From The Editor | June 12, 2018

Welcome The Field Technologies Editorial Board

Sarah Nicastro

By Sarah Nicastro, publisher/editor in chief, Field Technologies
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My favorite part of my job is having in-depth conversations with field service leaders about their challenges, initiatives, and wins. I have had the honor of having countless of these conversations in my role at Field Technologies, and have often thought along the way how big of an opportunity there is to foster more collaboration among the field service executives I speak with. I often hear from people that they are so energized after attending an industry event and getting to network and commiserate with people that “get it,” only to get back into the daily grind and not have an opportunity to further those conversations until the following year’s event.

With this in mind, I’ve created Field Technologies’ first ever official Editorial Board. I’d like to welcome to the board the following field service executives:

  • Jeff Blum, Sr. VP, West Region, KONE
  • Roy Dockery, VP of Customer Care, Swisslog
  • Charles Johnson, Director, Service Optimization and Business Intelligence, Philips Healthcare
  • Jeremy Jones, CIO, Comfort Systems
  • Bob Latvis, Regional VP, Technical Operations, Comcast
  • Roger O’Connor, VP of Product Support, Gosiger
  • Robb Origer, VP of In-Home Services, Dish Network
  • Greg Parker, Portfolio Director, Building Services, Trane
  • Jack Rijnenberg, Director of Global Customer Service, Markem-Imaje
  • Buddy Saucier, VP of HVAC Service, Johnson Controls
  • Ryan Snellings, VP of Operations, Fresenius Kabi

With our first official board meeting today, we kicked off a monthly group call along with monthly topical focus groups where we’ll dive into topics such as:

  • Driving innovation in field service
  • Managing organizational change
  • Discerning technology paths which optimize productivity and efficiency
  • Employee recruitment, retention, and development
  • How to increase revenue and maximize profitability within a service organization
  • Improving the customer experience
  • Understanding the impact of emerging training technologies (AR/VR)
  • Managing the supply chain & a remote workforce
  • Transitioning from a break fix mentality to a service contracts model
  • Marketing and selling field service offerings
  • Managing cultures and expectations globally
  • How to get meaningful and actionable feedback from the field
  • Dealing with IoT implementation and security concerns

These are just some of the topics up for discussion among this group. My hope is that the conversations this group will have will enable them to benefit from deep, peer-to-peer connections; to brainstorm new ideas and learn from one another’s journeys; and to help one another determine the best path forward for today’s leading field service organizations.

Along the way, facilitating these conversations will allow me to gain an even deeper understanding of the issues today’s field service executives are grappling with – which will help me to provide timely, relevant content to the entire Field Technologies subscriber-base. This will include an “ask the board” column, as well as one-on-one interviews with the members. If there’s a question you’d like to ask the board, email me at sarah.nicastro@fieldtechinfo.com. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to the board members!