Underserved

Ep. 122, From River Hawks to Robots

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Eva Moscat caps off Season 10 of Underserved. Eva grew up in a math-intensive family, and a college course requirement introduced her to programming. ...

Ep. 121, From 600 Meatballs to Product Management

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #121 of Underserved features Dmitry Grenader. Dmitry left the Soviet Union with his family and landed in Brooklyn. He worked his way up from o...

Ep. 120, Why Can't I Learn To Do That Myself?

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 120 of Underserved is here! Our guest today is Christine Bird, a fellow UMass alum and veteran of the financial services industry. Christine ...

Ep. 119 Digital Leaders, Place Your Bets

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Episode 119 of Underserved, I interview Dustin Humphreys. From the level land in the Texas panhandle comes this pharmacist-turned-technologist. Dus...

Ep. 118, AI Is Like Salt

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Underserved #118 we interview Andrew Heffernan. Andrew grew up believing he wanted to be an engineer. After dabbling in civil and plastics, he foun...

Ep. 117, CIO Steering Digital Innovation

06 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #117 of Underserved features our guest Sree Kancharla. It looked like Sree was on track toward a math PhD and teaching, but a tech career blos...

Ep. 116, No Laughing Matter

29 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kurt Iverson is featured in Episode #116 of Underserved. Kurt offered to build a website for a budding comedian in exchange for free show tickets. Whi...

Ep. 115, Fight for Simplicity

22 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dom Scandinaro is our guest for Episode #115 of Underserved. Dom enjoyed building computers with his Dad and taking an entrepreneurial angle with thei...

Ep. 114, Unicorn Cavalry

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Philosophy major Jason "Mac" Macauley found his way into the industry via content moderation. He caught the coding bug when he realized that his love ...

Ep. 113, Continuation Bet

08 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Season 10 of Underserved kicks off with our guest, Rob Salvador. Rob's late teens were spent on a computer, but playing multi-table online poker tourn...

Ep. 112, The Value of Hustle

18 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Season 9 concludes with Episode #112 featuring Michael Dane. It took a formative solo photography trip to the UK for Michael to find himself and his p...

Ep. 111, Head in the Clouds

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #111 of Underserved features Drew Schillinger. Early on Grandpa Jack wanted to teach Drew programming, but mom didn't want him inside glued to...

Ep. 110, View Source

04 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ep. 110 of Underserved features Rob Larsen. Rob was around for the glory days of the web when you could "view source" on a webpage to learn how to do ...

Ep. 109, Cactus Dude

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin "Cactus Dude" Kreucher is our guest for Episode #109 of Underserved. Kevin is another unique story - going from a client of a treatment center t...

Ep. 108, Culture Swap

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cassio Goldschmidt grew up coding on cloned computers in Brazil. Most folks go to the college in their city, and Cassio decided to study Computer Scie...

Ep. 107, Picky is Good

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jason Judge ended up at the right place (Redmond, WA) at the right time (1995) to see the world change. In Episode #107 of Underserved, we discuss the...

Ep. 106, Told to learn IT

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Dingwitz shares his experiences with us in Episode #106 of Underserved. Paul "answered the call" from an Army recruiter, and this was his introdu...

Ep. 105, False Courage

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Episode #105 I talk to our guest Vic Caruso. Vic went the music crossover route into tech, entering the industry during the Dot Com Boom and Bust. ...

Ep. 104, From coder to CTO

23 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Aaron Harris is featured in Episode #104 of Underserved. As a kid in the woods of Vermont, Aaron still found a way to plug into technology. A classmat...

Ep. 103, Aligned Interests

16 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #103 of Underserved features Ema Patki. Ema heard a common refrain from her parents growing up, the only two legitimate professions were engin...

Ep. 102, Don't Overthink Your Career

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #102 of Underserved features Jim Scholhamer. Jim had an early fascination with geology, history, and archaeology. Dad encouraged him to take u...

Ep. 101, Journey to a Mission

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Season 9 of Underserved kicks off in-studio with our guest Tanya Bulkovshteyn. Tanya's family moved to Canada and quickly found out French immersion w...

Ep. 100, AI Invasion

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Underserved has reached Episode 100! We celebrate this special landmark with a very special show. We bring back three previous guests (Mike Breault fr...

Ep. 099, Triple Major

19 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our 99th episode features Tim Sebel from Bullhorn. Tim was able to leverage his AP classes from high school into an unusually wide amount of choices i...

Ep. 098, Running the Shop

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #098 of Underserved features Gu Xie live from Texas. We start with his unlikely story of growing up as a Chinese immigrant in Belize, moving t...

Ep. 097, Fighting Spirit

05 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Komal Maliekal is our featured guest for Episode #097 of Underserved. Komal channeled her mother's fighting spirit to succeed in a difficult engineeri...

Ep. 096, Super Stoked To Be Here

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Episode #096 of Underserved, our guest is Chris Boutiette. Chris had to ask his high school to add computer courses, only to find them unexpectedly...

Ep. 095, Leader of the Band

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Kim Sinclair joins me in our studio for Episode #095 of Underserved. Kim spent college in Friartown, leading the pep band on the road for fun and adve...

Ep. 094, Keep Living Más

15 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Taco Bell CTO Steve Plank is my guest for Episode #094 of Underserved. Steve rose quickly through the ranks in heavily regulated industries helping to...

Ep. 093, Ruining the Curve

08 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Susan Kelly is our guest for Underserved episode #093. Susan fell in love with computers early on, being curious about technology and loving the time/...

Ep. 092, Mindfully Hyperactive

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Yan Robert joins us as our guest for Episode #092 of Underserved. Yan grew up in Quebec like JP Beaudry, one of our previous guests, and even attended...

Ep. 091, Chief Integration Officer

24 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #091 features Sesh Tirumala, CIO of PagerDuty. Sesh is a podcast veteran, and shares with us his experiences implementing systems in 120-degre...

Ep. 090, From Guitar to Keyboard

17 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest for Episode 090 of Underserved is Joe Frascati. Joe moved several times as a teen, honing his skills in quickly sizing up new social situati...

Ep. 089, As the World Churns

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Underserved Podcast kicks off Season 8 with Rob Moore, recording from across the pond in the UK. Rob figured out there is no grad school applicati...

Ep. 088, Root of Trust

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We cap off Season Seven with our guest Jason Oberg, Ph.D. Jason grew up in Hawaii surfing and enjoying the outdoors, but computer gaming brought him i...

Ep. 087, Master Data Marketing

02 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Texas transplant Joe Forrester is featured in Episode #087 of Underserved. Joe wanted to be a pilot after watching the original "Top Gun", but colorbl...

Ep. 086, Oscillation Lifestyle

26 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

David Rose walks the road less traveled. A serial entrepreneur for over 30 years, David has envisioned and built more products than most people can im...

BONUS Episode - Modern History

19 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Hodson came in to record with us at Syrinx Studios in October. The first half of our conversation is Season Seven's Episode #085. We had a lot of ...

Ep. 085, Ancient History

12 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

I have known Ben Hodson for over 20 years, and when he came in to record we went over most of those years and back a few more in Episode #085 of Under...

Ep. 084, Banging the Drum

05 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our 84th episode features Madhu Rajagopalan, Head of Engineering at Wellframe. Madhu's eyes were opened early when he saw how much more malleable soft...

Ep. 083, From Ballet to Body Language AI

28 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Rachel Cossar grew up a nationally ranked rhythmic gymnast in Canada. In Episode #083 of Underserved, we discover her journey from those early competi...

Ep. 082, Order Up

21 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #082 of Underserved is our first one recorded 9.5 time zones apart. Naresh Pillai joined us from India, where he has returned to bootstrap a s...

Ep. 081, Fear the Tree

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Amanda Richardson grew up and started her career on the East Coast, but it took just one trip to California to fall in love with the state. In Episode...

Ep. 080, It's all in the Clouds

07 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Bauer is our guest for Underserved episode #080. Andrew is another guest who is a product of the Syracuse I-School. Combining business and tech...

Ep. 079, On the Front Page

31 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 079 of Underserved features Shani Gentry Cincotti. Our first Alabama native on the show (Roll Tide!), Shani shares about growing up pursuing j...

Ep. 078, Specialization is for insects

24 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Firestone is our featured guest for Episode 78 of Underserved. A recovering attorney and platoon leader, Adam believes as Robert Heinlein does: H...

Ep. 077, Triumph of Humanity

17 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Gallagher is featured in Episode #077 of Underserved. Michael spent his youth painting cars, running a collision business, and even getting hi...

Ep. 076, HOWTO: Harness Capitalism

10 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

SEASON 7 of Underserved kicks off with our guest Paul Belt. In our 76th episode, we cover Paul graduating from running a BBS and the warez scene into ...

BONUS Episode - A Monster Bonus

24 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #075's guest Jeff Taylor was generous with his time, spending over two hours with me in the studio. We captured so much good material that we ...

Ep. 075, A Monster Idea

24 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest for Episode #075 is Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com and 14 other companies including most recently RoverTrophy.com. Jeff has always been...

Ep. 074, Make Your Luck

20 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Neal Cao started out feeling the pressure common in many families - "You need to become a doctor or an engineer!" After his internship, he knew the me...

Ep. 073, You're damned right I did it

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our first former sheriff's deputy, Shadd Schutte brings a unique perspective to Underserved #073. Being a police officer in Wyoming turned out to be g...

Ep. 072, Metaphysical Kitchen

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 072 of Underserved features Brian Durkin, Sr. Group Manager & Head of User Experience, Data & Analytics at BNY Mellon. Brian leveraged his art...

Ep. 071, Shoot for the Stars

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Colleen Tartow was convinced investigating the heavens was her calling, studying astronomy all the way to a PhD. Once she realized the job market...

Ep. 070, People First

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why does John Blythe, our guest for Episode #070, believe in people first at technology companies? It could be his experience building teams, or influ...

Ep. 069, Last Mile Healthcare

16 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Eli Goldberg received a life-changing diagnosis from a sweat test - he found out he had cystic fibrosis. Rather than shy away from it, Eli leaned into...

Ep. 068, Façade Pattern

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin Jarnot, CIO of Uptime Institute, is our guest for episode #068. Kevin proves there is no set path to becoming a CIO. He was interrogated by the ...

Ep. 067. Leaving the comfort zone

02 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest from Episode #067, Parag Shah, foresaw the death of penmanship - something he happily announced at age 8. That didn't save him from having t...

Ep. 066, Across The Pond IT

25 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #066's guest is Matthew Wood, Deputy CTO, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Before ruling the IT end of Massachusett...

Ep. 065, Whitebox Hunting

18 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #065 features Pete Langois. Pete's first buffer overflow exploit in 8th grade earned him a trip to the vice principal's office, but starting h...

Ep. 064, Killing the Monolith

11 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #064 features Ahmer Khan of athenahealth. After watching four friends fail their first Computer Science course, Ahmer figured he had to try it...

Ep. 063, Mentor Me to IT

04 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Season 6 of Underserved kicks off with Daniel Goldenberg. While many kids in high school were biding their time, Daniel was finishing a CCNA curriculu...

Ep. 062, Hop On The Startup Train

27 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We finish off Season 5 with Doug Morgan, Senior Director of Development at Alteryx. Doug took his CS chops from high school and Georgia Tech out to th...

Ep. 061, One Hand Up, One Hand Down

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lifelong Texan Lance Sleeper joins us for Episode #061. Lance studied journalism in school but always tinkered with computers growing up. After a moto...

Ep. 060, Online Whiskey Blinds

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #060 of Underserved features Conrad Morgan. Conrad started out building PCs when they were still a luxury item. His first foray into the techn...

Ep. 059, Step Down to Step Up

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Episode #059 we talk with Chris Sullivan. A former Navy submariner, Chris leveraged the GI bill and his curiosity about software development into a...

Ep. 058, VP of Electricity

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John Arsneault started full-time in the IT industry while still in high school. Wellington Management was rapidly becoming more dependent on computers...

Ep. 057, An Engineer's Engineering Manager

22 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Erik Dasque is our guest on Episode #057. We talk about the winding road from "the West Virginia of France" to becoming a software VP in the United St...

Ep. 056, A Solid Foundation

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #056 features Josh West, founder of Foundation.io. Josh is passionate about the foundation of software development - how do we make it easy an...

Ep. 055, Classroom Relationship Management

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Hull is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Otus, a Chicago-based edtech company. After 13 years as an educator, Chris wanted to minimi...

Ep 054, Expect Success

01 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #054 features Steve Picciano, VP of Engineering at FineTune. What if you interviewed for a job, didn't love it, but the interviewer says, "One...

Ep. 053, Send Michael Right Over

25 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Episode #053 features Mike Sheldon, CTO of RedRover. Mike has made some unconventional moves, starting full-time work before graduating college, missi...

Ep 052, Minimize the Entropy

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Morgan Creighton grew up watching Carl Sagan explain the wonders of our universe on PBS, inspiring Morgan to study physics.  During his first job aft...

Ep 051, Hampshire Andrologist's Road to IT

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We kick off Season 5 speaking to Bob Hammond, CTO of Choreograph. Bob has survived the dotcom boom and bust, several acquisitions and divestitures, an...

Ep 050, End Zone Militiaman

12 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 050 of Underserved features Gene Grella, a renaissance IT executive who also teaches, flies RC planes/drones, and fires a musket after every P...

Ep 049, Ace of Bass

05 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest Sean Mack spent many sunny surf days at UCSC in the basement computer lab, but it paid off. Sean was at the dawn of the streaming age, helpi...

Ep 048, From Cowboys to Courses

28 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Noah Pryor realized early on that building GUIs in C was a losing battle, as was fielding support calls at 3 a.m. from drunken phone battery kiosk use...

Ep 047, Build Your Own Role

21 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest Jen McComas started out intercepting calls for help from customers and building herself a tech support position. This "build your own" theme...

Ep. 046, Butchering Bytes Brilliantly

14 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Out of the mosh pits of Worcester, Jeff Gnatek found his way to a graphic design internship and coding by creating tattoo artist websites. Custom Made...

Ep. 045, Our Passive House

07 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week's guest Matt Hillery started his career translating between business users and the engineering ivory tower. This skill would come in handy ...

Ep. 044, Metadata Maven

31 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week's guest Doug Poirier started out programming on a VIC 20 but found during his career that he liked putting tools in users' hands and driving...

Ep. 043, Owning your Career

24 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week's guest Nausheen Moulana grew up fascinated by the potential of the humble electron. Her parents were wary to send her to the US after heari...

Ep. 042, Realtor Genius

17 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest Lisa Maxwell was encouraged to "go into computers" but initially resisted this advice. She enjoyed playing music so much she ended up with a...

Ep. 041, In careers, timing is everything

10 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

JP Beaudry grew up in rural Quebec hacking together cars and studying engineering. After an eye-opening internship in Japan, he came to the US as the ...

Ep. 040, Finnish Strong

03 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week's guest Vesa Tormanen grew up in Finland, first amazed by the computers running at the government pension fund where his parents worked. He ...

Ep. 039, You want chili powder with that?

26 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Phair did not expect to be a data scientist when he was a butcher in his younger days. But after some school and getting some experience he found...

Ep. 038, I can't defend what I don't know exists

19 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week's guest Brian Haugli is a "recovering CISO" - a veteran manager of big-company Information Security who is re-packaging that skillset for t...

Ep. 037, Zooming in the nineties

12 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Season Four kicks off with our guest Jeff Krampf. Jeff started on an Apple II back in the day and worked on CU-SeeMe, the Internet's first video confe...

Season 3 Bonus Episode: ANIME! Part 2 - The Collector

04 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In our second Bonus Episode of Season 3, we cover toy collecting with Mason Fitch. Mason's collection features over 450 toys, mostly rare die-cast Sho...

Season 3 Bonus Episode: ANIME! Part 1

28 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was among many folks in Massachusetts who grew up watching Force 5, Star Blazers, and other animated shows from Japan (aka anime). In this bonus epi...

Ep. 036, Know thy user for he is not thee

21 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest for the Season Three finale is a legend in the User Experience community. Dave Platt started developing because of a love of mainframe games...

Ep. 035, Don't drink the Java

14 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Bill Scott toured the trades and the military before discovering software consulting as a career. Rather than being yet another Commodore 64 disciple,...

Ep. 034, From Mixology to Management

07 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jeremy Halperin chased a dream of being in a band, bartending to make ends meet. The progression of life led him to computer science. During his ascen...

Ep. 033, A journey is time suspended

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest Brian King is a veteran of many travels, trials, and tribulations. He has seen the technology industry progress through decades, often seein...

Ep. 032, Don't shoot your insurance agent

23 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Unlike most PoliSci majors, Jesse McSweeney started out his professional career chasing down rogue insurance agents who were ripping off clients. We t...

Ep. 031, Death of the sticky note

16 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Damien Scott is a recovering hardware guy living in a software world. Similar to previous Underserved guest Ben Szekely, Damien was recruited out of c...

Ep. 030, What's next for US?

09 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest Paul Krasinski mentored some kids while attending Brown University, and their experience changed his perspective. We talk about playing prof...

Ep. 029, Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto

02 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Brandon Kindred's dad redirected his excess energy and curiosity to learning programming with a teach yourself in 24 hours book. The same thing happen...

Ep. 028, Paint me a picture of tech

26 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest Jed Maczuba grew up reading 2600 - The Hacker Quarterly (as did your humble narrator). His curiosity about phone systems and computer system...

Ep. 027, People are not good at search

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Adria Kyne was in Seattle pursuing a Ph.D. in Chinese Archaeology when the Dot Com boom pulled her into the software industry. Search engines were a...