Language I/O Welcomes Two New Team Members

Despite challenges brought on by the dramatic shift in our global climate, Language I/O (LIO) has hired two new team members, Bill Hastings, security information officer and Sales Executive Matthew Petek.

Bill Hastings, Security Information Officer

Bill is a former wildlife biologist turned IT pro who went from trapping black bears and relocating them in Laramie, Wyoming to working for tech company in Ireland.

“When I first graduated college I essentially did what you’d see on the Wild Kingdom, except 99 percent to the time we spent trapping bears was spent driving around and observing empty traps,” Hastings said. “Those shows really only capture the one percent of activity that happens.”

Interested in wildlife, but also interested in finding work that paid well, Hastings started studying computer science. From there, he managed Wyoming.com’s web server farm. Not long after, Hastings started Wind Hosting, a website hosting business. As Wind Hosting grew and changed, Hastings started working with Greenhouse Data to connect his customers’ who needed servers, to a server. Through his relationship with Greenhouse Data, Hastings met LIO CEO Heather Morgan Shoemaker.

“It wasn’t long after I met Heather that she started needing to move away from another company that she had started—Cheyenne Technology—to fully focus on Language I/O, which was growing,” Hastings said.

But before Language I/O and Hastings converged, Hastings worked for Propylon, a software development company that works with state legislatures and governments to replace legislation drafting mainframe systems. Not long after Hastings was hired as a systems administrator, he moved to Ireland for 13 months to manage all systems and networks for Propylon. Using the skills he acquired at Propylon, Hastings moved on to work for an accounting firm. Finally—and gratefully—he moved to Language I/O.

“Hiring a senior security officer such as Bill Hastings demonstrates the LIO commitment to uphold European data privacy legislation such as the GDPR and to maintain our ISO 27001 certification,” said Language I/O CEO Heather Morgan Shoemaker. “Hires such as this allow LIO customers to rest assured that information security is our highest priority and that we will safeguard their customers’ data.”

Because LIO’s software translates support tickets and chats for customers, security is critical. These pieces of information often include personal data that must be encrypted in order to maintain customer security and privacy.

Hastings is a man of many colors. Not only did he used to chase black bears, but he also has played in several bands and is essentially a self-taught guitarist. In breaking with LIO culture, Hastings doesn’t have a dog. He has a tortoise, a beta fish and an adorable cat that found his home via his wife’s generous feeding of strays.

Matthew Petek, Sales Executive

Matthew Petek started his career as a pre-med student. Once he started interning at the Cleveland Clinic, he was quickly moved into intern managing and budget oversight, which made him realize that he liked the business side of medicine better than the patient side. From the Cleveland Clinic, Petek used his language skills—he speaks both Korean and Spanish—and headed to Korea to teach.

“Part of my job there was selling the school that I worked for,” Petek said. “I held open classes to attract more students and enrollment doubled.”

Having gotten a taste of sales, when Petek returned to the states, he got a job working for Pearson education. Before long, he became the youngest district manager for the Midwest in Pearson history. Due to corporate restructuring, Petek, who had by then also become the youngest member of the president’s club, was offered a new job.

“It was a job that I wasn’t particularly interested in so I got my real estate license,” Petek said. “But as much as I enjoy real estate, I really started to miss working with a team in a collaborative atmosphere. That’s why I started looking to return to a team-based environment.”

Lucky for Language I/O, we became the team that Petek sought.

“I enjoy coming into businesses and accelerating their sales efforts,” Petek said. “I’m really strategic in my approach to sales and am really looking forward to working with the team to see where we can pivot.”

Petek has been with the team for a few months, but he’s already propelling us toward our 2020 goals.

“COVID forced many companies that might not have previously considered multilingual customer support to start pursing our services,” Shoemaker said. “To meet those needs, we’ve expanded our team. Matthew Petek is absolutely the type of aggressive yet compassionate sales team member that we were seeking. He’s already helping us reach our revenue goals for 2020 and we’re looking forward to having him grow with the company.”  

Petek lives in Columbus, Ohio and is quite the coffee aficionado.

“This interest started in college when a third wave coffee shop opened in the science wing of Ohio State,” Petek said. “I’ve even been to Costa Rica for coffee tastings. When my friends and I get together we taste coffee, not wine, but I’m no stranger to a nice chardonnay or champagne!”

Petek has two adorable dogs—Shadow and Pickle—and we all enjoy seeing them during Google Team meetings.