For all intents and purpose, Chris Williams was happy where he was at.

The then-Datamax Arkansas Service Supervisor had come to peace with his current role and that it might stick into his eventual retirement. What was there to complain about? He found satisfaction in what he did. He respected his colleagues (and they definitely respected him). He found real value in what he was doing professionally.  And frankly, he was too engrained in supporting fellow technicians and clients out in the field to give it too much thought.

But it’s like Henry David Thoreau once said: “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” Chris wasn’t chasing titles. He was chasing excellence, and his promotion eventually found him.

Recently, Chris was named the new Service Manager for the State of Arkansas. For him, it’s a promotion that was heavily coveted, thoroughly evaluated, but overwhelmingly deserved. He’s already earned the trust of his team because they know that when they’re stuck on a service issue he’s been there, done that. He leads by his expertise. He teaches by example.

If you walk down the stairs to the service area or have a quick chat with technicians today, you can sense it. The Best is Yet to Be.

“I talked to David (Holzhauer) and Barry (Simon) both, and I knew there were things that could be improved. I knew this role would be more intense, that it would come with expectations, and I’d have to really dig in,” Chris said. “As I thought about it over the weekend, I considered that I’ve always had ideas, things I would want to do in this role. It was a total change in mindset with my career. It was time to put up or shut up.”

Thus far, Chris has put his whole heart into his leadership of the department. Let’s learn a few things about Chris as we collectively welcome into this new role.

Chris started life on the move.

Born in Starkville, Miss., he was an Air Force “Brat” who spent time in both Dakotas, Alaska, California, Colorado, and Wyoming (the latter being his “happy place”). After graduating high school, his father bought a small business and Chris returned to Arkansas.

Chris knew what he wanted to do… or at least what he didn’t want to do.

While attending school at Arkansas Tech at nights, he did work as an electronic technician. As he searched for jobs in the Russellville area, he knew one thing for sure.

“I didn’t want to work at a factory, no matter what,” he said.

So he kept looking. In 1999, he joined on as a technician for a Xerox dealer based out of Tulsa, Okla.

“They trained me up, but my boss was based out of Tulsa and I was the farthest technician they had East. My closest coworkers were in Fort Smith,” Chris recalls.

Chris learned the value of Culture.

After working at another copier dealership in the Little Rock area for 12 years, a couple of opportunities arose: One with Konica Minolta, and the other with Datamax. He chose Datamax, and “I’m glad I did.”

“The place I was at had a terrible culture, and even though they offered me a supervisor position then, I look back and know I’m a lot better off where I am at,” Chris said. “This is a well run company and the stability here allows your brain to go other places and think of more productive things to make the environment even better – you’re not concerned with (company) survival all the time. You’ve got stability because you know the people above you are doing what they’re supposed to do – so on my end, let’s focus on the things that better the department.”

Chris’ service wisdom is often expressed through his catchphrases.

He likes to warn technicians: “The machines are guilty until proven innocent.” In other words, the onus is on you, the technician, to do your due diligence and find the root of the customer issue to find resolution.

Another? His “90/10” rule.

“When you’re out servicing machines, 90 percent of the time you’ll see the same 10 percent of issues… most of which you’ll be readily prepared to solve. The other 10 percent of the time? You’ll get one that will force you to go outside your comfort zone and learn something.”

Chris’s mindset moving forward? Get ‘er done.

"I don’t really want to be paralyzed too much, too long, on what we should do when it’s time to make a decision,” Chris said. There is no perfect thing, and it might be wrong sometimes, but other times, it will be the perfect thing. The point? Let’s move forward. Let’s get it done.”

Chris teaches by example.

And that earns all the trust in the world from those around him.

“Generally speaking, if you’re asking someone to do something, and they don’t believe you’ve ever done it, it’s hard for you to expect it out of them. So many of the things about being a technician good, or bad, I can speak to it because I’ve been there, too."