Video: Solvere One Principal Exec on Protecting Virtual America

hey Channel insiders welcome back to another episode of Channel Insider partner POV your source for untapped opportunities and unfiltered opinions in the it Channel all to help you make Better Business decisions I'm your host Katie boso my guest today is Reagan Rooney Chief experience officer and principal at solare 1 an MSP based in Washington DC solier 1's clients represent some of the biggest decision makers in American democracy which means Reagan and his team have to prioritize compliance and security above everything welcome Reagan thank you happy to be here happy to have you here let's talk a little bit about s 1 I'd love to know first of all what you do specifically and the solutions and services that you offer you are an MSP based in the Washington DC Metro area so I'm sure I've got a ton of questions involved just right there but tell me a little bit about salair one we are a family-owned business as two of my brothers and myself uh we've been in the IT industry if you will since the early 2000s uh first started on the hill supporting members of Congress uh primarily folks in the House of Representatives on both sides of the aisle uh and then their various district offices throughout the US America s Puerto Rico few years after we kind of got that going we decided to go into the private sector a lot with the uh the mindset instead of trying to give that white glove level support to folks in the private sector and and diversifying our portfolio a little bit and start working with a lot of different vertical be it nonprofits associations uh medical groups and what have you what is it like working with your brothers with your family is there ever a point where you say all right we got to walk away from this situation real quick because I don't know who I'm arguing with my business partner or my brother sure I mean it's it's a catch 22 right we all know each other extremely well uh we all have a lot of passion for what we're doing and we care I think that's the biggest difference I've noticed from being in business with my brothers as opposed to uh my previous Endeavors with other folks is that um I know where our hearts are and that can mean that our passions kind of overflow a little bit but at the end of the day we know we're family your street address is Pennsylvania um is the president casually one of your neighbors yeah yeah if we get lost right uh yeah so we have our DC address uh obviously because of our presence in the district corporate is located by the douas airport and that's primarily where most of us are where I operate out of on a regular basis um but yeah it's interesting the different uh motorcades I run into on a daily basis when I go through DC and how it can make me late for meetings but people generally understand that if the president or any other uh elected official gets in our way that if we're late for that it's okay obviously in Washington DC that's where uh the majority of decisions are made for the US so were there any specific threats problems challenges issues that you see a rise when it comes to working with businesses in the DC Metro Area do they require anything unique from an MSP great question I think because we're in this environment and we have the clientele and partners that we have we have to be very in tune with the security cyber threats and compliance that exist uh one of our biggest verticals uh is the government contractors and so folks that are working with the Department of Defense um they have to play by a different set of rules than most people even though those rules generally should be adopted by all it's uh there rules that are in place that we are grateful for and that we support and follow ourselves a lot of that is policy driven a lot of it's kind of just the good things you know good practice that everyone should be doing in in order to protect our intellectual property um in order to protect us sending you know uh information to folks that we don't want to have it but just the attacks that exist from within I mean Insider threats a real thing uh be here in DC or anywhere else we also are sitting in the back backyard of the largest data center collection that exists in the world I think it's like 96% of all internet traffic still goes through the doas area um and so we have to be mindful of that so I know that there are a lot of targets various targets as they may be that are on us and on our clients and and that makes us sharper are you able to give me an idea of who your clients are I'm trying to paint more of a picture is it um Senators is it Representatives is it their offices is it ones adjacent to them like you said government contractors who are we looking looking at as far as the clients in the government side that you serve yeah on the government side it's primarily focus in the House of Representatives and they're both sides of the out we're pro capitalist uh and we love you know supporting our country and we want everybody to do well um especially when it comes to our government getting in the Government Contracting side obviously you know most of them are in Department of Defense so a lot of those type of clients are focusing on you know whether it's uh software tools or uh Logistics tools or even um making things for fighter jets what have you um those are the clients that we Target and and unfortunately can't mention their names because of course you want to keep them that protected it helps when you know when you're trying to not only tell your kids what you do but frankly just on the day-to-day to know that we are trying to and and know genuinely that our partners are trying to do good in the world we do have some folks that are in the nonprofit side that are pretty big out here like Gabi which is the vaccine Alliance uh that promotes uh vaccinations in third world countries and we were very proud to be part of uh working with them partnership forth Health America they push and sponsor schools and organizations to provide healthy lunches for kids we really do research our Partnerships and try to see how being together can be successful on both sides of the fence and so we're very proud of our partners that we have and grateful to be working with them I would just tell my kids I'm a secret agent yeah right obviously we're we're talking about very sensitive clients we're talking about very sensitive departments and with government contractors there is a lot of overhead that you have to consider with those regulations like the cmmc 2.0 regulations which are actively rolling out right now what does your process look like for taking on new clients because of those regulations and compliance Frameworks that you have to go through that's a great question I think for us it's trying to understand the mindset of the potential partner um and how they're looking at it whether they're looking at oh this is a burden that we have to do or they actually think it's the right thing to do believe it or not right there makes a big difference um because if we're trying to convince Partners to do the right thing then it's going to be a battle all the way through because compliance isn't a here today gone tomorrow it's a here forever uh type of a thing and everyone has to be aware of that and we all have to be working towards that culture and it is a culture shift and I know that the government sometimes makes it difficult for contractors or other organizations frankly to where they'll say that hey this is what we want you to do and then maybe they take a half step back on what they're really requiring or hey this is what we want to do and we just don't know when um but something like CMM is very similar to Fed ramp it's law right it's Congress has said this is what's going to happen and it's going to happen now it's just a question of timing so we typically will evaluate a partner for their mindset and then we do Gap assessments of where they are and where we need to take them and we begin the process and edify the what's going on and why it even exist we want everyone to understand that these rules regulations this compliance is here for our protection and not just our individual protection but really the country's protection and so the sooner we can get to there the more successful we typically are and it is not just uh government focused clients that you're working with you do have a private sector Client List where are you seeing the most growth opportunities there it's growing everywhere right now frankly cadina which is a good thing for managed service providers it is trying to figure out okay where are those verticals or we can do the very best by those types of clients and make sure that we're also profitable um for us we've we found a good foothold in working with associations um which has been great because they benefit people that are obviously still in the government of course cuz we hybrid a little bit but then folks that are just trying to do work in the private sector for the benefit of all the industries right whether it's engineering or heavy masonry or what have you we're you know we're able to help folks like that medical has been a good thing for us too uh we have some great medical Partners not the ones that you would typically think yes we support doctor's offices which is great but we actually work with a lot of federal Healthcare qualified providers that do a lot of health care for folks that can't afford it and that's been a pleasant surprise for me because I come from a history of working with uh with doctors on the west coast and and Health Care Systems and it's a different kind of philosophy when you're a for-profit Health Care system than if you're a nonprofit and and so we've been doing a lot on the medical side and we've kind of transferred the policies and procedures that not only exist in Hippa but also cmmc to their everyday life uh and to how they conduct business because marrying the two together creates even a more secure environment uh not only for how they conduct business bus but for the patients themselves so we really enjoyed that and of course law firms you know law firms you know get excited about working with manag service providers but the offering a little bit different and I think that's what kind of still makes silare one unique is we really haven't said hey here's our box and these are the only people we play with and the only Industries is we still customize our offering with folks and with law firms now we do a lot of co-managed it so typically they have cios and CTO um and then we work to support or augment what they have there's I think more organizations on the private sector are more open to not looking at us as a threat but rather as a part of the team and in an environment where Tech Talent is at a premium you know organizations really do have to look at people like us because we typically provide the support the training and and the resources and even the breadth of knowledge Way Beyond what they ever could do with an in-house it Department yeah let's talk about that Tech Talent shortage in a report published by Gardner last year Gardner predicts that by 2025 lack of talent or human failure will be responsible for over half of significant cyber incidents which is terrifying that just means there aren't enough Eyes On The Board to be able to keep us safe just with the way things are going with that said how are you staying ahead of the cyber security Talent shortage and perhaps even more importantly how are you helping your customers stay ahead of it especially being in the DC Metro it's a little more difficult because there are a lot of companies that not only do what we do but are in the tech sector right and there are a lot of big companies and so they're going after the same Talent poll we are where we can kind of be different for those folks is that we offer a better culture here as a company um you know we don't have any ceilings on top of the folks who join us in fact whether they're last name is the same as mine or not we treat them like family that being said especially when we're working on contracts that may be cleared contracts or secure contracts you know there's only that pole gets even smaller and and we're all still trying to figure out how we can best get those folks and and get them trained up what we've learned through the years is that the tech part can be taught right if someone's willing to learn how to you know work with a switch or learn how to use Wi-Fi devices or what have you even do customer service on the help desk it's the customer service piece where they can interact with individuals has been the biggest struggle frankly and finding people who are comfortable with talking with others not just via text or via ticket but on the phone or in person and so finding folks that actually have that custom customer service experience been has been hard but when you find them they're spectacular and they want to be tutored they want to be mentored and they want to have the opportunity to grow the way they want to and so with our company that's how we kind of set up our culture is that you know we enable them to do all the training that they want to to play around with different software sets tool sets to look into cyber security or compliance or networking or what have you and be able to carve their own path so there one uh is an MSP and that is you look at on your site that is what you call yourselves but you do offer fully managed security services so where's where's the differ in in not calling yourselves an mssp do you have your own sock or do you Outsource for that and there's the difference I I believe that to be a true managed security service provider that you should have your own sock um and that you're managing that you're training people for that and you are eyes on glass for us we we like our role as being a partner on the manag services side because it does enable us to cover everything as a consultant and I think that's where we made some really good decisions at the beginning of our company is that we looked at technology where it was going back then where Cloud was the buzz word and look at it as what's life like as a consultant to these partners that we have rather than hey we are everything here in this department and we just do these things and and we took that on and we look at things that way and so we leverage Partners I love leveraging partners that are better at doing things than I am and I'm okay with that for us it's critical to be partnered with vendors that we trust um and usually that starts with vendors who offer Channel only Services there have been times that we partnered with folks that were direct s typ vendors and worked within the channel and we've been burned a few times right where they promised they would never contact our clients and they promised they wouldn't do certain things and they did know and that's not a partnership for us where we've been really successful with Partners like sofos from day one working with sofos they focused on me as a channel partner they actually gave us business which I had never heard of or seen where an actual vendor would say hey there's somebody in your area that's looking for endpoint services or what have you or even MSP Services can we facilitate an introduction um and that has been fantastic and that earns a lot of loyalty for me but having a partner like them that invests so much in technology and Innovation because if you're not innovating you're dying in our business with as fast as technology is growing and so fos over the last years has done that every step of the way then of course the flip side is other msps in our industry I'm of the mindset that I'm not concerned about losing business to another MSP if I lose a client and they happen to go to another MSP it's because I failed somewhere our company has failed somewhere it's up to us to make sure that our clients don't want to leave and the way they don't want to leave is if we're doing our job and we're exceeding expectations how are you focusing on cyber security in 2024 and either using artificial int Ence or knowing that it is going to be used by your clients and still keeping them compliant the reality is is that it's it's kind of out of the box now right so machine learning through co-pilot open AI or even Gemini and all that type of stuff it's here governments are going to try to put some guard rails around it um but it's hard to kind of put that Genie back in the box but some things should and could be done how to applies to us any new technology frankly we're going to test it first we're going to understand where information is we try understand the compliance of things I think some of the big vendors and even Distributors are surprised that a lot of us managed service providers aren't running to using co-pilot and implementing it into our client stack of tools and the reason for it is that Microsoft isn't promising us yet uh where that information is going to go or even if we can say oh we want this information to go into fed ramp or we want this to stay here and until they do we're not going to use it right um right now they're only committing to gdpr type of compliance which doesn't do me any good in the United states there have to be some very clear policies and and that's the key word when it comes to security it really isn't as much the big firewalls or or tools that you put in place as policies and procedures right the human is the biggest risk factor in anything that we do it has to be clear from ownership or management what you can and cannot do with something like open AI or with chat GPT or what have you and making sure that people are very clear with understanding the risk that are associated with it now ai to answer your earlier question about how are we going to work work against the nefarious folks in the world that are using it already right we are behind the aball when it comes to those who want to harm us that's just the reality you listen to anything the director Ray says from the FBI and it's very clear that they are not light years but close-ish to light years ahead of us when it comes to that so we are going to need to rely on machine learning AI to be able to help us thw those efforts where we used to be able to teach people like here's a here's a fishing email look you can see the obvious errors whether it was language or or that didn't make any sense or spelling or what have you with AI with machine learning they're getting perfect emails now right and they're coming we have to actually be that much further ahead in our training to show people the other differences that stick out in order to protect our environments and using tools that kind of help wor that it's going to make up for the Gap in my opinion with the talent pool because again I don't think any of us really want to trust the computers 100% nor should we but we can trust that if there's a human involved up to maybe 75 80% and then computers help fill the rest I think we'll kind of be in a good spot and I think that's what's going to help us long term when it comes to using these artificial intelligence machine learning tools how does that impact you taking on clients that are using things like chat GPT and some of these more mainstream options for using AI you know we have to be aware of the risk uh for us as msps and anything that we do and as much I would love to say every client and partner listens to everything that we do does everything that we say that's not reality so what we have to do is we have to create a risk acceptance form right or anything that alleviates us the responsibility that any tool could possibly cause us if someone were to come saying hey we're using Microsoft co-pilot I would want to know what policies they have in place if they have them at all if they say yes we have it but HR understands that you can't put name Social Security numbers or medical information or accounting knows that they can't do this this and that I'm more inclined to take them up on as a partner and then just limit our risk saying that because we don't know where the information is being stored you're not going to hold Sil being liable for it right so now someone are say oh we have every tool and we let them do whatever they want right and there are people that do that then yeah we're probably not going to have that partnership because I don't want the risk because at the end of the day it's not just about that company it's how the actions of that company can affect all of us and we see that every time a big organization whether it's healthc care fuel oil what have you gets taken down by these nefarious folks it affects all of us last question today Reagan would just be I know that s one has a lot of focus on the community what philanthropy initiatives do you have in 2024 oh now you're actually pulling up my heart strengths geez our heart is geared towards being better humans and trying to make life better for everybody so uh we focus a lot with the American Red Cross we hold regular blood drives we focus with the local food pantries which has been great we worked with the Make A Wish Foundation our goal this year is to have over a th000 hours of community service from our company and I think we're going to blow that out of the water and we're only 3 months in so we have a golf tournament that's coming up on May 3rd um and I'm still looking for corporate sponsors to help us out with that to raise money for the Dillis South food pantry and if anyone wants to help out with that they can definitely reach out I'll even give you my personal number for that oh my goodness my heart Reagan it's been such a pleasure talking to you today and I so appreciate all of your viewpoints your experience and your stories that you get to share with us if we want to reach out to solare one and get involved what can we do how can we reach you find me on LinkedIn you I me really easy there iend tend to pop up a bunch um but obviously we're reaching out through our website it's ww. v o ne.com so everyone thanks again to my guest Reagan for joining me today and thank you for watching or listening you can check out all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on our website Channel insider.com or watch on our YouTube page at Channel inssider newws and Trends you can also listen to the podcast format on your preferred podcast listening platform don't forget to like subscribe and follow wherever possible to never miss an episode we put out a new video and podcast every week once again I'm Katie boso and I'll see you next time

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