On this episode we spoke with Christina Mathes, Vice President of Client Experience for Rocket Fiber. Rocket Fiber is Detroit's newest, exciting Gigabit Internet provider serving residents and businesses with 100 times faster Internet speeds.

Christina has a degree in Psychology from the University of Detroit Mercy, but was uncertain what to do with it! So she started off in a position in mortgage banking at fast-growing Quicken Loans, where her career evolved over the past 15 years. About four years ago she moved to the Mouse Trap team, the “innovation arm” of Quicken Loans. Then she moved this past year to Rocket Fiber.

When Christina first made a move into technology, joining Mouse Trap, she was excited to learn and bring her first-hand business experience to the tech team. She loved being in a setting that supported positive breakthroughs. Mouse Trap helps Quicken Loans with vetting new ideas to propel innovation, in both technology and other aspects of the business. Her team also helped lead “bullet time,” a four hour weekly session on Mondays for technologists to learn new skills or work on new projects.

When one of the co-founders of Rocket Fiber submitted a concept to the idea portal of Mouse Trap to get Google Fiber to Detroit, they explored it. The Mouse Trap team conducted feasibility studies to see if the concept was viable in Detroit. Google wasn’t interested in entering the market, so Rocket Fiber was spun off about a year ago, to make the idea a reality.

Why is Gigabit Internet vital for Detroit? Christina said that it helps both new entrepreneurs and the growing cadre of second stage companies in Detroit. For her, it is a “no brainer” that faster online connections can significantly help with the city’s growth trajectory! Christina pointed out that everyone has to have Internet these days, and she’s excited to provide a better client service experience for those accessing it. Rocket Fiber plans to use online tools, community events, and more to empower people to use the Internet.

“I’m excited about bringing our customers something they deserve. Folks are pigeon-holed into just a few options, and have poor experiences,” she said.

Bringing 100 times faster speeds will help residents save time, and businesses execute faster. For Christina, she likes to remind others it’s far more about what getting online speedily does for humans, and their endeavors, than just using the technology.

Christina shared some great advice for women entering or staying in technology fields:

If you want to try something, just try it.
It can be easy to achieve a good work / life balance if you focus on achieving it.
Surround yourself with others who share similar interests and challenges.
Meet everyone you can. Ask others what they’ve done.
Keep your head up, look around and meet people.

A noteworthy organization that helped Christina was We Build Character --- a program devoted to pairing emerging professionals with top-notch mentors. WBC helped her meet diverse colleagues, and receive constructive feedback from her mentors and others in the program.

Christina is Vice President of Client Experience at Rocket Fiber :http://www.rocketfiber.com/

Christina mentions and recommends the following technology organizations throughout this episode:

Quicken Loans: http://www.quickenloans.com/
We Build Character: http://www.webuildcharacter.org/
Rocket Fiber: http://www.rocketfiber.com/

Visit us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk

Catch us on Stitcher!

On Episode 5 of the Diva Tech Talk Podcast, we visit with Rosemary Bayer, an engineer by training and a leader by nature. Rosemary is the co-founder and Chief Inspiration Officer for ardentCause L3C, the first low profit, limited liability company in Michigan, a "for profit company with a non-profit soul." She is also a founder of The Michigan Council of Women In Technology, the premier non-profit association/foundation supporting and inspiring women in technology.

Co-founding ardentCause L3C in 2009, as one of the few women-founded and women-owned technology companies in the Midwest, Rosemary and her team have exclusively served major nonprofit agencies, funders, and educational groups. ardentCause helps nonprofits measure their impact, utilizing online data solutions to achieve better outcomes, through innovative software for data collection, analysis, visualization and communication of information. With a background that includes product invention for major computer companies, and leading large business operations, Rosemary is ardentCause’s primary force behind the invention and implementation of innovative technology solutions to help nonprofits succeed.

Rosemary entered the world of technology in college because she said: “I found it interesting, creative and realized that it changed all the time….and the sector was brand new; women, at that time, could be a solid 50% of the field!” Years later, she and her partners made a “big leap” into entrepreneurship, after having worked for decades at large companies in the sector in order to make “giving back” an integral part of their careers. Her partner is our very own Kathleen Norton-Schock.

ardentCause was started to “fix the biggest, baddest problems” that Rosemary and her team could find. Their solutions are focused on the aggregation, analysis and warehousing of data that measure the outcomes and prove the impact that those selfless people working on homelessness, literacy, hunger, mental health, poverty issues etc. are having.

“What we are turning out to be is a group of innovators: bringing the use of information to a sector that still doesn’t know how to use it,” Rosemary says. “We’re helping non-profit leaders and staff understand how the use of data can help them make better decisions, and know what’s working and what’s not.”

“To listen to customers, and to hear what they really need is probably the most important skill,” according to Rosemary, for entrepreneurs, leaders, and team members. As a woman leader, she characterizes her style as one well suited to entrepreneurship. “It is open, collaborative, consensual.” However, she also laments that the Midwest does not rival the West Coast in terms of available funding, which is a potential barrier to entrepreneurship.

Rosemary offers four pieces of practical advice to women entering and aspiring to lead in the tech field. “It is really important to find role models,” she says. “Develop ‘emotional intelligence’. You need to be yourself, which means you also need to know yourself. Oh, and don’t volunteer to make the coffee.”

According to Rosemary, many girls and women don’t enter the computer field because “it is hard for them to see the social value.” On the other hand, at ardentCause she feels that her team is working for the greater social good every day.

You can find more about ardentcause at www.ardentcause.com

Learn more about The Michigan Council of Women In Technology: http://www.mcwt.org/

Visit us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk

Catch us on Stitcher! Leave us a review :D

Ep 6: Christina Mathes: Propelling Innovation at Rocket Speed

Ep 5: Rosemary Bayer: GodMother of Good Data