James Taylor, III, VP of IT, featured as the October 2024 NES Employee Spotlight

Congratulations to James Taylor, III for being named as the October 2024 NES Employee Spotlight!  James serves as NES Health’s Vice-President of Information Technology.

Here’s a bit about James in his own words:

Tell us a little bit about yourself?    

I grew up in Baltimore, spending many days at Johns Hopkins while my mother worked as a Pediatrics nurse. It didn’t really strike me until college how much that experience meant, and as I started an internship in Patient Finance at UMMC, I realized I missed the city and working in hospitals. I’ve been in the industry around Baltimore since, coming into our managed services side of things from non-profit in 2019 and to NES & ProBill in August 2022. It’s been an amazing opportunity, and I get to learn from everyone here each day.”

What do you do for the company?   

I’m the VP of Information Technology, brought in to help increase the front-facing portion of IT while supporting the ongoing, large lifts each member of the team has built specialty in over the last 20+ years. I see my day to day role as making IT safe, secure, and accessible across the board, from service desk type needs to massive overhauls. None of it would be possible without our team though, and I have to give Randy, Kim, and Travis any credit for my success here (along with so many other partners).”

What makes you want to stay at our organization? 

Our team – not just IT, but NES entirely. While it was always my goal to maintain and increase the long legacy IT has had of transparency and support, I frankly never expected folks to be as warm, kind, and open with me as they have been – through good times and bad. That spirit of openness and honesty has meant the world, and I’d like to think IT demonstrates the success of that approach.”

Which work benefit or perk is your favorite and why? 

I guess not a written “perk” for a benefits sheet, but the trust NES places in its team members amazes me every day. It’s meant allowing flexible, open leadership on our team; accessibility to resources and subject matter experts across the organization without going through twenty layers of permissions; and it helps us treat everyone equally, regardless of title or power. Folks own their work and take pride in it – that’s an incredibly rare thing to be so widespread, especially to happen almost naturally.”

Tell us a few things about the favorite part of your job? 

I think our 1:1s tend to be my favorite, as there the times I get to see the most of the work I’m not doing – and the sides of folks that don’t always come across in email. Those few moments each week of meaningful but rote technical jargon interspersed with going down 2000s indie rock rabbit holes with Travis, dogs, family care and all the stuff I love about WV with Kim, and Tuesday afternoons working with Randy and chatting over every odd thing in the world at this point are the happiest I tend to be all week.”

What skill do you think everyone should learn? 

I’d just encourage folks to make time to learn a skill. It’s way too easy to put off learning much outside our wheelhouse as we get older, so just being willing to take a course or study deeper into something you already know means a lot more than any one rote skill.”

Thank you for being part of our team, James!