Ask Justin Harper about hustle, and he’ll take you straight to the bleachers.

As a sophomore at Wichita State University in Kansas, one component of preseason basketball conditioning consisted of running the bleachers: 20 to 25 times up and down the 35 or so rows of bleachers inside the arena. The reward for completing the drill in the allotted time? You didn’t have to do it again (AKA, do it right the first time). That alone was plenty for Justin to hustle up.

Justin, a small-town kid from Grand Saline, TX, made the Wichita State Shocker squad – today one of the most celebrated mid-major programs in the country.

Ask the East Texas Service Manager about his career trajectory at Datamax, and he’ll certainly walk you through the progress from delivery driver to service manager, and even the vision he had from the very beginning. But in listening to him, picturing his career from his perspective, you can’t help but see that same hustle.

He needed a job. His mom demanded it.

After completing school at Wichita State, like a lot of other people his age, he returned home. But sitting around the house rent-free wasn’t going to work at the Harper house.

“Honestly, I was chilling at home. One day, not long after I’d returned, my mom had lunch with the receptionist at then-East Texas Copy Systems. She mentioned that they were looking for a delivery driver,” Justin said. “When she got home, my mom told me if I didn’t apply, it was time to go find my own home.”

So he applied.

He didn’t know anything yet about fixing copiers. But a fascination would soon spark.

“Back then, as the delivery driver, I was also the one to train the people on the machine,” Justin says. “I loved being out and about, visiting with everyone, getting new customers up and running.”

But one afternoon changed everything. It was about six months after being hired on, that he delivered a brand new Canon imageRUNNER. As soon as he turned it on, it errored out.

“They looked at me like, ‘what are you going to do about it?” And honestly, I didn’t know what I was going to do about it. That did two things: It embarrassed me big time. But it also sparked a fascination with me.’”

A couple of days later, he visited with one of the service managers, asking for some extra coaching on the equipment. The response? “He said, ‘I’ll teach you anything you want to learn.’”

From that point on, when it came to learning, Justin was a true hustler.

He moved to the shop for three months to set up machines, soaking up the information like a gym floor mop. He went to Canon Foundations Class, and then continued to find additional classes, new machines to learn, senior technicians to ask questions, ANYTHING, really to further his education in this industry.

“Coming back from that Canon class, I was so stoked. I felt like I had a plan, and I knew the steps I was going to have to take to get to where I wanted,” Justin says.

After becoming a technician, he received further guidance from then-service supervisor Mark Thomas, a mentor and close friend still today.

“The person that inspired the most was Mark Thomas,” Justin said. “He taught me most everything I know when it comes to a copy machine. Once I came back from that two-week Canon class, he said 'I’m going to take you under my wing so you can replace me one day.'”

Which, of course, he did. And just recently, he was promoted to Service Manager, leading the field of technicians in Tyler, Longview, Lufkin, and Sulphur Springs.

“A lot of my drive, or my hustle, comes from not wanting to let anyone around me down,” Justin says. “I want to have the best Service department in East Texas, and I believe under Steve Kennemer, we’ve got a shared vision to get there, and stay there. … but I do have to say, I wouldn’t be here without the guys here, the work they do every day. It’s not my team. It’s OUR team.”

It’s a phenomenal journey, but to be fair, it's a shot he called from the opening tip.

Justin says in his interview with the Service Manager for the delivery driver role back in 2004, he was asked what his long term plan was at then-East Texas Copy Systems.

“I’ll never forget. I said, 'I want your job. I want to be service manager one day.'”

Just a small town kid, who came from out of nowhere to play point guard for the Wichita State Shockers. Who started as a delivery driver and called his shot in his initial job interview. Look where he is today.

“I’ve always got the drive to be the best – I’ve always wanted to exceed people’s expectations. I’ve failed many a times, but it’s the drive to keep coming back.”

That takes a vision. It takes discipline. And just like those  bleachers, sometimes it's simply a matter of hustle.