About the Founder

Hi, I'm Stephen Nichols.

My career in Information Technology began in 2004, while I was still in high school in northeast Georgia.

Through my school's Youth Apprenticeship Program, I joined the IT team at Ty Cobb Healthcare in Royston, Georgia, as a junior member of the department. I was a teenager getting my first opportunity to work in IT professionally, and naturally I expected that the most important things I would learn would be about computers and technology.

One of the first lessons my boss, Greg, taught me was different.

Our first job was customer service. The technology was there to support that.

That lesson stuck.

What began as a high-school apprenticeship became the start of a career in technology that has now spanned more than two decades—and the principle Greg taught me at the beginning has continued to shape nearly every step along the way.

Building a Career Around People and Technology

After graduating from high school in 2006, I continued working in healthcare IT while attending the Georgia Institute of Technology.

I initially entered Georgia Tech studying Computer Science, but by then my experience at Ty Cobb Healthcare had already begun shaping what I wanted my career in technology to look like. I enjoyed technology, but I didn't want my career centered primarily around writing code and debugging software. I wanted to work directly with the people using the technology—to understand what they were trying to accomplish, solve their problems, and build systems that helped them do their jobs better.

In many ways, I was already building my career around the lesson Greg had taught me when I first entered IT: customer service comes first; technology supports it.

That realization ultimately led me toward the business and operational side of technology. I graduated from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Management and a Certificate in Information Technology, a combination that has served me remarkably well throughout a career spent at the intersection of technology, people, and organizations.

I also looked for opportunities to experience technology in different environments. During high school, I spent a semester interning with the technology department at a local middle school. While attending Georgia Tech, I spent another semester working with the IT department supporting the College of Management.

Those experiences gave me early exposure to educational technology alongside my work in healthcare and reinforced something that would become a recurring theme throughout my career: the technology can change dramatically from one organization to another, but ultimately it exists to help people accomplish something.

Technology was also something I enjoyed outside of work. During those years, one of my projects was building the audiovisual system for my childhood church in Carnesville, Georgia. It was an early opportunity to take a real-world need, determine what technology could solve it, and turn that idea into an installed, working system.

Building Technology People Depend On

In 2010, after college, I joined Walton Regional Medical Center during the construction of an entirely new hospital.

Our work went far beyond supporting computers. We helped build and deploy the technology infrastructure for the new facility and ultimately transitioned hospital operations completely out of the existing hospital. During that period, Walton Regional also became Clearview Regional Medical Center.

Through our relationship with Health Management Associates, our five-person IT team effectively supported both Clearview Regional and Barrow Regional Medical Center.

Working in healthcare reinforced something that has stayed with me throughout my career:

Technology isn't simply equipment. It is infrastructure that people and organizations depend on.

In 2013, I joined Habersham Regional Medical Center, initially serving as Interim Director of Technology before ultimately settling into the role of Network Administrator. By then, my career had expanded considerably from supporting individual computers into designing, maintaining, and troubleshooting the networks and infrastructure that entire organizations relied upon.

Coming to Pensacola

In 2016, I moved to Pensacola, Florida, and joined Cyber1Systems, where my primary responsibility was supporting Episcopal Day School.

When Cyber1Systems closed its doors in 2017, Episcopal Day School hired me directly as its Technology Support Specialist. In 2018, I was promoted to Director of Technology.

Today, I oversee technology for a multi-campus independent school. My work has grown to encompass network and wireless infrastructure, cybersecurity, fiber and structured cabling, classroom technology, phone and intercom systems, security cameras, access control, audiovisual systems, technology planning, vendor management, and the long-term lifecycle of the systems an organization depends upon every day.

I also continue to enjoy technology outside of my professional role and volunteer with the technology and media team at My Father's Vineyard in Pensacola.

More than twenty years after that first apprenticeship, my work looks very different than it did in 2004. The technology certainly does.

The underlying purpose really doesn't.

Why Stephen From IT?

Over the years, I've increasingly found people coming to me with technology questions outside of my day-to-day work.

Can you look at our network?

Can you help us with cameras?

What should we install for access control?

Can you figure out why this isn't working?

What would you do if this were yours?

Those conversations helped inspire Stephen From IT.

I realized there are homeowners, small businesses, professional offices, contractors, churches, schools, and other organizations that need capable technology help but don't necessarily need—or want—a large technology company.

And often, the customer doesn't know what kind of technology company they need in the first place.

Is this an IT problem? A networking problem? A low-voltage problem? An audiovisual problem? A security problem? Do we need new equipment, or can what we already own solve it?

I don't think the customer should have to answer all of those questions before knowing whom to call.

The idea behind Stephen From IT is much simpler:

IT Questions? Ask Stephen From IT.

From a Problem to a Complete System

Sometimes that might mean solving a relatively small problem.

Other times, it might begin with an empty room, home, or office and a conversation about what the customer wants the finished space to do.

The goal for Stephen From IT is to be able to help take that project through its entire technology lifecycle: understanding the customer's needs, designing the system, selecting the appropriate equipment, installing the infrastructure, configuring and commissioning the technology, documenting what was built, and remaining available to support it afterward.

I particularly enjoy projects that are small enough to remain personal but large enough to benefit from thoughtful design—homes, professional offices, and small organizations where I can understand the complete technology environment rather than simply one piece of it.

Stephen From IT isn't being built around one manufacturer, one product line, or even one particular category of technology.

It's being built around solving the customer's problem.

Growing in Capability, Not Away From the Customer

I don't envision Stephen From IT becoming a huge technology company.

I want it to become a highly capable one.

As the company grows, that may eventually mean trusted technicians, expanded licensing and certifications, stronger vendor relationships, and the ability to take responsibility for increasingly complete projects.

But I want to preserve the reason the company exists in the first place.

When a customer has a technology problem, I want them to be able to ask Stephen.

That personal relationship matters whether we're designing the technology for an entire new space, maintaining a system we've previously installed, or simply figuring out why one computer suddenly isn't working correctly.

Technology should make people's homes, businesses, and organizations work better. The technology itself isn't the point.

Which brings me back to something I was taught at the very beginning.

Built on Trust

Technology has changed enormously since I first walked into an IT department as a high-school student in 2004. I've worked with technologies that didn't exist when my career began, while many of the systems I supported back then have long since disappeared.

But Greg's lesson at Ty Cobb Healthcare has survived every one of those changes:

Our first job is customer service. Technology supports that.

More than two decades later, that principle is at the heart of Stephen From IT.

Listen first. Understand the problem. Recommend what makes sense. Communicate clearly. Do quality work. Stand behind it. And treat the customer's technology and money with the same care I would want someone to show my own.

That's what Built on Trust means to me.

Stephen Nichols
Founder | Stephen From IT