Growing up, 'B's' simply were not acceptable on a Reneé Desiderio report card. She credits her mother for that.

Even so, amid a lifetime of learning, her father played his own role in offering up fodder for mind-expanding exercises for young Reneé. The first one? A shiny, new AM/FM Radio.

René was 10 or 11 the first time she noticed her father’s brand new audio device. Within minutes, she was timing herself as she took the radio apart, only to turn around and put it back together again (luckily, just in time for her father to catch the Arkansas Razorbacks game).

In the coming months and years, young René's fascination with how things worked would gravitate to box fans, to AC Units, to typewriters and printers, to sophisticated IT Systems. She’d sit and watch her father repair vehicles, asking if she could “try it too.” More than just a mechanical (or even technological) curiosity, deep inside René e was, and still is, an unbridled desire to expand both her mind and the possibilities for improvements in processes.

Today, as an Account Development Manager in Little Rock, René is unequivocally an IT expert. You wouldn’t necessarily know this, of course, the first time you visit with her. René is the sort of chameleon salespeople strive to be. She molds a social conversation around who she speaks to – just as eager and comfortable to talk about her Church or Arkansas sports as she is a Datamax UCaaS engagement.

Furthermore, her IT expertise doesn’t exist in a bubble. She communicates highly technical processes in plain speak, in ways that you or I or that end-user can fully understand. This, too, is a powerful skill.

Just one more thing she’s absorbed amid a lifetime of learning.

Learning to Excel.

Born in Pine Bluff, ARK, René comes from a family of go-getters.

Her mother and father were entrepreneurs. They opened a sports bar, only to commit their lives to Christianity and transfer their efforts to a sporting goods store. René started mowing yards at the age of 10. By the time she was 12, she had an Avon route on a bicycle.

Behind this familial entrepreneurial spirit was an expectation to excel in the classroom. René, again, is quick to credit her mother.

“My mother didn’t allow anything less than excellent. We were grounded if we made a B,” René says. “Her thought? Why go for average when you can shoot for the stars? She was always there to support us, to help us study, to help us reach that goal.”

By the time she was a freshman, she’d started a thriving study group with friends, and one that would morph into assisting the students who had difficulty taking tests. By the time she graduated, she owned a 4.2 Grade Point Average and had already spent a year in the CEO Program, a job placement initiative that helps high school students find work congruent with their area of study.

“You go back to the time when I was 10 or 11, it was a really good sign that I would be an engineer or an IT person,” René said.

Learning to Seize Opportunities.

Soon after high school, while attending community college in Pine Bluff studying business and accounting, René went to work for an office dealership that sold IBM Typewriters. One day at the office, “being the person that I was,” she tore one of the typewriters apart and put it back together. An IBM rep happened to be there at the office, watching her.

“He asked what I was doing. I told him I wanted to see the mechanics of it, that I think we can make it print,” René recalls.

Struck by her ingenuity, IBM offered her a part-time job.

Her role there grew exponentially. Opportunities blossomed. Originally hired to speak at tradeshows across the country and present new IBM products, her “gift for gab,” paired with her technical knowledge of the products, brought her into a sales role with the IBM solutions team.

Again, impressed with René’s capabilities, IBM offered to pay her way through college. But not without a test to evaluate her technical skills.

“At IBM, they wanted to know you knew what you were talking about. There were 35 of us that had this opportunity to attend school. But before we took off on that plane, we had to take a test. After that exam, we were left with six women and 11 men.”

From 1981 to 1985, while working full-time at IBM, René pursued degrees in Psychology and Computer Science (with a 3.9 GPA), further solidifying her technical expertise and showcasing her hunger to learn. These two degrees speak to not just her academic acumen, but also her ability to dig deep in order to realize the desired result.

“Honestly, I wasn’t nervous or intimidated at all (being at Duke University). I always like to dig deeper. I was digging deeper into things long before I ever jumped on that plane (to attend school).”

Learning to Overcome.

It was a California trade show, in 1986, that René first met Barry Simon. She was presenting the IBM Wheelwriter when it suddenly jammed. René didn’t panic – she used the same mental skills she’s utilized her entire life and made it through the presentation smoothly.

“It was after that that Mr. Simon walked up to me. And he said ‘if you ever want to do anything different, please give me a call,’” René recalls. She held onto that business card for years.

After more than 10 years with IBM, their printer division merged with Lexmark. The company asked her to move to Kentucky, but life circumstances prevented her from doing so. Her husband’s unexpected death, followed by a years-long, costly custody battle over her daughter, forced René to reevaluate and reset her professional ambitions. Between the legal battles and her growing guardedness of people, René didn’t stop. She absorbed more life lessons.

“(Having gone through that), it's another thing you want to keep your learning skills activated on – how to be aware of the wolves in this world. It makes you stronger.”

After winning custody of her daughter and finding peace in her life again, it wasn’t long that she was ready to launch her career in a new direction. A Head Hunter reached out to her regarding employment at Datamax. She met with Brian James regarding working and IT Department. And then she called Barry Simon.

The Learning Never Stops.

Today, as an Account Development Manager on the Datamax IT team, learning is an essential trait. Technology moves fast. The technical details of VoIP Phone Systems, network management, or document management engagements René presents can be cumbersome for the average user.

It’s up to René to be the expert. But also to communicate these initiatives clearly.

“I spend a lot of time, mostly at night reading through the digital magazines I subscribe to. This information keeps me on the bleeding edge. Also, my computer is set to ping any time I get news-related emails throughout the day,” René says.

As René continues to absorb more information, she likens it to making $1,000. Now, you want to make $1,100, and then $1,500. The learning never stops.

And with that, she again credits her mother.

“Mother always told me, the more you know, the more people are going to need you. The more I know, the more I want to know,” she says.