What The Funk?

0:00 All right, we are back on what the funk. It's a Friday, beautiful Friday here in Colorado. It's finally fall. Let me check the temperature real quick. 62 degrees, hardly sunny with the podcast

0:13 or voice. I'm

0:17 seeing my favorite time of year is my favorite season. I did hear though that Houston is still like in the 90s. It is 86 right now.

0:25 That's more tolerable, I would say. You can

0:32 work with 86. I'm actually headed to Houston next week. So when this podcast drops, I'll be in your hood, got a conference and some meetings downtown, which I'm looking forward to. Yeah, I done

0:43 a good job the past few years of avoiding Houston in the summer. All I hear about it. Houstonians are pretty like tolerable to the heat. But even these past few years, people have been complaining

0:55 about it though. Last couple years. It's been brutal. It has been brutal. No doubt.

1:01 It's hot, and I'm like such a Yankee, right? So it's just too

1:07 cold where I'm from down there. It's too hot. So Colorado's like a good balance for me. But anyways, Mark D'Alessio, you're just one of those guys that everybody likes. Well, that's been kind

1:22 of my impression of you. That's pretty flat. Yeah,

1:27 you're a likable guy. You're a partnerships guy You're knowledgeable as it relates to business and oil and gas. And also, I just wanted to say thank you for being flexible. My business right now

1:37 is going ham. It's going ham, man. Summer was slow. I was like, what is going on? And ever since the calendar turned to like, yeah, September 1st, all of a sudden it's just been gangbusters.

1:50 And now I'm like, all right, I gotta staff up. And, you know, we're placing people on the recruiting side and bringing us these super cool innovators. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. different

1:59 challenges, right? I think any services based company deals with the roller coaster. And now I'm thinking like summers, I'm just going to like go off the map in July. Just be like, you know what,

2:14 we're not going to get anything done this month. So I'm, I'm stepping away. But now I know I couldn't take any time off. But thank you for being flexible. We moved this one. Yeah, move this one

2:24 around a little bit. I'll hit you with the question that I hit all of my guests with. Who are you? Who is Mark Dolesio? Oh, geez, that's a, that's a, it could be a long answer. Let me, let's

2:37 go here. So born and raised a Yankee like you, right? So born and raised in New Jersey. Oh, yes. They're from, yeah, yeah, from there from birth until about 30 give or take that I spent about

2:52 five or six years in Florida, which prepped me for the, for the youth.

2:57 I was in, I was in southeast Florida, uh, loved it. It was, it was great. And then, uh, made the change over to Houston in 2000, very late 2010, 2011. Oh, so this hasn't been that long for

3:12 you. I mean, I guess, no, 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

3:19 And what brought you to Houston? Well, what brought you to southeast Florida from Jersey and then what brought you from Florida to Houston? Yeah, absolutely. So,

3:31 okay, the move from Florida, I was working and traveling a lot for work, right? So really, I was doing consulting, and I could have been anywhere else. I was buying an airport. Now, I will

3:43 preface it and say it would have been better if it was a major airport, but I decided that Palm Beach would probably do well enough. That was, it was fun. It was a great living. But, being a

3:53 traveler a lot of connections so that that was that move and then I tried and I tried the old or what can I do next are using made sense it had the you know the major airport so that was kind of the

4:06 next the next moving in the in the cycle

4:10 Gotta let let's go back to Jersey will be so where in Jersey are you from did you go to college in Jersey was that kind of what your battles Yeah absolutely so I I was born and raised in town called

4:22 Carney New Jersey which no one out of the northeast really knows but if I tell you it's very close to hoboken a lot of people know their cars and think they know they know hoboken well real real blue

4:33 collar town right and it's one of those towns where generally speaking I'd say eighty percent of the people really never leave if if even know what I'm saying it was it was one of those definitely one

4:44 of those kind of one of those kind of areas where the cars I mentioned went to college are not far away in Union New Jersey And it stayed, but my, it was funny because right off the bat, it's weird.

4:57 Um, growing up, I couldn't wait to get out. Then as you get older, sometimes you're like, you get a little, a little sentimental about it. Shall we say?

5:08 Yeah. Yeah. No, we could talk about Jersey for a while. So, you know, I'm from New Hampshire and went to college in Boston. My dad, my dad is from New Brunswick. Oh, that's right. Okay.

5:19 Highland Park. I know. And went to Rutgers Oh, okay. Long line of, long line of family, his dad, my grandfather worked at Rutgers. My dad and his brothers went to Rutgers. So I grew up, you

5:32 know, making that drive down from New Hampshire and spending time in New Brunswick and also like have a lot of friends in Philly. So I've spent time on the Jersey Shore. I like in Jersey, right?

5:42 I have some in laws that live there. They're over in Red Hook. They live, you know, kind of by the water. Jersey is a beautiful state. And of course, like I'm assuming you're an Italian guy.

5:53 Of course. Yeah.

5:56 There's many of them, the Italian food there, the pizzas, as good as it gets, right? So close to home.

6:03 Close to Hoboken means you were actually close to New York City too. Very, very close. I used to tell people this is not an exaggeration from my parents' driveway to parking the car in Times Square

6:16 was 115 miles. So I always say for people from Houston, the Woodlands is farther from downtown Houston than I was from New York City growing up. I mean, you could see from my high school windows,

6:31 you could see the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center as clear as a bell apart, stable and absolutely. It was very close. That we took advantage of it. Not as probably as much as I should

6:40 have, but it wasn't uncommon. Certainly in your post-college days when you had a little bit of money, not to deal. Hey, let's go into the city as we call it. Let's go into the city for dinner,

6:49 for drinks, absolutely

6:53 Yeah, like a true bridge and tunnel kid. Right, right, right. I forget where we were because I had to pause the podcast for a second, but I wish everybody could have heard this. So Mark's son,

7:05 I think it's your son, right? It's my step-grandson, step-grandson, okay. Your step-grandson is making his way into your office and making noise and really wanted your attention. So I said, Hey,

7:18 hold on, I gotta pause this. I paused the podcast If everybody could have heard the jersey that just came out in Mark D'Alesio, that would have just covered everything that we've been talking about.

7:28 It was absolutely perfect. I wouldn't have had to say anything else. If you hear that clip, Oh, he's from Northern New Jersey, he's an Italian guy from Northern New Jersey. Definitely. That

7:35 would have

7:38 been - What'd I say? Yeah, exactly. Oh, you ruined it. Hey, oh, that was great. That was quite a good laugh. Sometimes you gotta bust it out. Sometimes you gotta bust it out, Jeremy. You

7:47 know what I'm saying? You have to. in moments of authority, right? You gotta do it. But no, so I love New York City too. Like I think Jersey in general, we talked a little bit about that. New

7:60 York, just such an incredible city. I don't get there nearly as much, which is a shame because now I actually have more money than when I used to go there as a young buck. And literally, I just

8:13 remember that we always say this, the 20s just fly out of your wallet there, right? Yeah, absolutely And then you go on subway and meals and, oh my God, that is, it's just the money, I mean,

8:24 you have a blast, but the money just flies out. I think you probably had a nice 11 and a half miles, true bridge and tunnel kid, like I was saying, but able to enjoy the city as well. So you

8:38 finish up college, right? And you decide, all right, I'm gonna stay home. What did you do for work? Like what were your kind of initial career ventures? Yeah. So, you know, I left that

8:48 because a typical. Probably typical anybody from the that came of age in the late early early early 90s I wanted to be on Wall Street, right Hey, I saw you know, I want to build the whole stock

9:00 poker thing and and wolf and then you you get out You want to say what those jobs entail and so it's not as glamorous as you think so I was a finance major coming out of coming out of undergrad and

9:12 Didn't know what I was gonna do with that. You know thought the whole Washington ended up getting into corporate treasury and Really really loved it. You know it was it was it was kind of It used

9:23 your finance if you use your accounting you it's me It's a great way to learn about the business in general and I what that company is right and so that's what I did I ended up working up I ended up

9:33 working for bursen Marsteller who at the time was the largest public relations firm in the world They were owned by young and Rubicon the advertising agency. So I work in New York City 230 Park

9:46 Avenue, South. So remember it. Well My Joke was I think the job cost the money cause dollars an actual salary for commuting into New York to defend a commuter tax New York City tax during the Day I

9:58 was it was not that wasn't a financial world by uneven means but it was fought

10:04 Yeah that's funny this is bringing me way back like you know like you write I was I stayed in like a very small area near New Hampshire and then Boston and and My Mom was from that area and it was

10:17 just comfortable right but but I had this itch at about twenty two twenty three years old I want to do something different I want to move somewhere else so I explored like different opportunities and

10:25 different places and one of those was like some of the Guys I went to college with had started up a recruiting agency based in New York City I think like Park AV area And, you know, it was

10:39 recruiting, right? So it was a lot of like commission based stuff. I was like, man, this would be so cool. The energy is great. These guys are making money when they place an executive and you

10:49 know, healthcare or whatever it is that they're doing. But I'm like, yeah, but it's gonna take me a few months to get set up and I got nothing to my name. So like, I remember the offer that they

10:60 made. They're

11:02 like, so we'll pay you like a stipend of like, I was like a thousand bucks a month But you get to live with us, bread free in our apartment. And I'm like, ah, but now I just feel like I'm kind

11:15 of owned. Yeah. You're not paying anything. You know what my whole life looks like, right? 'Cause I'm living with you. I'm just like, ah, it just seems risky. That's, I agree. Although you

11:27 could argue that the rent free New York has a value, but I totally agree with you. I would have been like, no, that's, That's like indentured serf into a way or indebted to that. Oh, no, no.

11:41 Yeah, I just, I thought it was funny, right? And, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have experience recruiting. They're like, you can talk to people. You're good. You're

11:48 good. You got it. You know, they like slick New Yorkers. It would have been a much different life, life path for me. But I'm sure I would have run out of money very, very quickly. Or been like,

11:58 I need, I need to live in Jersey and take the train over. But that's cool So you went the finance route, totally logical, right? Because you know, that was like Gordon Kecko, you know, that's

12:10 totally what it was. Yeah, right. Everybody saw that movie and, you know, it was the late go go, you know, a graduate high school in 87, I guess I am at that old, but, you know, it was that

12:20 was the go go. That's what everybody wanted to do. Everybody thought that was the, that was going to be the life, no doubt.

12:26 I get it. I remember watching that early in my sales career too, and the whole lunches for wimps and all this, and I'm like, this is great. I want to be one of those guys, but I don't want to

12:38 live in New York City. I want to go hiking on the weekend and live out here. Exactly. Go skiing and live in Colorado. No doubt. So you lived in Jersey, you commuted in to New York, you got into

12:50 the corporate treasury, finance side of things. Yes. And then consulting. So still

12:57 no oil and gas yet, right? Oh no, oil and gas came much later. So I ended up having a couple of corporate treasury jobs and I really liked it. And I get a call from a recruiter and they said,

13:08 How would you like to be a treasury consultant? And I remember thinking, Oh, you know, I was probably late 20s at the time, yeah. And I was like, Oh, this would be so, you know, you hear

13:18 about consulting, you know, this is gonna be great and traveling and expense account. And so I ended up getting a job it was actually treasury software. implementation so as a P as persons so it

13:31 wasn't true consoling but I loved it it was it was that's how I got into software it was fantastic it was with a a A

13:47 Hey, man, we're recording this from our home offices. We're good. Okay. So yeah, the dog is that happy. So ended up going,

13:57 it was a New Zealand company that was coming to the US and just starting up and they had an incredible product, took the market by storm. They ended up getting bought out by Sun Guard, which was at

14:06 the time a huge financial software company. And I was there for just under 16 years via acquisition. And I loved it Right. And so I worked my way up the recs, kind of like you with recruiting,

14:19 you know, you're working with

14:21 PS, you're working with the salespeople, the sales managers, and had different roles. And of course, you hear all of them, hey, you can talk, you'd be great in sales, right? Yeah, you know,

14:31 you know the span. I had no sales experience whatsoever, but I remember there was a, there was a kind of a reorg and there was a woman who I worked with who was one of the regional sales managers

14:43 She became a VP of sales. her Old Rs and job opened up and she offered me your hey would you want to take her you'd be great at this and are alright you know what nothing ventured nothing gained and

14:54 that's that was my and so that was in two thousand and four so I did when I was at that bad software Fintech software company said that everything basically he could do right did implementations I did

15:06 presales I did have kind of like what we'd go and do post client on it to make sure they're using the system correctly immense and then got to the south right and it was I don't want a duck to water

15:18 but I did take to it you know I didn't take to it pretty easy I think what was what made me successful was I and I've used this line a lot that is not a lie it's really true as they'd be able to tell

15:29 people I sat in your seat so I know what you're doing to try to get your job done every day and I understand it and I think I was solution selling before I knew what solution selling was in the sense

15:40 of Hey I know what your pain is let's let's solve it together so that was That's not ended up there, yeah, no doubt. So I was there, like I said, for about, just under 16 years, yeah.

15:53 Wow, and then did that, is that what led you into oil and gas, or did something happen? So yeah, no, no, so I had done that for a while. And just like,

16:04 I think everybody goes through a point in their life, right, where you think, okay, I want to try something new, something different. I love sales, but let's see what's going on here There was

16:14 some consolidation in the fintech spaces and so forth. So, end up, there was an opportunity I saw with a recruiter to go and join a company. We both know really well at time, was still called P2

16:27 Energy Solutions. And that was great. That's kind of where I come to my TE. Yeah, that was my first oil and gas job. Working with Mary and Kyle and the team there, a few people who aren't there

16:40 any longer. But that's kind of where I didn't know anything oil and gas, right? you had to sell and kind of just kind of picked it up and learned it. And it's not, you know, I tell people it's

16:51 not,

16:53 it's not extreme. It's weird. It's kind of a kind of a twist. It's not, it's not really difficult, but it's very difficult. If you, you know, depending on what aspect you're looking at, but I

17:04 thought upstream was, was, was exciting. That's where I learned it.

17:09 Yeah. I mean, and P2, so your background did lead pretty nicely to that with the finance and accounting background, the ability to do sales and sales engineering. And like you said, sitting,

17:21 sitting in the seats of the people that you're doing a demo to granted, not an oil and gas, but still, you know, every lady, some type, yes.

17:30 And, and you immediately, like what happened for me, there's some parallels here. My first job in oil and gas tech was with Bolo. So this was pre acquisition. It was well-coated systems had just

17:43 merged or acquired Bolo. It was had headquartered here and in Colorado but also had a houston office and P two was just the devil right it was like Bolo vs caliber and we're going to put these guys

17:56 out of business and then suddenly there's all these rumors of wear for sale ride bolos going to be acquired and then the rumors start to intensify up and actually look that looks like it's going to be

18:08 P two I'm like what like

18:13 sicknesses the enemy like I wake up every day like as I want out for their blood and now you're telling me we're going to be on the theme and I made a a career pivot and decided to go to energy

18:25 navigator at the time I liked what I liked the company culture like they were doing I just had my first kids there was a little more certainty than going through an acquisition and and all that stuff

18:35 but I often do wonder like what my career may have looked like had I gone to Peter would I still be there would I be the Merrier Kyle would I what would I be on a team would I have gotten to know

18:46 somebody that was in there the PE portfolio and go to a different company like it would have it would have taken a different path but but I remember those early days and spry twenty eleven twenty

18:58 twelve or P two people would come up to me and they'd be like oh jeremy funk like you have so many notes in salesforce like I feel like like I tell you yes absolutely and that was my first foray into

19:12 like you Gotta be careful what you put into CRM raised a meeting goes badly somebody treats you like like crap like you don't know who's going to be looking at that data that you input totally fine

19:26 sales is a small world and oil and gas is a smaller world so you crawl across the same people over and over no doubt why does very similar Yeah for sure I'm sorry I had a very similar so as a Picchu

19:39 for a short period and then ended up getting what I consider, you know, a great blessing. And I got to work over at oil decks for Chris Dankler and, you know, I can't speak. I can't speak. I

19:53 know, you know, that's how I met you was actually Chris told me to reach out when I got there and said, you know, pick me up. He's praying on some things. But yeah, so I got to work at oil

20:01 decks with Chris, which was again, great. He was amazing to work for. I can't can't speak highly, you know, highly enough of him. So oil decks for a short period. And then interestingly, you

20:17 know, the devil, which was open in voice, right, doing weird, we were spend work in voice. We were bad. It was a step back. It was a great fit for me because of the whole accounting, counts

20:27 payable. Oil, this was just like a great fit. I had what I had learned at P2 and oil and gas able to incorporate. And then we became part of we acquired oil decks. It's so funny how this happens.

20:41 Chris left, right, and went to drilling info. Well, full circle, a drilling info acquired all decks. And so I got to spend, you know, some time with, back with him again, which I was really

20:51 fortunate about. So, you know, I love those guys and I can't say enough about it. It was great, great folks.

20:59 So that was like Rick Slack and

21:04 Mike Weiss and Chris. Yeah, so the same guys that were running solo when I was there and built a great culture. Chris was a really great, I'd say kind of like early career mentor for me. He came

21:18 on this podcast and I thanked him and I do thank him profusely for being like the first sales manager I had that allowed me to be creative within the confines of a corporate environment, which I

21:31 think you probably has to tow a fine line with a little bit more with the size of Inveris and being the CRO over there but exactly the way that. to to structure deals and the way to build

21:43 relationships with people and cultivate a level of trust were things that I took as a twenty nine year old or whatever and then have applied throughout my career and yeah he he knew like Christmas

21:56 Mark Ira is like you're a hard worker like I want to bring you back and he was trying to recruit me over oil decks for awhile and get really creative with me in terms of how you're structuring it I

22:04 was like man I've got to I've got a good job right now like it was really hard for me to believe and that ultimately he goes to d I'm like you know I got a spot on my capital markets student so he's

22:15 probably pitch pitching you and pitching me on taking the same kinds of jobs right so those oil decks as though no oil decks as you mention like Yeah you are going head to head with with open invoice

22:29 and then ultimately you got smushed together with him right correct and not and not at not successfully hit the enemy next it'll Open invoice What will you study once the acquisition was done and we

22:39 got to see what was under the hood of my car now I see why you Guys are winning winning while all these music yeah it was either go Yeah Big zest ever it was a it was a it was a Christmas but Yeah

22:49 that's what we were you know people who know you would pass go here we'd they'd be coming out of the demo we'd be going into one and then you're suddenly you're you're in meetings having dinner with a

22:58 rosa it was and it it just a interesting concept though doubt

23:05 Yeah consolidation is not just a major part of oil and gas on the operator producer side it is very much so on the tech side as well so that's kind of funny so did you stick around with with open

23:18 invoice for awhile or whatever the company was when absolutely so I was with a probably another three three years after that so you know through this oil Dex to the acquisition of open invoice the

23:31 actual reason which was drilling info at the time now embarrassed name change we had probably about three or four years with that company again You know, going back to what you said, you know,

23:39 there's things that I'm on sales, whether it's structure a deal, pitching a deal, that I still hear Chris's voice, you know, in my head. And he was like, you know, the echo, you know, I

23:51 don't mean to dead horse here, but he was a great mentor, not just sell professionally, but also personally. So, you know, a lot of the stuff he taught me, I still incorporate, yeah, so I was

24:03 there for about three years And, you know, I kind of say, I kind of went into the wilderness and I'll be, you know, pretty candid here with you. I did something really stupid where I started

24:13 chasing equity, right? And,

24:17 you know, I always say sometimes, sometimes I always say, you got to get kicked in the teeth to realize you don't like it, you might be like, oh, you know what, kicking the teeth doesn't sound

24:26 that bad. You get kicked in the teeth. I don't like it I made, you know, just a couple bad, bad decisions, and then one of them was with just if the company where the CEO is this is Sociopath

24:41 somebody this this isn't Gonna work not in oil and gas isolation that this was not an oil and gas company ups so so I decided alright you know let's let's let's get back to what I like to do right and

24:54 just you know with with same thing with with or election to various I started out in a sales role right direct sales went into partnership so that's where I kind of commit a lot of the I think I met

25:05 you through that when I was working at there's a good ally that decided hey I want to get back after I did this the stupid equity chasing I decided I wanted to get back to a large company that's been

25:15 around for awhile where it's at some crossbar probably been around for a while when I get back to beating individual contributor someone who treats they're there from what I at least during the

25:24 interview process you can see it looks like they treat their people well and it was a perfect storm Asbury was was hiring right here in in in Houston and April of twenty twenty two I Got got the job

25:37 with 23, 23, excuse me, 23 got the job with them. So so relatively, so yeah, you're in a half. Absolutely. I want to talk about Israel a little bit, but I still want to go back a little bit

25:49 more. Yeah, no worries. Like, what is it? What is it like for the sales guy to? So you're at a company called oil decks, right? You're selling spend works and then you get rolled up and

26:00 acquired or smushed together with a competitor. Now you're at open invoice and then open invoice gets rolled up, acquired by drilling info, which becomes embarrassed. Like, what was that like?

26:11 That just feels crazy to me. For somebody who doesn't, I don't love change. I think all of us, like we like to, in sales, yes, there's a level of discomfort, especially early on in a job.

26:21 They're drinking from the fire hose, you're figuring out the new products, your territory systems, value props, pricing, all of those things. But you do like to find a comfort zone eventually.

26:32 What was that like in that period of a few years? getting rolled up and acquired so many times? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I think the biggest adjustment, okay, all those changes was the, you

26:47 know, us, us oil text buying, open invoice, right? 'Cause they're like, probably like you went through when you hear about P2, Bolo, Excalibur, Bolo, you know, you're being merged with

26:56 people that you're out, you know, dog fighting with every day, competing with, that that's extremely difficult I think what made it, I don't like change either. I hate change. I think what made

27:07 it somewhat easier, Jeremy, is everybody in kind of oil and gas being such a small, it's a large industry, but it's a small community. They were familiar with what was going on, right? I think

27:18 a lot of new drilling info. So that was a nice thing. Hey, we went from being smaller oil decks, and now we're part of the drilling info family that opened some doors. The Invarist name change,

27:27 I think, was pretty, well, publicized They went out and spent a lot of money doing that. It wasn't as difficult as you might imagine. I think had we been in a maybe a different space where not

27:41 everyone kind of as connected, that might have been tough. But no, it was, in the grants, I mean, it wasn't overly difficult. It wasn't, did I like it? No, of course, though, I go, Hey,

27:53 change like you. But, you know, we rolled with it.

27:58 Yeah, and then ultimately you kept getting rolled into bigger companies But I can also see then the wild goose chase for equity because there's probably people in those organizations getting massive

28:12 cash bonuses or rolling into massive amounts of stock with the new company and buying second homes or driving, you know, nice Mercedes or BMWs to work and you're like, Hey, wait a second. I was

28:24 the one that sold all these deals. What do I get out of it? You get a new job and maybe a new boss, right? and that smaller territory and you can't do business with all the people you did business,

28:34 it's hard. It's a lot of adjustment. So it makes sense to me why you did do a little bit of the equity chase. And I think that we've all sort of seen this happen. I've done that a little bit too,

28:46 especially for me, like post seven lakes, seeing kind of the fast rise of that company and how everything went. I'm like, okay, like now I really wanna get like this level of title, this much

28:57 equity make it work The issue with that is not every company's gonna win. Like sometimes those papers, those stock options, those grants aren't worth anything. I mean, and that's the reality, I

29:08 think most of the time, every once in a while though, you get that really crazy, big exit, but then, you know, you've got a family, right? You have a mortgage to pay and billables and living

29:19 in Houston. So you found, you found Esri, which is really not finance focused at all. So tell me a little bit about what you do at Esri Well, first of all, what is SRE? I know what Esri is, at

29:31 least cursory. I think some of our listeners do, but talk a little bit about Esri. Massive global GIS mapping company, but give a little bit of insight, maybe history in the organization. Talk a

29:41 little bit about what you do at the company. Yeah, so absolutely. Esri, right? I love who is the quote unquote, mapping company. And I'll give you - That's right. It's a privately held company.

29:51 The grandfather or godfather of people of GIS, Jack Dangerman, is the founder. He is still the president I was on the campus and saw Jack in the cafeteria, right? Him still very heavily involved.

30:05 Him and his wife, Laura, are still heavily involved. Jeremy, you got to call on on a second. We can't do this. Pop up.

30:12 No. Yeah, so it's a multi-billion dollar company that's run very family oriented, right? So you still have the founder of heavily involved. 100 private, there's no debt, right? So they put a

30:25 lot back into research and development. with the high level from the what what we do write a lot of people nigga as I said the hates the mapping company right and it's so more than natural I guess

30:38 the best way to put it simply right can take any day don't just because just focus on oil and gas cause it as you know EsrI's across multiple industries federal government state governments etc but

30:50 oil and gas sticks any of the oil and gas data that you know we're looking at whether it be in a bowl or excalibur a Quorum land or any of the land it takes that data and I like to say it can it can

31:01 present it in a up time and location perspective the writer takes it takes

31:10 takes that visually say hey what I want to look at I want to look at what our what our land when our acreage looks like in the Permian I will look at what it looked like ten years ago five years ago

31:20 and now you'd be able to look at that and slice and dice all that data visually presented presented visually too

31:29 to talk to our users that's kind of a high level we can do our routing optimization you know I would just get the oil and gas minutiae but the lease roads right so there's a lot of mapping where hey

31:42 you know here you're on the main highway but then you Gonna make that turn onto the leisure we actually can GPS you and and and and map the least roads so you know where they are or where the hazards

31:51 are or what street you're not allowed to go on the road roads not allowed to go on so basically anything or anything where there there's oil against it it needs to be analyzed we can do it from a from

32:01 a time and place Smith prospect

32:06 interesting so like when I go on to whatever ways or a google maps or apple maps or something like that is that powered by Asbury in the background no but I know his great caution but I tell you what

32:22 is a lot of the very stuff you'll see at the bottom says powered by Asbury Power Wires where basically we had people in the Houston area when we had the power outage was the last hurricane over the

32:35 summer. If you go to a

32:39 TXU's website, if you go to a lot of the power companies and you go on their outage grade, it'll say powered by Esri. I just know 'cause my son was doing a project for school, the Arlington

32:51 Cemetery app powered by Esri. So a lot of things behind the scene are powered, especially in the oil and gas space, a lot of things are powered by Esri in the background. Yeah.

33:03 Yeah, and I've become more attuned with that as I've just looked at more and more oil and gas-entric maps and just looking on the bottom with that little gray font powered by Esri. So it's a

33:14 massively large organization. I appreciate you kind of sharing some insights into the culture of it. Your background, of course, finance, accounting, Workflows, data exchanges. What are you

33:30 doing at Esri, man? Yeah, that's, I am an account manager on the geospatial side, right? And it was interesting, 'cause I think you know, when you're doing finance, we'll say oil and gas when

33:46 my first guy, like you point out, it's kind of more on the financial side, right? You think about Bolo and oil decks and so forth. But you're still picking up a lot of, of a lot of things. I'll

33:56 tell you one of my favorite ones back at Invirus when they were rolling out field tickets, right? Open ticket. One of the things that was talked about was, hey, one of the largest cause of

34:09 accidents in the oil field is automobile, is vehicle crashes, right? Sure. Okay, so open ticket will keep vehicles off the road. Well, when you go to Esri, it's like, hey, remember that. We

34:23 can also now do routing. We call it route optimization, for example We could say, hey, you guys have - I got forty forty fields here and you got the six electricians and three other repairman or

34:34 why have DR why had driving past each other with with this relative position we can say okay Here's your here's what your ears your fielders your workers here's what work orders have to be done that

34:45 day and basically route them effectively without having to you know minimum while Obama minimizing the drive so I was able to take that that item i learned about open ticket and it kind of flows and

34:59 I'm just used as an example flows into what kind of Esri's doing and there's multiple areas where that's the case where hey this was a finance issue but it's also an operations issue as well

35:11 HM Yeah I like to call that the uber possession of the oil field but it could probably stretched and be stretched and as returns to say that Uber's Asian have everything right it's like Yeah something

35:22 needs to happen in some place why are we doing our old school traditional you just drive the same box or circle or triangle every day, there could be somebody that can go and handle that, which then

35:35 reduces potential accidents, saves money, is better from an emissions perspective. There's a lot of different things. So yeah, what you're talking about is fundamental, I think, to oil and gas,

35:46 but not just oil and gas. Also, government, for plumbers, for electricians, right? Any sort of larger entity like that, if they can do more jobs in a day, if they can reduce safety, if they

35:58 can be more effective and efficient, that's just good for everybody. It's good for everybody. So that's cool that you take. Yeah, go ahead. I'll say, look, one of the things also, not trying

36:07 to sell people from a safety perspective, right? One of the areas we have is we can pull in data from the National Weather Service and be able to say, okay, now I've got I've got people in the

36:16 field at this site. Oh, my gosh, there's a

36:22 severe thunderstorm warning.

36:25 Yeah so your severe weather Trump's you know where your people are and be able to reach reach reach them we can also do geo -fencing right so one of the one of the big ones is young you have

36:36 contractors who say OH I was on the site for seven hours and did all this work right well now we can prove hey the geo -fencing know you weren't on that long row you're on a shirt for tomorrow you

36:47 weren't at that site at all you're actually getting a haircut so yeah it's it's not a big brother watching you just to make everything more efficient

36:55 while there's there's an element of of fraud that you really have to be careful for which I'm sure you know for you coming from that treasure finance and accounting side of things that it resonates

37:07 with you but Yeah I mean in any there's an implicit amount of trust in the oil field or or any industry that has remote assets and the Geo -fencing component is a big deal because if you can compare

37:20 that to the field tickets as I was on site for six hours while you're on site for two You're lying and that can jeopardize a business opportunity and a job. But to me, it's less big brother, more

37:32 just fundamental to honesty, fairness, and ethical business practices. Are you just directly working with Esri in oil and gas? Yes. So I'm an account manager. I have about 20, 25 oil and gas

37:50 accounts, interestingly, right? So most of our, almost,

37:56 I would say the oil and gas industry is almost 100 penetrated by Esri in one way, shape, or form. So for sure, though, even though we're quote hunters and farmers, you know, it's mostly for me

38:06 a farming job, which I love. I actually love that aspect of it. I have great, great because I have a lot of, uh, just the way we broke it down, which I think this is makes perfect sense. Most

38:14 of our salespeople either in Houston, San Antonio or Denver, right? But we have, you know, home of the city, Dallas, what we've done is I ended up having Pittsburgh. And you say, oh, Mark,

38:25 you don't live, well, I can fly there a lot. And the reason I haven't mixed sense, you know, sort of me flying there on Monday than a colleague flying there Tuesday, I just go there and see as

38:34 many as my accounts as possible.

38:37 Yeah, it's, and it's not a bad flight. I, I like Pittsburgh too. It's, it's been a while since, since I've been, but yeah, that the rolling hills near and dear to really both of us being from

38:48 the Northeast, right? And I think the foliage is nice It rains a lot more there than here for sure. I think you got a little more rain than we do and, and used it. Maybe a lot more with the, the

38:58 human right. I want to ship, I want to shift gears a little bit to like reflecting back, right? Like we've gone through your career. It's a, it's a fascinating career path that you've taken.

39:11 And, and it, I think it's cumulated nicely to the role that you have. Like I, I think you're, you're a natural connector with people. I think you're a good listener You like partnerships, you

39:22 like relationships. But looking back, right, looking into the early mid '90s version of Mark Daleseo, what would advice would you give to your younger self? Oh, God. You know, I've been asked

39:36 on different things, whether, you know, internal train, that question comes up. And it's funny, I think the answer changes, right, depending on where you are. But I would say right now, if

39:48 you were to ask me that, and I think this will stay true for the remainder of my life, not to have been so serious and planned out, right? I think my, I think I was very much like, okay, you

40:01 need to do, you need to be here professionally and personally and here professionally and personally and each year, you know, if you're not there, oh, you got to hurry up and get there. And I

40:09 think if I could go back, I would like to be a little bit more spontaneous and quote unquote, let it happen And I think to your point, like by just letting it happen, I ended up at Esri where,

40:20 you know, I love the pro, the the solution, I love the company, I love the people I work with, that kind of just let it happen, right? It wasn't, I didn't plan to, I'm going to be at Esri by

40:29 the time I'm so and so. But I think when I was younger, I was way, way too planned out.

40:37 Yeah, that's, I like that. It has me thinking a little bit about myself too. And I think part of that is just the environment that you're in, right? Like your first job at a school, you were,

40:47 you're on Wall Street, right? And I think a lot of people that do that, they intend to have a plan. And maybe that a plan entails a house in the Hamptons or living in Greenwich or working 80 hour

40:57 weeks. You can realize, okay, best plans go to waste like pretty fast Absolutely. I want him to be on Wall Street, but I ended up, I was with the doing Treasury, but no, in New York City, but

41:08 to your point, yes. Once you, I always say, once you saw what that was entailed, you're like, yeah, maybe this isn't what I want, I want to be doing. Yeah. But even like, like person,

41:18 everything, all right, you have to be, you know, do this. You have to be, you know, you have to be, have your own, your first house by this age. And then your next big house, but it's like,

41:25 no, it doesn't have to be that way

41:29 Yeah, I think that that's a recipe for disaster in some ways. And I'm with you. I feel like bad There have been many points in my life and career, I'd say more career centric where I'm like, this

41:44 isn't where I envision I would be at this age. And then it ties into then you start comparing yourself to others around you. And yeah, comparisons, the thief of joy, right? Teddy Roosevelt said

41:52 that and it really rings true. But I think letting that go is really helpful. And you

42:00 know, spontaneity, I think, can go

42:07 in one of two ways. You were spontaneous in chasing equity. It didn't necessarily work, right? So I think there's a bit of a double edged sword with that. But generally speaking, everyone has

42:18 their own path. And being happy, I think, is first and foremost to just general success, whether it be life, career, family, and just enjoying your authentic path. You never would have

42:20 envisioned

42:35 If you went back to the 90s that you'd be selling mapping centric software to the oil and gas industry in Houston, right? No, you know, it's so funny you say that because I remember having, I

42:47 don't know, it's a fifth or sixth grade teacher. And she said, most of you will be doing the job that you had no idea existed when you get older, right? And your sales sales sales existed, but

43:01 yeah, I would have never in a million years thought that Yeah.

43:08 Um, what's your favorite restaurant in Houston? Oh, man. Um,

43:17 all right, if, if, if money's no object, uh, Papa Steakhouse.

43:25 Love it. That's a good one. Love it. Yeah. Now, if

43:29 we, if we come down a level, I do bounce between popositos and lubias. Lupe is my favorite Mexican. But those two, those two and Papa Steakhouse, and you can't go wrong with Perry's either. You

43:42 know, but there's some good ones. That's a top problem. I would go with money or logic, Papa Steakhouse.

43:50 I'm with that, I can get with that. I do love the Tex-Mex down there. I mean, the food there in general is amazing. And Perry's what today's Friday. So if you want, you can get the - That big

43:60 pork chop. Biggest pork, the biggest pork chop for lunch at an affordable price, right? Absolutely. That's funny.

44:09 You're making me hungry now for next week in Houston already.

44:15 From a career perspective, right? When you look back a little bit, can you pinpoint, like, what your favorite job was?

44:29 It's funny, I would, there was two that stand out. It was my kind of my first couple of years in sales. So I would say 2004, 2005, 2006, doing the treasury software. I enjoyed that thoroughly.

44:43 And then I would say, you know, my first, the time at, you know, oil decks with Chris, right, was probably, Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I'm thinking Chris would probably say, oh, he

44:55 didn't, he didn't sure to act that way, but no, I loved, I loved every minute. It was, it was so enjoyable. I was learning a lot. I was working for somebody who I respected a lot. It was just,

45:05 it was, it was just a lot of fun.

45:08 And it's funny, is that, that's the key, right? They always say if you, if you, if you love what you do, you don't, you never work a day in your life. And there's been, there's been some,

45:16 there's been a couple of jobs there. You know, you're, you're like, oh, this is really torturous. But there, there is a few that you look back at. I, I've enjoyed that

45:25 Yeah, I don't know, I've gone back and forth on that. that statement a little bit. Like, yes, sure, that that may very well be the case, but I mean, work is still work, right? And there's

45:36 good, there's always sort of a void. Like my, yeah, I love to just spend all my time with my family, but let's be honest, during the day, my kids are at school, my wife is at work. So if I

45:47 wasn't working, whether I liked it or not, what would I be doing? You know what I mean? I'm trying to play. I'm

45:54 probably being in better shape, I probably go to the gym all the time, I'd probably be a little bit more mindful and meditate more. Those are all good things, but you're not tapping into then your

46:03 intellectual side. So whether you love it or not, it's sort of

46:09 like you've got to do it, and especially at our ages, although you're a little bit older than me. Finally, Mark, where can people find you? If people want to reach out to you, if they want to

46:17 learn more about Esri, if they want to connect with you, grab coffee and Houston, and absorb some of your great energy, where can people find about Baleseo? You can find me on LinkedIn now I'll

46:29 let you open the curtain a little bit. You have to search under. Amal Mark, the last year because of my birth name is by Mark, yes. Okay, yeah, I remember when I used Mark. Yes, yes,

46:41 absolutely. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, so, but I'm on LinkedIn. Also, if people are interested in Esri in general, Esricom, right? Great information there. But yeah, I love kind of like you

46:56 probably while we're in the jobs where I love people I love talking to people. So, you know, if you saw this and anything interest you, absolutely. And just reach out. I'm always happy to bounce

47:07 my ideas about oil and gas or about what I'm doing. And I love to hear from people. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

47:16 Yeah, I think if, like, if I had my brothers and say I was the person running a larger oil and gas tech company, to me, you would be like the very natural. partnership's person. Like I think

47:30 that you really did. Yeah, you're welcome. You put a good face on for the companies that you worked at, thinking back really to, I guess it still would have been oiled next days or open invoice

47:40 days. You were the partner guy. And I think for a lot of people that is a more passive role, I think for you, like you really sat down with your partners and created cultivated relationships that

47:51 then led to business opportunities. So I have a great deal of respect for you in that role. And I'm sure in this sales role that you're in for Esri, you're doing and going to do a great job. So I

48:02 really appreciate your patience and me rescheduling you like three or four times. And then finally coming on. But yeah, he made this a lot of fun Mark. I appreciate you. Well, thank you, Jeremy.

48:12 A ton of respect for you as well. I think I mentioned when the way I ended up getting introduced to you was Chris, who believe is not paid me for these plucks. But Chris said, Hey, you gotta

48:24 reach out to Jeremy. He I worked with him. He's is going to really - he's a great - resource great person. And he was not wrong. You really are. And I appreciate your patience. I know it had

48:33 some background, some background noise a little bit, but I appreciate it. I appreciate your patience. And hey, man, next week, let me know of yet any free time love to catch up and have a cold

48:45 beverage with you. You got a brother, take care.