Jose Elias
Site Manager
Define your role within Nemko.
I am currently in transition and am still attached to San Diego as the lab manager. I oversee Environmental Safety, EMC, and Wireless. But I am transitioning to Austin, Texas, where I will be the site manager overseeing the entire operation of the lab. I have been traveling back and forth for the last five months, so I am excited to move there.
How did you choose this career path?
I chose this path back in 2010 after I decided to leave the military. I decided to look for a job with an engineering background. I started in the industry as a technician and then moved to supervisor and manager. I then switched to another company and became the operations manager. Then I met Nemko and decided to transition this way, and I have been here since 2019.
What do you enjoy most about your job at Nemko?
The thing that drives me is problem-solving. I like dealing with problems, finding solutions, and working with people. Working with a good team or building a team is very motivational. So, I enjoy working with groups, developing teams, and developing labs. As well as working with customers and their items for issues and finding solutions.
Are there any challenges that you’ve faced during your career that have taught you important lessons?
Patience. Being able to have the patience not only with tasks at hand but with other team members, sometimes the day-to-day interaction with multiple personalities presents some challenges, and learning to understand and be patient with others has helped me grow.
What do you think the industry will look like in 20 years?
I think the industry will switch and be more focused on Cybersecurity, it is a big thing, and of course, you will still have to get products tested for safety for EMC, wireless, and environmental. That will not change much, but maybe there will be new rules and requirements. I think that for Nemko, we will focus on areas we haven’t touched yet. I think we will eventually be dealing with more space-type items now that everyone is going to space, so looking more into that type of testing. As well as electric vehicles and whatever else goes electric. There will be developments in current services in the industry and new services we haven’t even seen yet.
What are some market trends you’re keeping an eye on?
Right now, I am keeping an eye on medical. There is a new standard that came out, a recent amendment for the medical standard, which should be pushing companies to do retesting and look at the latest standards and evaluate against it. I am also tracking IT and new technologies that are coming through. We also work with many military companies, and their focus is on space, satellites, and things like that, so those are the industries that I think will be very fruitful for us later on.
When not working, how do you spend your spare time?
Well, I have a wife and three kids, and we like to go camping. We are tent campers, but we have a rooftop tent on the truck. We go primarily out in the Eastern Sierra in California. So, we do a lot of camping and fishing; we are an outdoors family.
What does the average day in the life look like for you?
On a daily basis, a lot of meetings and a lot of support for sales. Some time is spent thinking of new ideas of what we can do more now that I have both labs, trying to see what we can do in Austin, what we can do with San Diego now, and how we can make sure they have the same capabilities so our customers can go to either or so that we can support each other whenever one lab is too busy we can send projects this way and vice versa. Also, making sure that all the projects we are tracking are still being worked on and making sure there are no issues.
What is your favorite song, show, or book at the moment?
For songs, I would say Beautiful Crazy by Luke Combs and I Love This Bar by Toby Keith. Our current favorite tv show is Your Honor, but we love anything murder or investigative. Back in the day, my favorite show was Criminal Minds. Then my tradition is that I watch Paranormal Contact every Sunday when cooking. I don’t read much, but if I do, it is time spent reading standards.
