Each workday Alex Azar, information technology desktop analyst at Halliburton, arrives at the office, turns on his computer, and logs into ServiceNow. He takes appraisal of a list of tickets that have been escalated to Tier 2 support, determining who needs computer assistance and how he can help. At the same time he runs through his emails, addresses Microsoft Teams alerts and gets pinged any number of other ways. He loves these busy, multitasking-filled mornings, and especially enjoys getting tapped to handle a task the old-fashioned way—someone coming by his desk and asking for a hand.
“I’m the most popular guy around,” Azar said. “As soon as [people] see me they say, ‘hey can you help me with this?’ I never expected to be so popular, but I really like to be able to fix people’s problems. You kind of look like a superhero, right? They’re like ‘wow, how’d you do that?’ I really like that.”
The last 20 months-or-so have represented a big professional step up for Azar. A few years ago, in the very same office where he now sits and uses his growing repertoire of tech skills to assist and impress, Azar worked as a janitor. Now, thanks to some good fortune, a winning personality, an interest in technology and a lot of hard work, Azar is poised for a lucrative, gratifying career with growth prospects like he never expected.
Since earning CompTIA A+, he is even more excited about the career trajectory ahead of him, which promises a big departure from his past. Before finding IT, making ends meet often took precedence over pursuing satisfaction.
Starting to Get Technical
Just out of high school, Azar enlisted in the military and in 2003 he finished basic training. He was deployed to Iraq where he became a HAM radio technician, monitoring traffic and facilitating communication. There was some technological element to the work, but when he returned stateside in 2006, his fledgling interest in technology fell by the wayside. Priorities changed. Azar needed to pay the bills, and so he put off plans to return to school and got to work.
After returning home Azar spent a year doing carpentry, did a stint in the National Guard and in 2010 got a job at Tolson Management Company in a facilities management role. In that position, for seven years, he handled a broad range of building needs, including ones related to building-critical appliances, which led to his picking up the basics of heating and cooling. When he started thinking about pursuing a more lucrative position with greater room for advancement, the hands-on, well-paying HVAC trade jumped out to him as the best place, career-wise, to be.
In 2017, finally in a financial position to return to school, Azar entered a program at South Louisiana Community College in which he planned to learn the more technically advanced elements of HVAC and get himself career ready. What he ended up finding was even more exciting.
Finding IT Everywhere
Pursuing a technical diploma in industrial electronics technology, Azar discovered that heating and cooling had been undergoing some technological reinvention. With home and enterprise heating and cooling increasingly having networked components, knowing how to troubleshoot a router can be as important for an HVAC professional as knowing how to read a multimeter. So alongside industry-standard skills like managing circuitry, motors and electrical wiring, Azar was also introduced to the principles of networking and computer maintenance.
While pursuing his degree, still in need of a night job to make ends meet, he started working as a janitor at Halliburton. Ever sociable and good-natured, he became fast friends with a few people in the office. They learned his story, appreciated his experience and kept a lookout for him. Around the same time he earned his degree, a position opened up for a role as a machine calibration technician. They let him know. He applied and got the job.
In 2021, Azar managed the machinery coming in and out of the facility, inventorying, maintaining and repairing as necessary. He was enjoying using his technical acumen, but the computing and networking skills he picked up in school had him thinking in a different direction. From the calibration lab, the help desk was calling to him.
Over in the IT department, Azar had made another work friend. The man, whose career had followed a similar path as Azar’s, became a bit of an in-office mentor for him. Late in 2021, when a help desk role opened up, he gave Azar the heads up to apply.
CompTIA: Supercharging IT’s “Superheroes”
Starting as a desktop analyst, Azar was in a job with great growth prospects. That growth, though, would require work—and, in particular, certification. His coworkers in the IT department were all CompTIA certified, and what he was hearing about the best way to move forward in IT, came down to one piece of advice: Get CompTIA A+.
With more than a year of learning on the job, and self-studying with a few different tools at home, Azar earned his CompTIA A+ certification in April of 2023. He sees the certification as almost being like a license, confirming he knows how to do the job, and communicating his ability to others. He can be sure that he has the proven skills to live up to that image of being an office “superhero.” It’s rare that there is not some task, either on-site or remotely, that he has to address, but with the confidence and capability to always manage the job, it is a good kind of busy to be.
Work is not the only area of life in which Azar has been busy, in a good way. As the father of a four-month-old baby, he has had plenty of new responsibilities to take on. This has not slowed him, however, from continuing to build his IT skills, and using CompTIA certifications to do it. Azar is already studying for CompTIA Network+ and, after he takes it, plans to earn CompTIA Security+ for the trifecta of foundational certifications.
Looking to the future, Azar plans to stay on with his current employer, perhaps even someday advancing to a business coordinator role, the more senior-level job his professional mentor now holds. But with CompTIA certifications under his belt, he knows he will have options no matter what develops.
“You never really know where life’s going to take you or what opportunities will present themselves,” Azar said.
He has already seen how true this is. Today he has a career, and future prospects, that only a few years ago he never would have imagined. It has given him crucial insight into what it takes for someone without a tech background, and without a great deal of time or money to spend on higher education, to thrive in an IT career, and he has some priceless advice for those who want to follow in his path.
“The only thing you need to get into IT is a good attitude,” Azar said. “If you have any experience in customer service and you do well working with people, you’ll be a good fit for IT. Everything that you need to do you’ll learn, on the job and through self-study at home. Just put in the work. Get the certs.”
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Matthew Stern is a freelance writer based in Chicago who covers information technology, retail and various other topics and industries.
