Brian Davis was our speaker today. He graciously shared his notes from his talk with me. In blue/bold font are some additional thoughts he shared during the meeting.
Classification Talk: Brian Davis
Opening
Hello, everyone. For those who don't know me yet, I'm Brian Davis. I own a company called Saguaro Technologies, and if you've ever wondered why a tech company in Lebanon, New Hampshire is named after a Cactus. You may find out
I live in Lebanon, NH on Poverty Lane. Coming from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004 [He was lurded her by a Tuck Grad who has a IT business on Lafayetter Drive], this felt almost too rural for my wife at first Their first visit to Lebanon was in February arriving after dark on a cold, wintery night…He shared she cried. They moved in on July 4th 20 years ago. It was a very hot/humid day to begin with, and his sons added to the heat by turning the thermostat up to 100 degrees. He shared that house hunting in the Upper Valley was complicated because he needed high speed broadband access. They settled on a home on Poverty Lane. He described that Upper Valley as a great place to raise his sons.
Janet Davis is my wife and she has lived full-time in Medford, Oregon, for the last three years with our dog Bandit and a cat named Zoe. She just started school to get her Nurse Practitioners degree. I commute back and forth. He described Janet as a city girl. At Halloween, when they lived on the west coast, their neighborhood had 200-300 kids trick-or-treating. When a job, that paid VERY well opened in Oregon she moved west. The good news for Brian is that he can work anywhere as long as there is high-speed internet access.
I have two sons, Conner and Gareth. Conner lives at home with his cat Jynx; Gareth lives in Rochester, MN, and is married to Abigail, and has two ferrets, Tootie and Rocket.
My father lives in Ashland, OR and my mother lives in Northern California.
His father is a Model T enthusiast. From Ford Racing:
Joe Davis, a now retired mechanical engineer and automotive restoration shop owner from Southern California (now transplanted to Southern Oregon) seemed destined to be a Ford guy from his earliest days behind the wheel of an automobile, as his first car was a decidedly forlorn $100 Model A. He and a friend later ended up with an abandoned Model T track racer, which they restored and converted to street use.
It was many years and cars later that Davis decided he wanted to build a new, street-legal car based on the shape, hardware and spirit of those great Speedsters of back in the day. He recalls being particularly inspired by the above-noted Alfred Moss’s Model T-based Indy racer from 1924, and cars just like it. Read More
My brother Kevin lives with his wife Tina in Paso Robles, CA.
I grew up in Atherton, California, down on the Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose. I was raised by a single mother who was extremely creative. Between her creativity and not having a TV, I grew up in a house where you made your own fun and figured things out for yourself. [He shared that he would never win a trivia game about TV shows in the 70s .80s.and 90s] My father lived on a sailboat for some time after the divorce and I've been lucky enough to sail San Francisco Bay, the California Delta, up and down the California coast, around the Channel Islands, and down to the tip of Baja. He told us about San Francisco’s Angel Island was a port nicknamed the “Ellis Island of the West,” and its history is as fascinating as the history of its eastern counterpart. About 1 million immigrants came through Angel Island between 1910 and 1940, with newcomers arriving from China, Japan, Russia, Australia, and Mexico, just to name a few.
I went to school at Woodside High [He managed a Blockbusters] and Foothill/De Anza Community College, with some time at UC San Diego.
What do you like to do when you aren’t working?
I like to read, play video games, tinker with technology, design metal projects, and hike and bike. [He likes welding. He also told us about restoring a 1968 Thunderbird that was destroyed when it was rear-ended. Just 6 months after it had been repainted]
Where you work now? Where have you worked before?
I own and run Saguaro Technologies, an IT firm for small and midsize businesses based in Lebanon. What I did before
Before starting Saguaro 10 years ago, I worked for many companies — to name just a few: Intuit, Claris/Apple, Poincast, Vivecon, Kana Communications, GlycoFi, Concepts NREC, and the Hanover Co-op.
What makes this work special
People sometimes think IT firm is just about technology. That is part of it. We just understand it and how it works in your business, but It's about trust, relationships, and people. Our clients hand us the keys to everything: their financial records, their client files, their email. That's a real responsibility.
The best part of my job is when a client stops thinking about their technology at all, because it just works, and they can focus on what they actually do: running a town, building a house, serving a nonprofit mission. When we do our job well, you barely notice we're there.
The Saguaro name came about due to my love of the Arizona desert. My brother went to the University of Arizona and after spending a lot of time in Tucson. I have come to love the desert.
Why Rotary
My poker group spent a lot of time talking about Rotary. After a few years I decided it was time to join. I like meeting people and lending a helping hand.
Closing
So that's me: a kid born Colorado, but spent my most of formative years in Californian who grew up without a TV, landed in the Upper Valley, and now keeps local organizations running.
Thank you.