Today we’d like to introduce you to Travis Grundke.
Hi Travis, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
In 2002, I had recently moved back to the United States from a graduate studies program in Spain. Over lunch at Aladdins on Cedar Hill, Jim Millican convinced me to come work with him, part time, while I figured out the next phase of my career – which was intended to be in some form of international/NGO work. At this point, “The Ashton Group” as it was called had 3 hourly employees. Fast forward to 2021 and we’re now an organization of 22 full time employees and I’m the COO of the organization.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As Jim Millican puts it, the title of his autobiography would be: “Don’t be me.” Over the years our growth has come due to persistence, thinking things through carefully, and most of all – surrounding ourselves with coaches and advisors who are much smarter than we are. Any time you work in the service industry and are responsible for the well-being of other peoples’ companies there is an immense amount of responsibility and stress. We take our responsibilities and commitments very seriously and this means we turn down a lot of opportunities that aren’t a good fit, and we’re highly selective of the team members that join our organization. That means sometimes taking a deep breath and slowing things down when you really want to jump on certain opportunities.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Ashton Technology Solutions?
We’re a business technology solutions provider. In short, we work to remove complexity and improve the profitability of businesses through simple, secure technology solutions. We provide technology platforms, IT security services, technology architecture services, and increasingly we are auditing and managing other technology vendors to ensure they’re living up to their obligations and expectations.
We’re known for two things: our people and their desire to help others; and a relentless focus on simplifying technology and deploying appropriately tailored solutions. We spend a lot of time and resources developing each individual on the support team, teaching them not just technology but also things like problem-solving and interpersonal communication skills.
One area where we are extremely unique in our space is that we do not utilize the traditional “support pyramid” where you get shuffled from a “level 1” support technician up the ranks until you can find someone who can actually solve your problem. Instead, we have built out our team to work collaboratively with one another to drive issues to a resolution far more quickly. Where the industry average is a 3-day turnaround, 85% of our requests get resolved within 8 hours or less.
We attribute this to how we carefully select for our team, train, and focus on personal development. When everyone acts like an owner of the business the entire operation moves much more seamlessly.
Contact Info:
- Email: sales@ashtonsolutions.com
- Website: www.ashtonsolutions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashtonsolutions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AshtonSolutions/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AshtonSolutions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/AshtonGroup/featured
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ashton-solutions/
Image Credits
Roger Mastroianni
