Telos Meet the Team:
Kyle Hall,
Senior Data Analyst
Four years ago, Kyle joined our team as a data analyst - an in the time since, he has become an indispensable part of how we understand our business. From untangling messy datasets to building the processes that guide our biggest projects, Kyle’s work quietly shapes so much of what we do.
The business side…
What led you to pursue this career path? When I was in my junior year of my undergraduate program I turned to my internship professor for advice. I was unsure if wanted to pursue a life of academia and he pointed me in the direction of finance. Being from Omaha, my mind immediately went to insurance, and I quickly found Actuarial Science. After I began my career and as it progresses, I have found that I have a propensity for Data Science and have formed my niche there.
What is the best piece of career advice you have been given? Ask Questions. There is always something to learn, somewhere further to dig, someone to ask. Asking questions shows a willingness to learn, not ignorance.
What has been your most rewarding professional experience so far? Early in my career I was given a historically difficult and confusing client to manage. For the ensuing months I spent my slow time learning and dissecting the existing process: interviewing the analysts who previously worked on it and built it, deciphering the goals of each step of the process, and cleansing the existing information. Eventually this led to a recreation, from scratch, of the entire client process and my first real dive into database and process architecture.
What is the most stressful part of your job? The troubleshooting or quality assurance process at the end of a project. Making sure that every t is crossed and lower-case j is dotted is extremely important to building the trust between data and analyst.
Do you have a professional mentor? No. The closest thing I had was my internship professor in my undergraduate program who guided my career path.
How do you approach your work/life balance? I try to stay of the mind that work allows you to live life, work is not life. Being invested in work is a good thing but remembering that distinction helps turn off when it’s time.
Do you feel you have a specific area of expertise in your field? I have expertise in using simple actions to do complex tasks. For my entire life I have always gravitating towards perfecting and completing understanding the simple things rather than being enticed by something more complex or flashy. Luckily, I went into a field where that kind of behavior is beneficial and with all things the floor gradually moves up.
What behavior or personality trait do you most attribute to your success and why? Tenacity. In the sense that I rarely ever believe that a task is impossible and if there is a way to accomplish it, I will find it and I will do it. That behavior has led to some of my greatest growth periods both in my career and life.
Do you have one professional skill you are currently working on? Delegating. I have a hard time relinquishing hold of responsibilities and tasks with a belief that I can do it all. Growth also means growing out of things too.
Do you have any specific goals or milestones you are striving to achieve? My goal is to learn how to manage and grow a robust and useful data system on an enterprise scale. It is a purposefully vague goal that is constantly moving further as technology and standards advance to create these milestones to measure along the way.
What is one piece of advice you would give someone just starting out in your same career path? Always ask why. Particularly in data, sometimes the answer is just “because it’s always been done that way” and that deserves scrutiny. Further, knowing the why behind the process or structure you create or manage will always help create a better final product.
Do you have a professional book that you would recommend everyone read? What Money Can’t Buy – The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J Sandel. It is a philosophy book written on the ‘free market’ and the moral ramifications. Business is not black and white; there are limits to what ought to be for sale.
And the personal side…
What is your favorite food? A classic BBQ plate: brisket, ribs, pulled anything, with mac and cheese and corn bread. Favorite restaurant? I don’t have a favorite restaurant, but a constant in my life since childhood has always been Taco Bell.
What is the coolest thing you have ever made? I was on a team that created a Dual Readout Calorimeter prototype that was tested using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN International Laboratory. It was a stack of precision cut copper sheets with alternating scintillating fibers that would capture energy emissions from particle collisions.
What was your first job? My first job was at Hy-Vee grocery store working as a Courtesy Clerk aka bagger and cart boy. The first day of orientation was the day after my 14th birthday.
What is the best vacation you have ever taken? I took a weeklong camping trip with some friends when I was fresh out of college. It was my first time camping for that long and my first time summitting a mountain.
Do you have any siblings? I have two older sisters; I am the baby by 5 years.
What is your favorite holiday and why? Independence Day. I always enjoyed the fireworks aspect as a kid. As I got older, and especially when I became an adult, it has become the one holiday where I stay at home. We host family and friends, we are outside playing around all day, we eat good food, and then can relax and watch a show together at night.
What is your guilty pleasure? Any kind of salty snack but in particular the Snyders Honey Mustard Pretzel Pieces. I could eat an entire bag at a time, feel absolutely awful afterwards, then do it again the next day.
What is something that always makes you smile? Being called my kids Dad by their friends. It’s always cute to me to think of the world through their eyes and I am just my kids Dad.
Where did you grow up? I was born and raised in Council Bluffs, Iowa. My mom lived on the west end of town, just far enough from the river that it was too far to walk and an adventure to bike to Omaha.
What is your favorite season and why? Spring. The cooler temperatures feel much warmer coming out of winter, the birds come back out and sing again, and you get both a good snow and a nice warm day in the same season.
What is the first concert you ever attended? My first concert was Styx at the Nebraska State Fair in 2000. How about the best concert? I have been to a lot of really good concerts and festivals, so it is hard to pick a best. An extremely memorable one was in 2012 at Sokol Auditorium, and it was a modern metal concert. The headliner was Of Mice and Men, and the main supporting band was The Color Morale. There was a 5+ minute drum solo where multiple instruments were brought in, and it culminated with both bands flooding the stage and completing the song together.
What is the bravest thing you have ever done? Most of the time, our own brave acts do not seem brave to ourselves. What I hear most about myself is that the move to Colorado and away from the region I have always called home was the bravest thing I have done.
