From New York Veteran To Becoming An Intentional Salesforce Admin

V2 would like to take a moment to recognize all those who have fought or served to defend our country.  In recognition of Veteran’s Day, we would like to highlight one of our very own team members, Steve Wantz. Steve’s time in the military allowed him to develop various skills needed to transition into the Salesforce ecosystem. To this day, he continues to deliver Salesforce projects for our clients successfully.  

V2 sat down with Steve to learn more about how he started in this Salesforce space, his passion for service, and his transition into the Salesforce ecosystem. We explore his professional journey and discuss how his military experience helped shape his development and what he looks for in a career.

About Steve Wantz

Steve joined V2 as a Senior Salesforce Consultant this year. Bringing along more than six years of hands-on Salesforce experience with specialties in project management, configuration, consulting, and business analysis. Prior, he worked as a Program Manager for an Australian medical manufacturing company. There he led their technical projects, primarily supporting their Sales Cloud and Service Cloud needs. Steve holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems from Columbia College and holds four Salesforce certifications and six super badges. In his free time, he enjoys being outdoors, reading and listening to audiobooks, and on occasion, playing video games.  But most of all, Steve enjoys leading a life of service, dedicated to family and friends, and his clients. 

Q: In the role of a Salesforce Consultant, a disciplined approach and structure are critical to the success of any project. How did the military help you develop such skills, and how do you leverage your background in your role today?

“In high school, I hated structure. Then you get into the military, and you come to appreciate it. There is an order in the Army, and in that order, structure plays a big role in how things are accomplished. Which I think a lot of people find rewarding because it gives you a framework for how to become a great project manager or consultant essentially. Throughout the tenure of your military career, the way you feel about that structure will likely change and shift. Sometimes it’s strict and can be overwhelming. The ironic thing is that when you get out of the military and find yourself re-entering the workforce, you think that you will find a relatable structure to grab onto at that company, their corporate culture. You start to see that many businesses, even large successful businesses, sometimes don’t have the “best” structure, hierarchy, or documented standard operating procedures that the military has. It’s things like that I think about as well, and sometimes we get to help solve that too in the work that we do for our clients.” 

Q: Why did you choose to get a degree in Computer Systems, and how did you evolve into Project Management?

After five years in the army, Steve left the military and started college immediately, thinking he would be a programmer. Just after starting the first job, he realized that he preferred being on the project management side of operations. He enjoyed interacting with customers and building the structure around a given project. Steve thought of it almost as an intellectual challenge: “What is the best way to lead and manage this effort?“

Armed with a positive mindset and his Computer Information Systems degree, he had all the tools he would need to skill up quickly and start solving problems inside Salesforce for the organization that he worked for. Steve shares, “When you have a good understanding of the structure of an IT system, software, and things like that, it makes sense when you meet Salesforce for the first time. At its core, Salesforce is an IT system. A CRM that sits on top of a database. If you understand database structures and these related topics, Salesforce comes pretty naturally.”

Q: How did you start your career with Salesforce?

Steve was hired by a firm with the specific intention of helping to build out new business processes in Salesforce. The firm recognized that they didn’t have their current processes quite right and didn’t know how or where to start. With his IT background and methodical project management approach, he was able to help them impact their organization and processes. Steve shares, “I kind of fell in love with it. Shortly after I started, the company I worked for sent me to Dreamforce. I got certified at the event and, from there, became THE admin of their company.”

Q: Which traits or elements from your time in the military did you value and leverage the most?”

“Actually, it’s the communication & organizational skills that I learned from the military. It has structure and standards in place to help drive your project. Not only that, but you have to have the discipline to show up on time every day, be prepared for that specific meeting, meet the expectations of those around you, and go above and beyond wherever possible. That’s how I am. And that’s very much the way that we do things here at V2. We go beyond consulting, and we are sincerely invested in our client’s success.”

On behalf of the V2 team, we are proud that Steve is now serving with V2, driving value for us, and shaping our clients’ businesses in new and meaningful ways through the work that he does.