Tony Foust is a jack of all trades, and certainly a master of one. 

Growing up in rural Central Arkansas, Tony Foust’s dad was a “do-it-yourselfer.” In sixth grade, he watched him strip down a customized van down to the bare metal, painted himself, pinstriped it, made it look like it had been through a professional body shop. Tony helped his dad rebuild hot rods, boat motors, and with landscaping, gardening, carpentry, and plumbing.

“My family just did a lot of what needed to be done themselves. I’ve carried that onto my life now,” Tony, Connectivity Supervisor in Little Rock, says. “I gained so much from my dad on the mechanical thought process, how things come apart, and how they work.”

A jack of many trades, yes. But after 29 years at Datamax, Tony has mastered the connectivity side of the copier service landscape. As an intermediary between the copier hardware, networks, end users, and internal IT departments, he fully understands the simple reality that logic is one thing, the human animal is another.

In other words, razor sharp technical expertise must be accompanied by carefully-crafted communication to what the real fax/scan/network is, and what the path to resolution looks like.

“In connectivity, we deal less with screwdrivers. We’re connecting the machines to the existing network, which includes normal networking steps, plus the ability to print, scan, scan to email,” Tony says.

“Sometimes, we run into networks that are not really well managed by their IT staff. The customer just sees the copier issue. It’s my job to say, ‘OK, let’s figure out what the source of the problem is. Is it physically the machine, or is it something on the network?”

Connect-Four: Tony’s 4 Important Characteristics for any Connectivity Technician:

1. A planned approach.

“Thinking logically, in a planned manner, is one thing that sticks out immediately,” Tony says.

There’s a logical format that goes into all the moving parts that have to be in place, from authentication to connection, he says. For this to work, all these things must work together.

2. Persistent knowledge.

Tony spends hours reading, Googling, troubleshooting scenarios. The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. He’s constantly studying why SMPT works easily in some instances, and not in others.

The emergence of Google Chromebooks in the past few years is another example. As certain technologies, be it Air Print, Mac Books, or VoIP, become a trend inside the connectivity landscape, Tony’s on top of it.

3. Patience.

Patience, in connectivity, is a virtue.

• Patience with technology: “You have to be patient because you have to always work through the process.”
• Patience with customers: “Not only do we connect, but we train customers. Sometimes people resist change, and when they upgrade to brand X, the button sequences will be different. There’s always that learning curve.”

4. Personality.

That is to say, the personality to “fix the customer.” They see the device is not doing its job. What they may not see is what is going on in the background. Communication is key here.

“The last thing you want a customer to say is ‘he talked over my head,’” Tony says. “Sometimes, I have to break it down with analogies to get the customer to better understand what is going on. Being cheerful and engaging is important, too.”

A simple, but significant personality trait? One that we can all slide in our back pocket?

“Have a smile on your face. Even if you’re on the phone.”