Our People: NTT Data’s Joseph James

Jul 20, 2020

He resides in small town America, but Joseph James’s impact on industry spans the globe. The Quincy resident’s footprint is also felt locally, moonlighting as an educator and coach.

Joseph is Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTTD) Data’s Technical Project Manager at the Western Technology Center in Quincy.

NTTD’s data center serves the technological needs of customers in an array of industry sectors. Like most data centers, customers range from healthcare providers to hotels; many of whom are Fortune 500 companies.

Grant County’s Industrial Alliance (GCIA) asked Joseph to enlighten the community about his role as a Technical Project Manager with NTT Data.

“My role entails- Managing different projects, ensuring all customers have enough capacity (racks, copper, fiber, power, and cooling) within our data center to continue to grow as needed. I also review technical specs of hardware coming to our data center to ensure they meet our data center expectations,” Joseph told GCIA.

Prior to assuming his responsibilities as a Technical Project Manager, Joseph’s occupations spanned from one end of the spectrum to the other.

“My career path was a little bit different, I went from serving in the US Army for 9 years, then to college where I studied elementary education, I worked for Quincy School District as a Para educator while finishing my degree. During my time there, I noticed I didn’t really like working as a teacher for kids that young. I then started with NTT data as an Inventory technician, started learning some of the hardware and doing break fixes here and there, I got an opportunity to become a shift lead for one of our contracts at the time after that I moved to the planning team at the WTC. That’s where I found out what I really liked and I earned my CAPM, PMP and white belt in SIX sigma.”

 Joseph says his employment with NTT Data isn’t just a job, it’s a labor of love.

“What I like about my job is that it is never the same thing. Every day is a new challenge, it can be with service management, customer project, capacity in our data center, we have new challenges every day. As far as my employer one thing I love about it is that they let us make decisions they trust us to make the best decision not only for the customer but for the company as well. I also like the fact that we collaborate as a team as well.”

Joseph is part of a “team” outside of the office as well. The tech expert is also involved in Quincy’s soccer community. Joseph is the Operations Director for Quincy United Soccer Club. He also coaches Quincy United. Joseph says being part of team pays dividends in more ways than one. As for the players, Joseph says Quincy United has put 12 local kids into college through soccer scholarships.

And just because Joseph is no longer employed as a para educator, doesn’t mean he’s deviated away from his professional roots. In fact, Joseph has managed to tie both phases of his career together while involving his employer for the benefit of better education at Big Bend Community College.

“I currently teach Project Management Classes at Big Bend Community College.  I really think it is important that people see that it is possible to make it in the IT industry and teach people the IT industry is huge is not only based on rack and stack, or developers or coders, we also need PM, business analyst, budget and fiancé experts etc. My employer has an impact in our community by working closely with Big Bend Community College, conducting mock interviews and helping develop a data center certificate for future IT professionals,” Joseph told GCIA.

In addition to educating students at Big Bend, Joseph also spent time as a member of the Quincy School Board.

Joseph made it clear that his passions run deep when it comes to work, education, and his community.

“This area has grown on me.  I like how there is something to do every day, we can go hiking on the trails, or we can go swimming at one of our lakes or rivers, I also like the fact that we get all of the seasons. I love how the city (Quincy) can come together when necessary.  I also like how there is many large companies here in Quincy where people don’t have to travel you can live and work here. I also like how involved our Data Centers are within the community.”