My NTS Journey: Rich Gallant

When did you know that you had made the right decision in deciding to work at NTS?

Honestly, the moment I knew was pretty early. When NTS first began, I was one of the first few employees and I was approached by one of the founders, Biney, and he came up with the idea of what he wanted NTS to be. He wanted the company to be a company that puts the focus on the customer first and technology second, and a company that does whatever we need to do to really make sure that we’re taking care of the people that we support and do it within a different methodology.  I was pretty hooked from the beginning on his vision and what he wanted to do when he approached me with the idea.

Since then, we’ve been able to execute on that mission. So, I would say there have been a ton of good moments, but for me, it’s almost every day. It’s like, hey here’s the vision of where we want to go, and let’s execute it, and from there I’ve been hooked.

What has been one of your proudest moments with NTS?

For me, I think the proudest moment was a couple of years ago where we stood up a methodology to support a customer that was really unique. It was modeled after our business model in Tampa, which is taking the idea of the Platform as-a-Service and delivering capabilities that are unique to the industry and providing them in a way to support a really important mission-focused customer. And that was our idea of automation. It was birthed from a business unit within NTS and in a market cap that we realized was really not well-capitalized on by others in the industry.

So, I would say my proudest moment was being a part of that effort from cradle to grave. Putting that together, coming up with the idea to help the NTS Engineering Team and the leadership team, and being a part of putting us down a really different path that I think has been really fruitful. Which is this idea of automation and a focus on developing that capability for our mission partners. So that was about 2 1/2 years ago and ever since then it’s been growing like gangbusters, so I think for me as an individual that’s probably my proudest moment.

Your career has grown quite a bit since you’ve been with us. You are now coming up on your 7-year anniversary with us and your career has definitely grown quite a bit during your time with us. Share a little bit about your career growth and where you see yourself in the future with us.

Yeah, so my time here has definitely been a ride. Biney and some of the team took a really a pretty big leap of faith with me.  Before I started at NTS I was what’s called an inside sales representative and I didn’t have any real outside sales experience. I did have some experience doing a couple of things here and there, but I still feel the guys took a leap of faith with me and allowed me to come in at an account manager-level position with NTS. I was actually working directly with Kris in tandem, right? He helped lift me up and mentored me in my initial year, which helped me get to where I am today. Last year Biney and the leadership team approached me with the idea of leading the sales team and using my methodologies to help the rest of the team. This hybrid role gives me the opportunity to lead the DoD sales team and help them achieve their goals, while also managing my own territory.

I was very thankful for that, and now going into this year they’ve also put a lot of faith in me to look at the automation business we have and to try to make it as successful as we can with some of the new things that we’re trying to do. Whether that’s looking at how we handle pricing, or how we handle the structure. How do we handle some of those things? So really taking a more active role. I would say my growth has been tremendous, right? Going from a low-level salesperson who’s never really done outside sales to where I am now.

What has surprised you the most about NTS?

So for me it’s an interesting one. I would say almost the idea of resiliency, right? And not from a standpoint of we haven’t done well, but more of our ability to adapt and change. You know, we started eight years ago as a VAR, but since then we’ve matured in so many ways. And some days were great, and some days were rough, right?

But no matter what, throughout that time, we’ve always been resilient and flexible. As you know, it’s a growing business. The biggest challenge is always how to maintain, that structure of “Hey, we’re a business, but staying a family as best we can be, and that really hasn’t gone away.” It’s been ups and downs, but you know, no matter what it always comes back to the fact that we care about our people, and we care about how we do things and will adapt to make sure that if we get off course we get back in line and get back to the way we want to run the business.

That means taking care of our people first, so that’s been sort of my biggest surprise is how resilient and flexible we’ve been able to be with the number of changes that we’ve had to sustain over the past seven years.

Anything that you’d like to share regarding NTS about your personal journey up to this point as a final talking point?

Final talking point? Sure yeah. I mean like all things in business, you know nothing is ever perfect, right? But what I can say is that our core values at NTS have never changed or deviated one iota, right? It’s always been that we put our customers first and the mission first. You know the mantra from our leadership has always been caring for our customers.

Here at NTS, our people are our greatest asset, we invest in our employees and make sure everyone is appreciated, listened to, involved, and challenged. Are you ready to join the NTS family? View our current open positions today.