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Is there better proof that John Trotta loves to deep dive than the fact that everything he has learned to become the CTO of a collection operation was learned on the job? Not only was RTR Financial Services his first exposure to the credit and collections industry, but his first exposure to tech, too. Living his best advice of never stop learning has helped John in his career. Read on to learn more about John, why he’s not doing much reading these days, and why knows so much about hops.
Name: John Trotta
Job Title: As CTO, I lead our IT infrastructure and support teams, and I oversee all systems, networks, and technology operations. I’m also responsible for our security and compliance program.
Company: RTR Financial Services, Inc.
Length of time at current company: I’ve been at RTR for 17 years.
Length of time in industry: I’ve been in the industry for the same amount of time; RTR was the first job that exposed me to tech. I’ve learned everything I know about IT operations, security, and compliance while working for RTR, and I’ve had various roles leading up to my current position.
How did you get your start in the industry?
I was initially hired to follow up on medical bills for our hospital clients. Being a little technically savvy, I took every opportunity to help the IT technician we had at the time and learned enough to change roles into an entry-level support technician. As time went on, I grew more interested in tech and shifted my focus to making that my career.
What is your career highlight so far?
When we were hit with COVID in March of 2020, we were forced to pivot our operations as a technical team and as an overall organization. We responded quickly by redesigning our infrastructure and turned a crisis into an opportunity. This pivot not only addressed the problem at hand, but allowed us to scale our business in ways not possible before.
When or how are you most productive?
I am a generally a morning person, and the nature of my role requires me to wear many hats. The morning is the best time for me to focus on anything proactive, as opposed to the reactive work that comes up daily.
Which industry professional do you admire most?
I follow Daniel Miessler pretty closely. He has a podcast called “Unsupervised Learning” where he dives deep on AI-focused topics that aren’t typically covered. He gets into how AI blends with humanity and society, while asking bigger questions about society and our future. I highly recommend his podcast to anyone who is interested about AI and humanity, together.
What is one thing you do better than everyone else?
I deep dive better than anyone I know. When I must learn something new, I go to great lengths to understand it. I tend to branch off into subtopics, gain context and perspective, and understand relationships to whatever it is I am learning about. It helps me paint a complete picture to approach solving a problem.
What do you like most about this industry?
I enjoy the rapid change and constant learning. If things stopped changing today, you could spend a lifetime learning everything there is to know about tech. Combine that with how frequently things change, there is always a new problem to solve, a target moving to a new spot.
What is one thing you wish you could change about this industry?
I wish it were more approachable to people outside of it. While I know many open-minded people who are interested in tech, I’ve met far more who are afraid of technology and have no desire to learn more. I think if they had the right person to talk to about tech, they may not be so turned off by it. Tech is only becoming more pervasive and it’s not the time to be tech-shy; we need ambassadors to open doors and turn people onto tech in a positive way.
If you weren’t in this industry, what would you be doing?
I would probably be working in music management trying to break artists and help them with the business side of their careers. I am a bass player and have played in bands for many years. I’ve always been more of the business guy than the songwriter.
Describe a typical work day.
Once I get into the office, I check my emails and Teams messages for anything urgent. After about an hour of reading, sending replies, following up on items, I have a daily morning standup meeting with my team. We go over any new or outstanding issues, fill each other in on updates about what we’re working on, discuss new initiatives and directives staff must carry out, and ultimately make sure everyone has what they need to succeed for the day. Once I am past this part of the day, it’s a mixture of meetings, calls, research, and accomplishing my task list for the day. I spend a lot of time being a technical communicator for stakeholders, vendors, staff, etc. that I always have new things coming my way. I try to stay nimble so I am available when things come up and I need to get involved in something on short notice.
What is your guilty pleasure?
I am a bit of a beer snob. I could talk to you all day about different styles, hop profiles, the nuances each region of the world has, tons of unnecessary info. I am not a homebrewer myself, though!
What is the best advice you have ever received?
Never stop learning and never stop labbing. It may be typical advice, but it’s true that in our industry, you must constantly be learning and growing to stay afloat with the everchanging landscape we have. I tend to be less hands-on these days, so I am not writing as much code or building systems like I was in the past. I compensate by working on my home lab to try new tech and stay ahead of the curve.
What are you currently reading?
I have a newborn at home, so my reading has suffered a bit because of it. I’ve been getting into the app Blinkist to get the important points of certain books without having to read every page. I’ve recently gotten through “Life After Google” by George Gilder, and “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman.
What is one fact you’d like everyone in the industry to know about you?
I’m a die hard Mets fan. Let’s go Mets!
Who else would you like to see answer these questions?
Andrej Karpathy
