From the Air Force to Remote Drilling Sites to Technical Account Manager: 10 Years in IT

November 1, 2026

People sometimes ask how I ended up as a Technical Account Manager. The honest answer is that every job before this one taught me something I use now. My path went from the Air Force, to supporting drilling rigs by phone, to being the sole TAM at an MSP. Here's what each stop taught me.

The Air Force: Client Systems Technician

I started out in the Air Force as a Client Systems Technician, working mostly on end-user devices. That's where I learned a lot about security and compliance on end-user devices, and it's where I first saw that IT has a lot of different sides.

Stateside, the work was what you'd expect in an office: computers, printers, phones, and the occasional plotter. I also worked on a Windows 10 migration and imaged machines with a PXE server. That kind of work teaches you to be consistent, because every device has to come out the same way.

Deployed, the work was much more tactical. I had to learn radios. I managed the Blue Force Tracker (BFT) program. We also had a stack of Iridium satellite phones on our compound that were blocked, and nobody could figure out how to unblock them. I researched how to get them working again and set up a procedure to unblock them. I also flew on a C-130 down to a dirt runway in Somalia to transport protected equipment.

One of the biggest lessons from my deployment was the importance of standby. We had to have a J6 tech in the Joint Operations Center (JOC) at all times to monitor phones, workstations, and radio transmissions. When systems have to be up, someone has to be there and paying attention. That stuck with me.

Remote Drilling Sites: Mission-Critical by Phone

After the Air Force, one of my roles was remote support for drilling rigs. I was the only tech on my 12-hour shift, and I worked mostly by phone, walking the rig manager or driller through troubleshooting so we could figure out what the problem was.

When rigs are on performance contracts, anything that can affect drilling operations becomes mission-critical. Even the touchscreen on an HMI. Everyone is antsy to get it back up and working, and you're the one on the phone.

It was 24x7 operations, so I worked a lot of nights. Even though I worked from home, the job was stressful enough that I was on a two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off schedule.

What I took from it was how to handle constant stress on mission-critical issues. I learned to stay calm, ask clear questions, and guide someone else's hands through a fix when I couldn't touch the equipment myself.

Technical Account Manager: Owning the Environment

Today I'm the sole Technical Account Manager at an MSP supporting 4,370 end users across 80+ clients. What I love most about the role is that I'm the technical expert for my clients' environments.

I'm not working a ticket for 10 to 15 minutes and then jumping to the next call like a tier-1 service desk tech. I'm an escalation resource. People bounce ideas off me, and they come to me when they have questions about a client's environment or when documentation is wrong. It's my job to know each environment and make sure the documentation is accurate.

I also get to help with projects, identify holes and weaknesses in our clients' environments along with how to fix them, and plan out roadmaps. More than anything, I love the ownership of it.

What Ties It Together

Looking back, each step got me ready for the next one:

• Security and compliance start at the device. The Air Force taught me that, and it still shapes how I look at client environments.
• IT has a lot of sides. Office equipment, radios, satellite phones, rig HMIs, and now whole client environments. Being open to all of them made me a better generalist, and a TAM has to be one.
• Someone has to be watching. Standby in the JOC taught me that uptime depends on people paying attention, which is a big part of proactive account management.
• Stay calm under pressure. The drilling sites taught me how to work mission-critical problems without letting the stress run the show.
• Own it. Knowing an environment end to end, and keeping its documentation right, is what lets me help clients plan ahead instead of just reacting.

If you're working your way up in IT, or you run a business that could use someone who owns its environment, I'd be glad to connect. Feel free to reach out.