Greetings, A:R Nation! Greetings! I hope all is well on your side of this exchange. I'm uber excited to share this episode of the podcast with you. Not only is our guest one of my best friends, but he's someone that I admire for his intellect and who he is as a human being. On this episode, we have Gean Martinez. He's a Senior Director of Data and Technology with Silverline CRM. Gean starts the episode sharing some of his journey, being born in the Dominican Republic and emigrating here with his mom at an early age. Like many immigrants and first-generation American young adults, he shares how he spent much of his "free time" helping his mom run her brick-and-mortar business here, rather than being able to play high school sports or engage in those traditional extracurricular padding activities. Gean walks us through his first job as a software developer, and how that work experience was shaped by the attitudes and beliefs of many people of color: put your head down and do what's asked of you. He dives into that latter part of his tenure there, where he was starting to learn some of the lessons that everyone must learn to succeed, including that you won't get what you don't ask for. Gean discussess some of the shifts in priorities as he moved into the more senior and recent endeavors in his career, including the importance of reaching back and helping those young adults that, today, are attempting to walk in his footsteps. Gean wraps up the episode with some thoughts on where data and technology are heading, as well as calls for stakeholders to do more to create a more diverse and inclusive workforce. When I said the man is thoughtful, I meant it, and his thoughtfulness and compassion, both for his work and for those around him, shines in this episode. Where we go from here, we get to choose. This is the Adulthood:Revisited Podcast. Connect with Gean Twitter LinkedIn NYC COVID-19 Tracker