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Welcome to Tech Talk, a podcast featuring employees and leaders discussing all things tech at Mutual of Omaha. Join us to learn what tech professionals can gain from a career with us. Let's talk tech. Welcome everyone to another episode of the Tech Talk Podcast, a podcast sponsored by Mutual of Omaha where we talk about all things technology. I'm Brian Poppe, formerly an IT employee and chief data officer.
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Currently, I manage one of the business units here at Mutual of Omaha. Joined today by my co-host. Hi, everybody. I am Maura Ramsey. I am an agile project manager here at Mutual of Omaha. Well, welcome to the Tech Talk podcast. So, Brian, I've been meaning to talk to you. I've been listening to the same Spotify radios over and over again, and I'm in need of some new recommendations for, for some work music.
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Got any ideas? What have you been listening to? Plenty of ideas, I guess. For those of you who don't know, I do moonlight as a DJ. I've been doing that for more than half my life, which is very strange to say. So yeah, I've been. I've been for work, music. I've been digging SAULT lately. S-A-U-L-T, SAULT.
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They released an album at the end of 2024 that is, like, pretty good, I think, for what you're after. It's, somewhere in between instrumental. There are vocals on it, but the vocals are not like the, the primary piece of it. So it's kind of chill with a little bit of a beat to it. Good. Good for working, that's for sure.
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Perfect. Yeah I need, I need the more chill, kind of slower music so I can stay focused and not get distracted. So I'm sure you've got some, some good playlist recommendations for post-work, but I think SAULT will work for, for daytime hours. Yeah. Use that as, I don't know, like a starter for any playlists. Right. Like, like pick that as an album and then let kind of Spotify do its thing afterwards.
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Yeah. I'm an Apple Music nerd. I guess I'm hooked on that one. But yeah, for after work, if you're looking for something new, Jungle has been my kind of obsession lately. They make like, new age disco is probably the best way to describe it, and I dig it. Okay, fun. I've been listening. Like I said, I was listening to the same radio.
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It's a band called Palace, so it's kind of indie, slower, and I think I have learned every single song and every single word to all the radios, to the radio...I look forward, to your, Palace cover band. Yeah, yeah. And I would be able to sing it. Not on key, but hey, that's what a good cover band's for.
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All right, we've got a guest today. He's been sitting patiently. Jason Nobles, thank you for joining us today. Jason's an intern here at Mutual of Omaha. So, Jason, how are you doing? Good. Thank you for having me, Brian. Jason. Again, welcome. We're super excited to have you today, especially as the first intern guest we've had on the Tech Talk podcast.
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So, tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you or where do you go to school? Where are you from? What are you majoring in? Those sorts of things. Yes, definitely, so currently I go to school in Greensboro, North Carolina. I go to North Carolina A&T State University. I am a computer science major. I was originally computer engineering, but I know I switched about halfway through my freshman year, so I knew I would have more avenues through the computer science pathway.
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That's great. And you are a current intern here at Mutual of Omaha. So tell us about that role and maybe how long you've been here, how you work with your team and so on. So I've been an intern on going for about seven, eight months now, on the information technology department. So currently I'm on our, you know, our I/S corporate actuary support team on the ETL side.
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So basically what ETL means is extract transform and load. So me and my team, we do a lot of data processing, data integration, things of that nature. It's a big job. No. But I love collaborating with my team every day. You know, getting the opportunities to talk with my manager, get feedback and continue learning. So it's been great.
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Yeah. That's great. As the, former chief data officer, I appreciate your work getting data where it needs to go. So, Jason, where did you learn about Mutual of Omaha's internship program and what made you want to apply? So I learned through, Handshake, like most other university students, which is a platform in where college students can reach out and see different, internship opportunities in different companies that they're interested in.
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So I was interested in Mutual of Omaha because I saw the tech stack that they had. I was interested in the fintech industry as a whole. So I know it can be sort of a leap of faith for many people like myself, to get into the financial industry with not much of a financial background, but it was definitely, a great opportunity that I ended up getting in just a different technology side.
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Mutual of Omaha, I know you can see that they post that they're modernizing different tech stacks and things of that nature. So yeah, we're, happy to hear that that is visible and aware, because that's one of the things that, we've been working on and are moving on is how do you modernize that tech stack that's been in place for a while?
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And to your point, we're making good progress. So thanks for your help there. So we've, we've previously had, the intern coordinator, Alicia Huntington, as one of our podcast guests. And one of the things she mentioned was, the variety of events that we host for interns. So in addition to the work that you've already described, tell us about some of the highlights that you've seen, maybe outside of the normal working day.
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Yeah. So definitely one of the biggest experiences that I had was going to the headquarters at Mutual of Omaha, when all the interns had the opportunity to fly out to Omaha. So just getting to network with them and leadership and management, asking them different questions, you know, getting a feel for the industry, what their perspective is on different things.
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That was definitely a big eye opener for me. And one of the events we actually did in Omaha was...we did a get together with all the interns and Alicia as well, at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo. So that was a very fun experience. I haven't been in a zoo in a long time since then, so that was definitely a great thing to do.
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But, yeah, you know, just going back to the networking and, you know, getting to meet the interns, you know, and still having regular contact with them, getting, different perspectives, differentculture feels, diversity, things like that. So Alicia definitely did a good job setting up that entire internship experience. Yeah. That's great. We'll be sure to let her know.
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And it's been maybe a year or so since I've been at the zoo. Like, it sounds like a trip that I gotta make sometime soon. All right, so, Jason, we've got I've got a two part final question for you today. Why would should someone apply for an internship at Mutual of Omaha? And what advice do you have for those interested in doing so?
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So I would definitely say, apply to Mutual of Omaha for just opportunities that they present, the different resources that they have. So I know speaking for myself that though people in my field may not have that financial experience. So Mutual of Omaha definitely allows you that opportunity. And to gain that experience and see what the business is like, see what the business supports, drive meaningful impact and solutions.
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So it's definitely great, for that avenue to build your repertoire. Just, just keep gaining experience as the developer as a whole. So my advice would be, you know, take that leap of faith, you know, apply. They're modernizing their tech stack. They're giving interns such as myself for an information technology field, that experience in the financial industry to gain different, to go different avenues as a whole, even outside of technology.
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So it's definitely a great place. And I've been liking it so far. Well, we're happy that you, you took this leap of faith. Jason, we're so thrilled to have you at Mutual of Omaha. I definitely agree with you. Mutual has great resources, a great support system, and so many awesome people there to help you kind of explore areas of interest that you may have not have ever thought you would have ended up in.
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And, I've kind of followed a similar path where I took a leap of faith, and now I'm working in IT as a project manager. So, again, we're so happy to have you here. And we're really grateful that you came to join us as a guest today on the Tech Talk podcast. Thank you guys. Yeah, thanks for joining us, Jason.
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And thank you for watching another episode of Tech Talk.