a change, you need to decompress. Nurses have a very tough job, so utmost respect for every nurse out there because it's not easy. And admittedly, I could not be a nurse, not because I don't have compassion or interest. They just have the stamina and the, and just that, again, ability to do it all in a very, in a situation that could be very stressful.

(Anthony at 00:20:23) Long hours, meeting folks and with families and having difficult discussions about things that may be going on with the patient or a loved one. God, yeah, that's a lot of emotion. It takes a special person.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:36) Yeah. I'm not wired that way, and I have a lot of self-awareness.

(Anthony at 00:20:40) Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:41) They are cut from a different cloth. I remember I got to meet the CTO of our city, and he gave me a tour through the headquarters, the special operations command, and that's where they—it's the building that we would use if there were a disaster and everyone needed to come from the county, but it's also where they have the 911. And so I got to tour the 911, and it was a really fascinating experience. They actually had a—they called it, I think, unofficially, like a cry room. And when I heard that, I was just sitting there watching these people take these calls, you know. And there's times when the call is so emotional because you'll be on a 911 call, and you don't necessarily get follow-up or resolution on what happened to that person.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:25) And so they actually found that at first, they didn't have the cry room, and then they were just constantly, like, in the hallway or something needing to step out. And then so they built this special room. And at that moment, at first, just to be completely human, I was like, right? Like a cry room. And then it hit me, and I was like, these people, I am so incredibly grateful that they exist because I could not do this.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:51) I could not pick up that phone like they do every day. And just an enormous amount of gratitude. I was just filled with it, and nurses too. And now I get to see, like, when I see these questions here about, you know, why did you join Fastaff? Right? You're helping, like, a solid technology backbone infrastructure to be able to, you know, catalog and distribute and coordinate logistically these nurses to these situations.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:16) I mean, you're doing great work, my friend.

(Anthony at 00:22:19) Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And it takes a team. Right? It's, you know, as a leader, you know, that I've been leading IT teams for a number of years, first and foremost is, you know, hiring the folks that will really help to complement one another, including the leader, and really investing in those employees, supporting those employees, and being kind of a, you know, they're serving those employees as a leader as you do other external customers, in our case nurses or hospital systems, because it does take a team, and no one individual has got the ability or capability to make the change that's necessary in a lifetime to make a difference. And so credit goes fully to the team that I've got, that very special group that makes a difference for sure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:13) I've got somebody you would like. I talked to him recently. His name's Chris. He's the CTO of Waystar, and they specialize in providing transparency for payments in the healthcare industry. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:25) Because consumers want more transparency around their medical bills. It was a great conversation. I tell people it's like our flagship, you know, episode for listening to a bunch of medical conversation about medical billing and all of the intricacies there. Do you guys do any mergers and acquisitions? Do you play in any other arenas like payments, or do you just strictly focus on the nursing?

(Anthony at 00:23:53) Yeah. Good question. We, nursing, nurse staffing is our primary and core model. We certainly, you know, bill for the services that they provide, but really have not expanded, you know, in any way, shape, or form to those other ancillary kind of business opportunities. So no acquisitions from that standpoint.

(Anthony at 00:24:17) I will say though, there has been some acquisition activity in our recent past here at US Nursing and Fastaff. We were recently acquisitioned by Cornell Capital and TriLantic to pull together the leading companies, some leading companies in our industry to create a really powerful offering that would be underlyingly driven by really modern technology, taking advantage of some experience that would help improve things through AI and machine learning. So some of those other sister companies at this point, and we're in the process of merging Fastaff and US Nursing with another company called TrueStaff. TrueStaff also is a nurse staffing agency that has been in the market for quite some time. They play in this traditional space.

(Anthony at 00:25:08) We are rapid response, and so there's always been, just that, to some degree, some partnerships even with those that are in our space where, you know, our interest and objective is always to get the nurse to the hospital when they need them because of, again, patients needing that care. So we're very excited about this acquisition and merger. TrueStaff and Fastaff really are going to be very strong in the travel nurse industry. Technology will be elevated even further through a company that was part of the acquisition called Stella AI. It's a fantastic company, group of engineers.

(Anthony at 00:25:46) They're very innovative that created technology that helps for candidates in hospitals for full-time staffing to be able to handle those transactions in a very transformative way outside the normal process of sourcing, recruiting, and staffing in the hospital system. So we're very excited about that because it is kind of a shot in the arm in terms of what will boost our particular business and make us even more of a powerhouse in our industry with the combination of this mix of companies. And then we have a third, a fourth company that would be a part of this as well, and that's CardioSolutions. CardioSolutions offers, you know, service lines in and around and staffing around cardiac services. And so they are a little bit different in that they're not dealing with nurses or allied personnel, but their service lines are nationwide involving, you know, cardiologists, cardiology services.

(Anthony at 00:26:46) And they've got, you know, a team of more than a hundred physicians that really help to, again, save lives. And so this mix of organizations is really exciting, and I think it's gonna be kind of a major threat in our industry to some of the key competitors that we have. I love it. Fun time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:04) Now was this, like, a special acquisition group that decided to do this, or was this led by Fastaff?

(Anthony at 00:27:12) Good question. Yeah. So Fastaff has always been kind of in the crosshairs as a target because of what we do, how we do it, and how successful we've been in recent years. So there's always ongoing conversations and interested parties to learn more, to be more, to be a part of the organization, if not acquisition the organization. So this was a situation where Cornell Capital and the chairman founder of Stella, Adam Zoia, really kind of partnering to look for targets that would make sense to create this, you know, this powerhouse offering that helps to expand the capabilities in the industry through these specialized organizations and bringing them together through the technology.

(Anthony at 00:28:01) So it was kind of from my vantage point something that happened pretty fairly quickly. I mean, so there was no long drawn out. We weren't on the sale block per se, but something that came about through conversations of our CEO and, you know, Adam and the folks over at Cornell. So it was really kind of, it's also kind of flattering. Right?

(Anthony at 00:28:23) So when there's that much interest and intrigue in an organization, you're doing something right because they've got certainly the intelligence and understanding around the industry to know who are those players that are really making a difference that should be considered for an acquisition to help make more of a move in an industry and really grow the company through augmentation and specialized services. And, you know, again, the technology piece of this is foundational to the new company that will be forming.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:59) Have you gotten to meet and, you know, strategize and have great discussions with the other technologists at the other companies?

(Anthony at 00:29:07) We have. Yeah. So these folks that are now part of this larger team are amazing. They're just very talented. Their experience, the depth, the breadth of what they bring is very impressive.

(Anthony at 00:29:21) And, you know, from a fit perspective, right, so, you know, culturally and then just from a personality standpoint, things are really, they've just come together as it was meant to be. So very, very, very excited about what's to come and the partners that will become one and help to elevate the organizations across the board. So yeah. And much more of that certainly to come because there's lots of planning, lots of consideration around systems, front office, mid office, back office, custom applications, the economies there, and then, underlyingly, how do we, you know, design the solution that's envisioned around creating this virtual capability with, again, artificial intelligence that will help to allow many of our, you know, gig workers that do travel nursing as kind of a full-time deal, give them, empower them to be able to be selective and place themselves in organizations that they would be fully qualified for because of the infrastructure and architecture of the solution, allowing for those compliance and regulatory checkpoints and the understanding of what they, the experience that they've had, everything systematically driven to present and allow our clients to be selective and handle everything from the introduction in the system from the front door to booking the travel, having that nurse have the ability to do everything from stem to stern as they're taken through the process to get on assignment and help patient care.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:01) And what was it like leading your team through this transition?

(Anthony at 00:31:05) Yeah. So the transition is certainly continuing, but the team is very optimistic. We've got a group of folks that are encouraged, excited. This is a growth opportunity and a growth play, as mentioned by Adam Zoia, that, you know, we are looking to grow the organization, make the right investments, and the team is feeling that there's opportunity on the horizon because now with the support of just two companies, there's four companies that we can help impact and create value for through the time and talent that our folks bring to the table. And they've just got tremendous amount of experience, a lot of tenure in the industry, a lot of experience with technology, a lot of curiosity about an interest in new technology as well.

(Anthony at 00:31:56) So I think right now, we've got some folks that are very excited about the next step.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:02) What do you geek out with as far as technology in your personal life? Any hobbies, interest?

(Anthony at 00:32:09) With technology, so I'm a private pilot. So there are a number of applications, moving map, applications that allow for, you know, really more automated and digitized methods of determining, you know, fuel consumption, flight planning, distance based on distance. The old E6B, which is a little cardboard wheel that was pretty innovative at the time, has kind of been replaced. So there's lots of innovation around aviation and tools that are even hitting the cockpits of commercial pilots. So geek out a lot on that.

(Anthony at 00:32:47) So there's lots of different apps that allow for, you know, checking weather, winds, winds aloft, and, you know, just, again, flight planning across country. Flight is much easier now and less paper-based than it used to be. This is, you know, in the recent, I would say, five years where it's really kind of evolved. I am also an avid fly fisherman and tournament fisherman, and so lots of cool apps that allow for virtual tournaments to take place. Doesn't matter if you're here in Colorado or in Wisconsin, you can participate in a nationwide tournament that allows you to really compete with some of the best, you know, across the nation without physically being there.

(Anthony at 00:33:31) So there's just a couple of examples of personal kind of interest in, you know, technology and innovation.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:38) I love that you have some because some people, they don't. And, like, the only thing they do is work. And for me, I've lived life both ways, and I think life is much more enjoyable having some hobbies and interests outside of work.

(Anthony at 00:33:52) It's one of those opportunities as I see it is when you look at other industries, even from the consumer side or on the personal side, a lot of innovation. There's lots of very bright minds out there. They're not all in one industry, and there's a lot you can glean and learn from using other tools. And, you know, sometimes there's application. Sometimes it just spurs an additional thought or, you know, some creative juices to start to flow, and it really helps impact your current technology within the organization or the industry that you play in.

(Anthony at 00:34:28) So very much a proponent of that, and that's part of, there's always that consideration with, this app is really cool. I love the way it does that. How about we consider incorporating some feature that might be similar to that that would serve our nurses better or enhance engagement or enhance that experience that would really help retain nurses in our world versus a competitor's world. So lots to glean and learn from.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:54) Yeah. Lots, lots of inspiration. And for myself, I tend to go through periods where I consume a lot of content. I'll read a lot and then periods where I won't. And in the periods where I'm reading a lot, I'm typically learning from these authors. Right? And then in the periods where I'm not, I'm deeply focused on myself and what I find to be true. Because there's what the world will tell you is true, and then there's what you find to be true. And inevitably, you can find evidence to support either one if you look hard enough. Right?

(Anthony at 00:35:23) That's right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:23) So I put a lot of trust into myself and my own experiences and figuring that out. And one of the things that I tested extensively through the process of entrepreneurship and creating business was this concept of working 24/7 and then the concept of having off time where I would just work. I mean, for the first two, three years of having my kids and my family, I worked seven days a week, eight to ten hours a day. And then I was experimenting because I ran into a few more successful people who weren't working that much. And I started to figure out what worked for the business, and then I started to have these forced... I remembered back to the time when I was a software engineer full time, and I hated forced breaks, but every time, they helped clear my mind.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:13) Right? And inevitably, I would solve the problem during the forced break or when I'm doing something else inconsequential, like making breakfast or something. And so I decided to do a small study with myself where I just tracked it in my notes. I said, okay, for the next six weekends, I'm just going to spend time with my family from Friday at 5:00 until Monday at 8:00 a.m. I'm just gonna spend it with my family and not think about work. And it took me a couple weeks to try it, to get it right, because my brain was so trained. But afterwards, I'll tell you what, those gaps, it's like a fresh sheet of snow. It kinda smooths everything out like how a good night's sleep will, and then you can come back and look at your business with fresh eyes on Monday morning and make smarter decisions. And so that time off is absolutely critical.

(Anthony at 00:37:05) Absolutely is creating that balance. You know, I would say in our organization, it is very dynamic. There are periods of being in overdrive across the organization because we've got a big order, we've got a Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma. We've got a big project, nurses are needed now where people work very hard, very long hours to fulfill that commitment and that need because there's greater purpose, right, than just physically putting a person on a plane to be delivered to a hospital. There's lives at stake. But we value that balance here. We create that balance during the periods in between big projects. And so it's key. You're right. I think that it's easy to get in a rut if you are in this routine of extended hours, you don't give yourself time to decompress, to really leave what you might be challenged with or projects that might be going well as well. Just having that time to take a step back, refresh, and clear your mind. And then it just amazes me how crystal clear a particular problem could be as you approach it that following week or that following Monday, where, because you were in the forest, it was hard to see through those trees because you were just in that mode of trying to solution something or you get into the details of something that, you know, clarity is sometimes hard to come by if you're in too deep.

(Anthony at 00:38:41) So wholeheartedly agree and believe that it's important. There's diminishing... yeah. You get to a point of diminishing returns if you press forward. There are those periods, right? We all do it, and it's for good reason, but it's not sustainable.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:55) And it goes both ways too. Because if you take too much time off, you get stir crazy. It gets ridiculous. But I get exactly what you're saying. It's hard. Balancing margin for your schedule and yourself, that is a skill that does not come easily. It is a skill that comes with a lot of pain along the way to figure out the exact balance. Because like you said, you have to have that margin. So when those real emergencies pop up, you can push through it and work and have that movie-style moment where the team comes together and you break through. But you can't... it's like working out. You can't just go crush it 110% every single workout. You're just gonna have this natural rhythm to your workouts, and it's just... yeah. I'm learning so much. You're incredibly experienced too.

(Anthony at 00:39:48) Thank you. Been around the block once or twice, perhaps. But yeah. Good analogy, though. I mean, working out, you need time for that muscle to regenerate, to recoup. Yeah. Hitting it hard day in, day out, same muscle group, just not gonna get the results that you need and that you're expecting.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:06) So what are you learning right now as a leader?

(Anthony at 00:40:11) Learning as a leader right now is really, you know, part of it is, you know, I think we all... we get, we enjoy, and love IT because it's ever changing. It's not static. It's not something that is repetitive or routine or mundane over time. It's ever changing. I mean, I mentioned that we had a front office initiative and a project four years ago with the idea of creating these custom mobile applications, portal, websites, support the business, enable the business. Doesn't seem like that long ago, but, you know, as things happen in IT, as things are happening across industries that are very dynamic, we need to keep up. We need to keep pushing forward and learning and understanding what new capabilities are out there that will help us accelerate the business and do value creation in the different areas that are needed in our industry. So, learning with, you know, continuing to learn and push around AI and ML. There's just such a large play and argument that that will help us to be more efficient, to get a multiple more of nurses on the road successfully, compliant, meeting all the requirements, helping to enable the business through automation to do a lot less of the manual work. So it's really discovery, continued discovery with, how do we push forward and what's the right path, what's the right platform, what's the right framework, and what's the right makeup of the resources that are needed.

(Anthony at 00:41:48) And so with this acquisition, it was a blessing in disguise to be able to be partnered with Stella AI because of the value, the experience, the capabilities that they offer. And so really excited about that and working with our folks on that side to really put together a great road map that will accelerate this business across the board, across all four companies.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:14) No. It sounds like there's a ton of energy over there on your team and within these businesses, and I've got a couple questions from our community if that's cool.

(Anthony at 00:42:23) Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:23) Is that cool? Because I just... well, I just checked the time and I said, oh, you know what? I wanna make sure we get some of these community questions out there, help this next generation of leaders develop. Right?

(Anthony at 00:42:33) That's right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:34) So here's a question. What's one piece of advice that you would give an engineer that is aspiring to take on more management responsibilities?

(Anthony at 00:42:43) Engineer aspiring to take on more management experience. The advice, and if I look back at my career, as I played and learned within IT, I did a stint of app development. And it was just, it was interesting for me at the time because I was wanting to look at how do I make a greater impact across the organization. And so from a software engineering perspective, I made the decision to sidestep into IT management to lead the group. And so I, you know, kinda created the opportunity. It was leaning in and standing, you know, being in the right place to offer the organization and the team at that time some leadership. And so it just kinda happened, you know, naturally. And so the advice I would give is that, you know, you need to go after it. If that is your passion, if that's your interest, you need to make it happen for yourself. So really stand up, lean in, offer the services, start to express interest in that path to your manager.

(Anthony at 00:43:58) And really, in some cases, if that opportunity isn't lining up in your current organization, sometimes you need to look in a different area, different company, maybe, depending on the size of the team or the organization, maybe a different department of the group, different department within the group of companies, but really to go forward and express that, be vocal about it, make it happen for yourself. And, again, sometimes that requires you to look outside the walls of the organizations you're currently working in.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:29) I like it. I like it. And how do you, you know, raise up this next generation of leaders within your organization?

(Anthony at 00:44:37) Yep. Empowerment and really always assuming positive intent with the team, empowering them, allowing them to fail, allowing them to fail fast. Really, your greatest learning is during times of adversity and challenge. And so I think, in a, you know, kinda controlled fashion, you don't wanna set somebody up to fail, but with understanding that there's safety nets and we've got your back, allowing people to really express themselves through the job roles that they have.

(Anthony at 00:45:12) And, again, really letting them run a project, run a task, giving them the responsibility and then the opportunity to fail because, you know, that's when we do our learning. I don't think we learn quite as much if things are just going well all the time. So it's really empowerment. It's trust, empowerment, always assuming positive intent of the team, being there to serve the team as well. So, and I've got great examples of team members that have really been up for the challenge and have stepped in and are doing fantastic and have grown tremendously over, you know, the last year, two years in their roles, because it is, you know, letting them grow their wings.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:58) I like the way you said always assuming a positive intent from the team. I've never heard it phrased like that. But sometimes you hear things and you just know them to be true from your experience or that they're important. Or you'll hear something and you'll say, I wish I would have heard that way of articulating it a long time ago. Tell me more about that.

(Anthony at 00:46:20) Yeah. Positive intent. Yeah. So in our culture, in our organization, you know, we're much larger now through the acquisition, but our culture is strong, our people are stronger, people are committed. And it's just something that underlyingly we've always shared and mentioned as challenges come up, as conflict comes up in whatever various way, you know, we always remind ourselves, and I remind the team that we need to assume positive intent because if you don't, you're not going to reach the solution that is in the best interest to yourself, the organization, the travel nurse, you're not gonna be supporting the client quite at the level that you need to, directly or indirectly. And then, of course, there's the patient on the at the other end. So it's really kind of a cultural mantra that we have here that is so important, and it really helps to feel... that it's for employees to feel that it's safe, that, you know, people aren't going to label you because you've brought a topic up that's sensitive or you've brought to the table some healthy conflict that needs to be worked out, whether it's a new architecture, a new framework, a new piece of technology, or just somebody working with one another that's maybe in disagreement about something. If you assume positive intent, you'll reach the solution that you need to, that's again best for you, the organization, the nurse, the client, and eventually the patient. And there's a stronger sense of bonding as well.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:58) Yeah. I like it because it helps with misunderstandings. I think, for example, if it's said on the team to always assume a positive intent, that's different than it not being said because often miscommunications will look negative, and the person didn't intend for that. And so I've found that that's about a default state. If you just were to go pluck 10 people off the street and put them in a team together, right? They're gonna... the miscommunication will be seen as negative. But you're proactively handling that by embedding it into your culture, and I find that fascinating.

(Anthony at 00:48:34) And it works. The trust is there, and it really, you know, people genuinely want to do the right thing and are attempting to do the right thing. But sometimes there's misunderstandings that can go completely in an opposite direction if you just don't have that base understanding of positive intent.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:54) Man, I love talking to great leaders like you and getting really good perspective and insight. We did it. We made a podcast. Was there anything that we didn't get out there into the world that we want to? Are you guys hiring technologists right now?

(Anthony at 00:49:09) We are. We're looking at hiring, you know. So there's certainly a lot of change underway. What we've heard from our leadership and as I understand it, we are going to continue to grow. And this is a growth play in acquisition and/or merger. So I do believe that there's going to be opportunity as we look to merge, consolidate, help support... having centralized support of multiple organizations. And so very much, I think anybody interested in health care staffing, experienced or not, you know, they're always hiring recruiters. We've got a top notch recruitment team as well as credentialing team, sales and account management. Top talent is always of interest. And so certainly going to fastaff.com, looking at corporate jobs there. Happy to facilitate as well anybody who might really wanna learn more about the company, as we look to grow and hire. Certainly, so you can send me an email.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:20) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.