IT Career Lessons

In this episode, we talk with a veteran IT leader about the career path that shaped their success and what inspired them to enter tech.
We cover how they've stayed relevant through constant change—career planning, lifelong learning, and building skills that last.
They share lessons from setbacks, what they'd do differently, and advice for students starting out in today's fast-moving IT world. -------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

Unknown

Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started.

Ljiljana

Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how to stay ahead of the game in this constantly changing industry.

Oracle Academy helps prepare the next generation's workforce. I'm your host, Ljiljana Krkic, Oracle Academy program manager, and in this episode, Rob Lockard, recently retired Oracle ACE director, professional Oracle DBA, Designer, Developer, Product Manager, but also a pilot, sailor, photographer, and a very good friend of mine will share secrets from his more than 40 years long successful career in IT.

He will speak about how AI is changing our jobs and how to befriend it, and let it help you move forward in your career as well as about three protocols that can help you have the power to make your career and life a success. Rob, my friend, welcome!

Rob

Hey! Thank you for having me!

Ljiljana

Thanks. You've had a long and distinguished career in IT. Can you briefly share your path and what inspired you to enter this industry?

Rob

We'll start with what inspired me. When I was a child, my father was in the Marine Corps, and he went to school on programing the IBM 360, and he would bring home his textbook and study it. And whenever I had a chance, I would pick it up and start reading it. Now, mind you, I was like 8 years old at the time, and I didn't really gather it because, you know, we're talking about mainframes and all. But it gave me an early interest in it. And then when I went into the military myself, I got into computer science and then got out and went to the community college and then one university and then another university and then another university. And I kept going till I got my master's degree. Largely, actually, my employers paid for my education. So when I was working for Cannon, the camera manufacturer, I would take night classes at the university and they would pay for my night classes. So, you know, I always leveraged somebody else paying.

Ljiljana

Yes. Oh. All right.

Rob

Kind of how I got into it. And then, from there, it's just, you know, one pivot after another pivot after another pivot, something would go wrong, something would go right, and I would just make little adjustments along the way.

Ljiljana

Yeah. Great. Technology evolves quickly. What approaches have helped you consistently stay ahead of industry changes and remain relevant throughout your career?

Rob

Okay. Well, number one, I have always read the professional journals. Way back when I was a C programmer, I would read the C journals. Then, as I got into databases, I would read the database journals. And now with the world of the internet, as you know, the internet became more and more popular because when I started this, everything was printed on paper. You know, we didn't have this information right at our fingertips. But what I would constantly do is reading what is currently happening in the industry. And then I would actually sit down a couple times a year and write out a story, what will the industry look like in five years, ten years, 20 years?

Ljiljana

All right.

Rob

And you use the information you have to try to figure out where things are going. All right? And you are going to be wrong. I was wrong more often than not, but it always gave me a direction to shoot for, and as I got more information, I would adjust where I would focus my energies. And that's the easy explanation for it. But I'm constantly, even to this day, following what's happening in the industry and trying to figure out what is the world going to look like five years from now on in our industry? What's world going to look like ten years from now? And, you know, it's like, where do I want to put my efforts so I stay relevant?

Ljiljana

Yes.

Rob

And now, with this world of AI, it's making it more interesting. Where do you want to study? Do you want to get into AI agents? Do you want to get into AGI? What purpose? How are you going to use this AI to solve a problem? I mean, at our business, what we do is we solve problems. Okay. That is the simplest way to explain it. And when you see a problem, how do you solve it? So we can use AI. We can use AI agents. I was just recently, making an appointment, with my doctor and I didn't realize it, but I was on the phone with an AI agent who walked me through the whole process, including setting up labs.

Ljiljana

Right.

Rob

And then I'm, like, oh, well, it's come a long way. So do you want to go in to, I'm going to say the academic field, you know? Yeah. Become a university professor. Do you want to get into the industry? Where in the industry do you think you will fit? What? Where are you curious? I always have an insatiable curiosity. Okay. I do other things. Like I said, I'm a pilot. I'm a sailor. I'm a photographer. I take all of these things that also interest me. And it helps. It also helps me in my business because it helps me solve problems.

Ljiljana

Yeah. Great. Yes, I know what you are talking about.

Rob

Yeah. And, you know, you're a pilot, and when you're landing a plane, you don't just fly the plane into the ground. That's a good way to crash. That's how I've always stayed ahead. I just try to figure out where things are going to be. Go in that direction, and I'm going to be wrong. And I will just constantly make adjustments along the way.

Ljiljana

Yeah, that's a very important point. Thanks. And you highlighted career planning and lifelong learning. So what concrete methods do you use to set your goals and keep your skills up to date?

Rob

Okay. Well concrete method, what I mentioned I would write out a story five years, ten years to figure out where my life is going to be. What outcomes do I want? But then one of my concrete messages is I spend one hour every morning studying something that interests me. And it could be anything from navigation for ships, because I recently became a Coast Guard license captain, I had to go through a whole lot of learning.

Ljiljana

Yeah, I know

Rob

I just pick something I'm curious about, and I spend an hour studying it, every single morning. And it may not be intense study, where I'm cramming for an exam. It's more like I'm curious, I need to learn more.

Ljiljana

You feed your curiosity actually.

Rob

My curiosity has always driven me. Yes.

Ljiljana

Yeah.

Rob

So that is one thing that I've always done. And then after studying it, I try it. And that always works great for me. So, okay. That's how it explains it.

Ljiljana

Okay. Great. And can you discuss a time when you faced setbacks or challenges in your career? How did you overcome these obstacles and maintain your motivation?

Rob

Oh gosh. Let's see. I'm gonna go into one of my biggest setbacks in my career, that was in the mid 2000. I set up a system for the Department of Treasury and I finished. It was beautiful. It didn't require a lot of maintenance and I became extremely org. I am going to work and I'd sit there and twiddling my thumbs all day because everything was working great. And then one day, one of my colleagues came up to me saying, you know, you're pretty smart, why don't you start speaking at conferences? And I'm going, oh, yeah, right... Nobody wants to hear me speak at a conference. But I said okay, and I picked the subject that I was relatively good at, which is information security. I put together an abstract, and I go, you know something? I'm probably going to absolutely bomb this. I'm not going to do great. And I was like, but I put all my effort into it. So I'm going to go someplace where English is not their first language. So if I completely mess it up, you know... So what do I picked? Finland. And I'm thinking everyone speaks Finish and just a little bit of English. No, everyone's speaking fluent English, and I'm like, oh my God. But I did pretty good. And I was invited back to speak again. And basically what it was, was a friend gave me a mountain to climb. All right?

Ljiljana

Aha

Rob

Once I climbed that mountain and I got there going I wanted to do it again. So basically it gave me an objective, a place to focus my efforts. So you know, when I achieve one of those goals, I pick something else and I go, hey, I'm curious about this. I'm going to go and figure it out. And I go attack it and I learn it, and then I move on to the next objective. So my brain is constantly moving on to the next objective. So when I find myself getting stuck in the doldrums, just kind of languishing, I go, what's challenging? Let's do it. Yeah, no, that's a good explanation. I have a mountain to climb.

Ljiljana

And tell me also, looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in your career, or a key lesson you wish you'd learned earlier?

Rob

Oh, gosh. You know, people ask me this, and I think about this, and you want to know something? There's nothing I would have done differently. I could say, you know, I wish I came out of the military and just went full time to university and got my degree, but then I think, having a full time job and going to university at the same time actually was very well, worked very well for me.

I could say travel more. Yeah, travel more when I was younger, because from all that travel, I learned to surround myself with people smarter than me. I started surrounding myself with more and more interesting people. People smarter than me. And, I would have probably started doing that a lot earlier. Yeah.

Ljiljana

Yeah. Great. And for the students and those starting their IT journey, what's the most important advice you can offer to succeed and adapt in an ever-changing technology landscape?

Rob

The moment you lose your curiosity, your career has ended.

Ljiljana

Oh, my God, this is very harsh.

Rob

It is hard to say, but very true. If you're not curious about something to go out and learn, learn it, experiment it, play with it, you know you're stuck in this one little tiny box, okay. You hear this constantly get out and pick something to learn, even if it's wrong. Okay? I went out and I learned how to fly airplanes. Has nothing to do with, I started taking writing classes from Oxford. Now, it was more along the lines of like, you know, I wrote a book. I found out I enjoyed writing. That's why I started taking writing classes, have nothing to do with IT. But it does have to do with learning how to communicate.

Ljiljana

Right. Absolutely.

Rob

Another piece of advice is get up there and teach. Okay. Teach. Because if you can teach something, you understand it. And so I'm not saying get up and start teaching whole classes, but maybe in your work or wherever goes, I will give you 15 minutes on this subject and you become an expert in a very small piece of that subject and teach it

Ljiljana

Right.

Rob

And that will bring you into learning that subject too. Public speaking, which goes into teaching. When you learn how to communicate better, the world is your oyster. Okay. People will give you things that will open doors. If you can't communicate your ideas, you're stuck. People aren't going to open doors for you. So that would be my thing.

Stay curious. Try to teach. Sharpen. Get into public speaking. Write a book. You don't even have to publish it. But you know, learn to communicate. People are walking around with their phones everywhere, and they're sending out text messages. And when I read text messages from some people and they start abbreviating, it's like, I don't know what they're talking about.

You know, there's a long form of communication. Learning is that long form communication.

Ljiljana

Yeah.

Rob

And it brings us into, you know, the AI world. You know, fortunately, Oracle has the always free cloud accounts. You can go out and you can set yourself up an Oracle database in the cloud, and it's free. Okay? And you have access to all the tools. But Oracle is also providing you their learning labs. You want to learn about AI on the Oracle Cloud? They have a lab that you can go through. It could be a one hour lab, it could be a two hour lab. Go out and do those labs. Set up an account and just go and do those labs. And then there's other labs you can do. You can get into the classic DBA work. You know what you need? I was a classic DBA.

Ljiljana

Yeah.

Rob

You can get into developing, you can get into designing, all those tools are available to you, and they're free. When I learned those tools weren't free, you had to pay for them.

Ljiljana

True, yeah.

Rob

Fortunately, my employer paid for them. But you had to pay for them. You also have access over the internet to experts all over the world,

Ljiljana

Right.

Rob

I have sent messages to people I've never met before on Twitter, YouTube, whatever going. Hey, I'm trying to figure out something. You're the expert. Can you help me out here?

Ljiljana

And you get the answer!

Rob

And 99 times out of 100, they will answer you. Don't stock up on them, but be polite and professional.

Ljiljana

Yeah.

Rob

Jeff Smith in North Carolina, he's a SQL developer product manager. I have, you know, to this day, I probably tap his brain on a couple things every now and then, even though I'm now retired.

He'll answer you. Okay?

Ljiljana

Because he sees your curiosity? Is it for that reason? And he wants to help somebody on the same way, on the same path?

Rob

Yeah. And I'm fortunate I have been able to surround myself with some of the smartest people in the world. Surround yourself with people smarter than you. People who know things you don't know. People who've done things you haven't done.

Ljiljana

Right.

Rob

In this day and age, it's much easier. So you want to get into the AI world? Start asking people who are the AI experts. Make friends with them. You don't have to know everything right now. Learn a little bit. Apply it, which will bring up more questions. Learn a little bit more. Apply it. It'll bring up more questions. So, you have the tools available to you free of charge from Oracle. All right. I can't tell you how valuable that is. Figure out how would you use it to solve a problem. Okay. Pick a problem. Come up with a solution. Try to use the tools to come up with a solution. You will learn more, which will bring up more questions. Go back. Find people who are the experts. Ask them questions. Go out and teach. Inspire somebody to learn something new. And? And you'll be successful.

Ljiljana

That's how you've done it, right? Yes. Yes. Great. Awesome. Thank you so much for this inspiring conversation. And, I look forward, following some of or all of the, the advices you gave.

And I hope that our audience will find it also very useful from someone who, who's done it already and whose career confirms that it was a good choice.

Rob

Yeah. And I've had a good I have a very good life. And, you know, now I'm starting on my next adventure.

Unknown

That wraps up this episode. Thanks for listening. And stay tuned for the next Oracle Academy Tech Chat podcast.