Nearly an hour went by while Justin Harper sat anxiously inside his office, sipping on his umpteenth cup of coffee and looking for anything he could do to quell his nervous energy (to little avail).

His mind raced in a multitude of directions while he waited for that durn phone to ring. Finally, it did.

“Hello Justin this is ‘Jerry,’” the voice on the other line said. “I’m working on a 4545 that’s spitting out blank prints.”

And so it began. What ensued over the next hour and a half contained the intensity of a Hollywood thriller, but also revealed the methodology of a true master.

The Datamax Texas Director of Operations vaulted himself into rare company after recertifying as a Canon USA Association of Technical Service Professionals (ATSP) Master Level Technician. Not only that: He earned a perfect score.

More than anything, Justin says he appreciates David Rhodes and Steve Kennemer for the opportunity to take the test three years ago and take it again last month.

“I had a ton of nervous energy waiting for the test to begin. I felt an enormous amount of pressure to pull through for the company,” Justin said. “With that said, I’m extremely proud and humbled to earn this certification again, and more than anything, what it means for our customers.”

The Master Level Certification is a unique animal among industry training, both in its approach and its difficulty. It is a phone-based course, in which a Senior Canon USA Engineer calls in acting as an entry-level technician. The participant must walk through a series of deep-level troubleshooting steps, utilizing knowledge gained from service manuals, parts catalogs, and general best practices,  to prepare the technician for resolution.

The objective is not to “fix the problem,” but rather to properly guide the technician through the intricate process toward the most viable solution. A time limit of two hours is set for this exam.
All of this is done, of course, without having eyes on the machine itself.

The Troubleshooter.

Throughout the troubleshooting steps, Justin assumed nothing. He asked for the generation of the machine and the serial number. He had the technician do a variety of tests to see what additional copier functions might be spitting out blank pages. He unloaded a litany of questions and held his service manuals and part guides close to him.

“I was of the mindset that the laser was the problem, so we tore the machine apart every step of the way. This ‘technician’ didn’t even know where the screws were to take the panels off,” Justin said. “Long story short, we went through the whole process of taking the laser out, and it still didn’t work.”

The Gunslinger.

A bit deterred but not defeated, Justin stuck to his guns.

“I asked a ton more questions and had him go through that entire process all over again,” Justin recalled. “Come to find out, the technician seeded it incorrectly on the first go, so the second time around we made it work.”

For Harper, this steep accolade puts another stamp on his steady ascent in the industry over the past 20 years. Starting out in 2004 as a delivery driver, he began absorbing all the knowledge he could from peers and voluntarily stepping beyond his role to set up machines and troubleshoot copier issues. After serving as a Service Technician for 10 years, he earned the role of Service Manager in 2020, before again being promoted to Director of Operations.

The True Master of his Craft.

He credits both his many service mentors and the deep service-based philosophy of Datamax for helping him reach the pinnacle of Canon USA’s technician excellence.

“Just like the last time (I took the exam), it was about following the step-by-step processes to a T, many of which I learned 20 years ago from my early service mentors,” Harper said. "I can't say enough about the overall service culture that exists here at Datamax, and how important it is that we put our people in a position to succeed, both in their careers and for our clients."