Meet the players who forged inroads in 3 different ways

Atlanta-based Expert Consultant Phong Le could have stayed home. After all, life is full—and it isn’t always a top priority to meet up with colleagues from a former workplace.

Yet, it proved serendipitous that Phong took time to catch up with friends he made years prior, working at J. Michael Consulting. At dinner with the company CEO Jon Lipsky, his former supervisor mentioned an opportunity to collaborate and strengthen the state of Alaska’s Power BI visualization capabilities. Straight away, Phong recommended DRT: “We have some of the best data folks in the country!”

The result? “We’re excited to now be applying our Power BI expertise to the CDC Foundation in Alaska,” says Director Tyler Nicklyn. “Phong’s networking led to a small contract but it’s a foot in the door—another way for DRT’s service to customers to radiate out.” (Learn more of Phong’s success strategies in the spotlight below.)

Indeed, prioritizing and maintaining a vibrant network is one of three ways that DRT’s CDC team recently landed new work for the company. The second contract? In this instance, DRT swung for the fences and won an award with a brand new customer, the Office of Financial Information Systems. “This was not an opportunity we had been tracking but when our business development team found it, the work seemed like the perfect fit,” says Managing Director Paul Calame.

IT SME Shailesh Dharavane and Senior IT Manager Nish Kodali brought their deep knowledge of both the CDC and of SharePoint to the proposal. Crediting Shailesh and Nish, Paul says, “We could bid on this very smartly because of their expertise and understanding of the client.”

Staffing this work with existing employees, mixing and matching skills sets and contracts, is a hallmark of the growth of the company, Paul relays. “This is what it is to be a medium-sized company, to draw from within and have DRTers serving multiple contracts.”

Maintaining a vibrant network and calling on DRT’s expertise/understanding of a client contributed to these CDC contract wins. In the third example, relationship building proved consequential. Deputy Director Walter Dennard had known and for many years, kept up with his friend Terry Bolden who serves as a Senior Public Health Advisor at the CDC.

DRT’s reputation for customer service, as exemplified by Walt and his team, undoubtedly contributed to DRT being brought on to staff a help desk and offer user support at the Division of HIV Prevention. This was another area in which DRT had never worked, this time doing so as a subcontractor to Kaiva, our joint venture partner.

Senior Manager Rick Goodwin says, “Our team members enjoy the CDC’s mission and work hard to deliver it, cultivating strong client relationships. These relationships increase opportunities for the company as well.”

Ultimately, Tyler concludes, “Your work on the ground really matters, as do the contacts you make and the deep understanding you have of a customer’s mission. DRT’s growth is the direct result of these values in action.”

DRT data scientist Phong Le is a numbers guy. He relishes memories of being a “mathlete” in high school, which he subsequently combined with an undergraduate business degree and a master’s in public health. “This perfectly translates into the work I do now for the CDC.”

Phong grew up in a family full of doctors. “I’m the black sheep in the family, pursuing data science,” he jokes. “But I found a way to combine my passions for both math and public health.” Indeed, he plays a key role in multiple projects: mortality data processing for the National Center for Health Statistics Data Query System, data products library development and dashboard creation for the VaxVizApp, data ingestion/validation for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Data Hub, among others.

Senior Manager Rick Goodwin says that Phong contributes to DRT’s client success in several specific and exemplary ways:

• He volunteers—particularly for big challenges. “We are bringing cutting edge technology to public health,” Phong says, “It’s often under tight deadlines and involves work I have never done before.” He readily takes on these challenges, knowing he has enough foundational knowledge to drive solutions but also being willing to learn and grow.
• Phong is actively involved in the SME community. “I understand the pulse of the industry. I attend conferences and brown bags. My YouTube and TikTok algorithms are all data science.” In this way, he is well versed in emerging methodologies and serves as a DRT ambassador, helping win more work for the company.
• He collaborates and contributes to the growth of DRT peers.The oldest son in a big family, Phong is no stranger to tackling new challenges while paving the way to make it easier for peers. He does this by cross training other team members, offering brown bag sessions, and documenting steps he takes in each project. “Figuring out the best solutions is a puzzle sometimes. I would hate for anybody to go through the same thing I did without a road map,” he says. “I love DRT,” Phong says. “The harder you work, the more rewards and opportunities there are.”