Paul Catterson used to race motorcycles and was in a rock band in his younger days, but there’s no doubt about his passion outside his wife Stacy and his work with 2016 CI Integrator of the Year Diversified, where he was recently promoted to VP of the new business consulting group.
Catterson, 51, has spent as much of his free time as he can during the past five years building an experimental kit plane. He’s been a private pilot for about 11 years and is a member of the Aspen Flying Club and Experimental Aviation Association.
“[Building your own plane from a kit] brings discipline that applies to what I do every day with my work,” says Catterson. “There’s great synergy between the work I do and this project. It’s all about planning ahead and making sure you have everything you need to complete the job.”
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Catterson has built about 85 to 90 percent of his plane on his own, he says, but he occasionally needs help from friends and family members on certain aspects of the construction process.
When he’s not building or flying planes, Catterson is leading Diversified’s new group of industry experts, business analysts and IT specialists who “partner with clients to discover and define new approaches to their tactical and strategic challenges,” according to a company press release.
The core team includes about a dozen consultants, says Catterson, but Diversified is “blending in” others from various parts of the company to build it to about 30 or 40 people for now. There will be a mix of existing Diversified employees and others from outside the industry.
After clarifying the client’s business goals, Business Consulting Group advisers “analyze the operation to uncover the best methods to achieve them,” according to the announcement.
Catterson has never been someone who’s afraid to take on a challenge, as he lives by the mantra, “When you’re green, you grow; when you’re ripe, you rot.”
Let’s go Back Stage to find out more about Paul Catterson.
Commercial Integrator: How does Diversified’s Business Consulting Group affect the relationship your company has with customers?
Paul Catterson: It really changes how we approach our clients and what we can do for them. We’re talking more to CEO and the CFO about the entire business, not just about the technology. The goal is to make sure we’re working with customers at a different level. It really makes sense for us to work with our customers at an additional level. It helps us to assimilate faster with them and get their solutions put together more effectively. We have customers who’ve had needs that weren’t getting met and our primary goal is serving those needs.
Paul Catterson says there’s great synergy between his work heading up Diversified’s new business consulting division and his kit airplane hobby.
CI: What was your path to Diversified in particular and to this industry in general?
PC: I started in 1993 with The Systems Group [which Diversified acquired in 2016] and spent about 10 years there. From there, I ran a small consulting company, Solutions in Modern Media, before going to Comcast Technology Solutions in 2004. I started as director of broadcast engineering and moved up to GM of the Comcast services division when I left in 2015. I came to Diversified in June of 2015, starting as the Mountain West regional director of media and entertainment before taking on my new position in the spring.
As a kid, I didn’t know what happened behind the scenes and I started a six-month stint doing audio and sound reinforcement at TSG. I went from a six-month engagement to a 25-year career.
CI: How has your workflow changed as you’ve grown in responsibility?
PC: The more you need to spend time looking at the business, the less time you have for the minutiae of the business. I’m happy to delegate responsibilities to the people who have better aptitude for those kinds of details. I’ve gone away from the details of the technology to looking more at the business application.
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