It was a busy Q4 at DomainTools and we missed sharing an Employee Spotlight! We’d like to kick off Q1 by highlighting a person at DomainTools who is always working to improve the lives of both employees and customers alike. If you’re a new reader to this series, DomainTools Employee Spotlights are dedicated to behind the scenes looks at our wonderful employees including their paths to Information Security (infosec), what they do here at the company, and a bit about who they are in their everyday lives.
Trendsetting: 3D Worlds Before They Were Cool
What’s been fun about Employee Spotlights is learning about how our team landed in the infosec world. There’s so many folks out there who would say their path was not a straight line, which in our opinion, is what makes the best stories.
Susan Prosser, DomainTools VP of Customer Support & Operations, always had a penchant for technology – she was able to understand Disc Operating System (DOS) and the Microsoft Suite before most others she knew. When it came time to pick a focus in school, she steered toward business and math which has served her well. She began her career as an Operational Manager for an online children’s network in 1995. It’s a nonprofit organization that’s still operating today called Starlight.org and its mission is pretty cool: help children with serious medical needs connect with each other.
Susan absolutely lights up when discussing this organization. The goal was (and still is) to create a community for these kids using virtual worlds – something that wasn’t common at this point in time. They could create avatars and have chats with each other – sound familiar? This idea is so commonplace now – especially in a post-pandemic world, but can you imagine just how revolutionary it was in the 90s? Susan helped make these worlds a reality. She’d sit in hospital network closets to integrate the system with the facility, leveraging their existing infrastructure with Cisco routers. Her role also included training kids, hospital staff, and social workers how to use the technology.
The Right People in the Right Roles
Yes, Susan understands technical concepts and she’s held positions where she’s been hands-on with technology, but what’s special about Susan is her ability to understand what’s needed next. Mergers and acquisitions of her organization provided the opportunity to begin hiring others for support, and she took over the management of the solutions engineers for what would become a web hosting company – Web.com. This organization does web hosting and emails and in the time Susan was there, there were 8 different sites to manage. Her strength was understanding where gaps laid in processes and understanding how to best fill them. Can she figure out routers and netblocks? Sure! But are there others who can do it more efficiently? Yes. Can Susan find those people? Absolutely.
The Road To DomainTools
One of the engineers she hired for a previous role was looking to go out on his own – and was interested in Susan’s help. He and his business partner were more technical, and who better to ask for operational assistance than Susan? She provided some assistance, but wasn’t looking to make a move quite yet. At that point in time, she was ready for a well-deserved break, and that’s what she did. However, the company that would become DomainTools saw the skills Susan possessed and wanted to make her part of the team. Susan accepted and filled in where needed. Because of this, she did what she does best and saw where efficiencies could be made and began the hiring process to get the right people in the right places.
In the early DomainTools days (what used to be called NameIntel), Susan managed the conference the company held and worked a lot with domain acquisition and management. It was definitely a far cry from technical work, but the great thing about working with DomainTools (especially after the acquisition of Farsight Security)! Susan’s been able to use some of her older technical knowledge.
Today, Susan’s role has evolved into the post-sales side of the world including customer management and support. She’s dedicated to making the experience of working with DomainTools a positive one and continues to work to find areas of improvement. As customer needs can grow and change, Susan is right there acting as an advocate.
All Creatures Great and Small
You’ve likely picked up that Susan loves to help people, but that empathy extends to the animal kingdom as well. She currently has two rescue Portuguese Water Dogs (Brodie and Sunshine aka “Sunny”). She loves dogs because she keeps an active lifestyle and she believes dogs fit in nicely.
While Susan is a big fan of dogs, her passion extends to all animals and she’s spent years working on certifications and training to be able to better care for different species. Susan has plans to one day volunteer with the Animal Hospice Group, which is an organization that helps animals’ end of life transition, but helps their humans too. If you’ve ever owned a pet or felt a connection to an animal, you understand the special bond you create and how difficult it can be to one day say goodbye. Susan believes animals bring so much joy, and she wants to do right by them and their humans processing their grief. I had asked her if this service has always been available, but she believes it’s newer and becoming more prevalent, which is tremendous for those seeking support resources.
Want To Join Our Team?
We hope you enjoyed learning a little more of who’s behind the scenes for customer satisfaction. If you’re interested in joining our team, check out our current job listings. Stay tuned in 2023 for more DomainTools Employee Spotlights!
