Photo: Vincent Caruso and Preston Terrell, shown here holding the awards they received after Nettology was named as Emerging Business of the Year, 2017.
Vincent Caruso is one of the founders of Nettology. Read on to get to know one of the men behind the business.
Did you grow up in the area?
No, I grew up in North Jersey and at the Jersey shore. I went to college at Villanova University, close enough to home but far enough away. I actually settled in the Philadelphia area in 2002 when I got married.
What did you do when you graduated?
First job out of college was as JC Penney Management Trainee and quickly found my way into a more dynamic sales position with a company called Dupl-Fax, which was a technology subsidiary of Canon, USA. I spent several years there pretty much learning the business world on the Sales and Marketing side. After some significant soul searching, I began to realize my passion for technology and worked my way into the industry . Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey (now Horizon) gave me an opportunity to sit on their help desk where my team supported 6000 employees. I hammered out 7 Microsoft Certification tests and became an MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), eventually becoming the Technical Team Leader on the BCBSNJ help desk. I was promoted to Server Administration, where we supported more than 75 servers in their data center. We worked with the various business units to integrate new applications into a highly redundant failover environment. – Lots of great experience there.
Then you married, and moved across the river to the Philadelphia area. Then what?
Well, I became an Independent IT Consultant and worked with small businesses. I was owner and Lead Technical consultant for SysONE Solutions LLC – Actually I was everything at that company because it was just me. I designed and built network and server infrastructure solutions for clients – essentially taking all that I learned in Corporate America to the small business
Where did you meet your current business partner, Preston Terrell?
I met Preston at a networking meet up for Independent Consultants. We hit it off and started working on projects in 2004. We developed the vision for what would become Nettology, and in 2007 we formed the LLC.
What do you like about being an entrepreneur?
What I like best is being able to help others. The challenges there are different for each client. But they all want to be able to concentrate on their passion, not the nuts and bolts of their IT infrastructure. Some of them want to be educated about it, and we are happy to oblige. Others just want to know that everything works and is secure, and leave it at that. We can make them happy, too.
Entrepreneurs need down time. What do you do in your spare time?
There is of course lots of family time, school sports and weekend outings are a significant part of my free time. I am also a musician. I have played in many bands over the years at the Jersey shore and locally. I play lead guitar and sing (a bit). Music is a great antidote to the stresses of running a business.