CSIA 2025: Industry Leaders Discuss Consolidation, Digital Transformation, and More

The transcript below is available for those who prefer to read along. Please be aware that it may contain minor errors. 

Rich Brueggman – Data Science Automation and Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Hi, please introduce yourself. Your name, title, company.

Rich Brueggman – Data Science Automation:

Alright, well thank you. My name is Rich Brueggman. I’m the president of Data Science Automation. We are an automation systems integrator. A little bit different than the normal CSIA member, we focus a lot more on laboratories and R&D, scientific applications, and automated test and inspection, so kind of on both ends of the spectrum from manufacturing.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Great. Rick?

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

Hi, I’m Rick Caldwell. I’m the president of SCADAware. We are a typical control systems integrator and diversified across several vertical industries. We work in the manufacturing industry in water wastewater and agricultural and a few other odds and ends. We also have a very strong robotics business that we spun up about to five years ago. That’s I think is probably our biggest challenge going from a software tilt with the SCADA background to robotics and figuring out how to make money building a robotics systems. So we have very, very good technical systems, work very well, but the biggest challenge for me has been figuring out how to make money on them because they’re very competitive and you got a whole new team of people with mechanical engineers instead of electrical engineers and the mechanics building things. So it’s a big shift for us, but we’re growing, doing well. It’s been 25 years now for SCADA where this year is our 25th anniversary.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Congratulations!

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

Thank you.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

What are the biggest industry trends or challenges you’re seeing right now?

Rich Brueggman – Data Science Automation:

Well, for me, I’d say one of the trends that’s been going on really for a few years is the roll-up of the industry. There’s a lot of consolidation. It’s already a very fractured market. There’s a lot of small systems integrators, medium sized, and we’re part of a rollup now and one of the main reasons we continue to come to CSIA is to find other like-minded companies that want to join forces and grow their businesses and maybe have additional financial resources and maybe divest from some of the administrative burdens of running a technology business. That is a significant trend that’s affecting our business these days.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

That’s great, we can help you get that message out. What benefits do these companies have when they roll up under your umbrella?

Rich Brueggman – Data Science Automation:

Well, it’s early yet, so it’s hard to know all the answers, but one of the compelling messages is to reduce the administrative burden. A lot of technology entrepreneurs, engineers that start these businesses… they can be very successful, but they also don’t want to have to deal with half of the work, like the HR aspects of the business. Maybe they don’t even like sales. So if they join forces with a larger organization, they can maybe focus more on the things that got them into the business to begin with the technologies, so that’s an example

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

And that’s actually a good example because as engineers and technical people, we don’t like the business side of things and actually I think that’s why we’re all here at CSIA to learn that piece of it or get some help with that piece. But yeah, that rolling up under somebody large would be nice for a company that’s pure engineering and doesn’t want to deal with the admin and HR and all of that’s hard for us. One thing I see out there is, and maybe it’s part of the rollup that you’re describing, is everybody wants to be in the service business doing what we do. So the manufacturers want to have integrators. They no longer just want to sell product, they want to have the full solution and distributors want to have integration capabilities. So now you have integrators like myself and you guys are different integrators, but you have the distributors that sell us components that want to be integrators and the manufacturers that manufacture the components for the distributors that sell to me, they want to be integrators. So everybody wants to be in the service business and be integrators. So they’re acquiring some of us and trying to spin up their own, but it’s hard to start an integration business and most people in manufacturing and distribution have no idea how to do it. So it’s a hard road. So they’re rolling up, like you say, they’re grabbing onto some of us, so it’s interesting. A lot of big changes out there.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Interesting times. What technology innovations are you excited about? Anything out there? I know we’ve been talking about digitalization at this conference. Anything you want to share there?

Rich Brueggman – Data Science Automation:

I’m probably not the best person to answer that question because I don’t deal with it day to day as much anymore, but the whole aspect of artificial intelligence, it has, I mean not just our industry confused, it has lots of industries confused like how to leverage it, how do you protect intellectual property, how do you solve problems faster? How do you continue to inspire software engineers to do creative work when a lot of it can be done through artificial intelligence means there’s a lot of challenges there, but it’s so early, it hasn’t really negatively impacted our industry. It just has a lot of warning signs on the horizon, so we all have to adapt. There’s always something to adapt to and this is just the latest.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Yeah.

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

The digital transformation, as you said is a big thing. It’s a lot of talk here and George said it, I’ve said this over and over again. Those of us that build systems like this have been doing this forever. It’s not a new thing. We just now put a name on it and we’re getting used to taking it a step further I guess I’ll say. But the digital transformation is nothing new. It’s just what we talk about now. But like you said, the AI thing, it is a little bit worrisome and I don’t know how it’ll impact us and it’s very early, but one thing that I read just recently in the Wall Street Journal, some of the experimental AI engines are now rewriting themselves so that you can’t shut them down. So think about that, they’re defending themselves. That’s what worries me.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

We need to just simply look to some fiction literature to find out what’s going to happen next.

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

Yeah, that’s all you have to do.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

I know it’s early for a takeaway or insight from the conference, but if you have one or you want to say what you’re excited about upcoming at the conference, you want to share that?

Rich Brueggman – Data Science Automation:

Sure, it is. It’s the first day, but I’ve been here all week and you try to use these opportunities, few and far between as they are, to network as much as you can. I’d say one of the highlights is certainly already the handful of conversations I’ve been able to have and get invited to do this great podcast. So thank you.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Thank you.

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

The conferences are always enjoyable and every one of them brings a little something different to us, but the one constant is the networking. Like you said, the biggest thing I get out of this conference is networking with the different people and there’s always something to learn, off course, the presentations are wonderful and I love them, but I very much enjoy learning from my peers and others around are experiencing some of the same changes we’re experiencing and how are they dealing with them and what’s around the corner.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Yeah, I love it. I love visiting my once a year family here as well. So how can people connect with you?

Rich Brueggman – Data Science Automation:

LinkedIn is certainly fine, but my email is public knowledge, so it’s my initials rmb@dsautomation.com.

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

I’m on LinkedIn as well. It’s the only social media that I tolerate. My email is probably on my website, but it’s my last name, caldwell@scad aware.com.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Thank you so much.

Rick Caldwell – SCADAware:

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Please introduce yourself, name, title, and company.

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Hi, I’m Wright Sullivan. I’m the CEO of SkyIO. We are rebranded from our name of 30 years, which was A&E Engineering and also Apex Manufacturing Solutions. We came together two and a half years ago and we’re now 170 people strong. We’re located in Greer, South Carolina, Concord, North Carolina, Boise, Idaho, and all points in between.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

What kind of projects do you like to do?

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Our projects run the whole gamut from wiring things all the way to cloud applications with AWS, MES applications, automation, everything in between, and that’s why we came up with the name SkyIO was to represent IO as the field wiring and the physical device all the way up to the cloud and everything in between.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

I like that. What are the biggest trends or challenges you’re seeing in the industry right now?

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

I would say in our system integration industry, the biggest trend I see is consolidation. There’s so many firms getting bought out and we’re kind of bucking that trend. We love being a feisty independent. It’s served us well, our employees like it, and so I think there’s a lot of maturity of our industry, but I think there’s still a lot of room for independent system integrators that can serve their customers well.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Great. Are there any technology innovations you’re excited about right now?

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

I think like everybody, AI is by far the biggest change in the world in the last couple of years. There’s a lot of obvious changes that have happened, but I think 90% of it hasn’t even hit us yet and it’s exciting to see wave after wave of unexpected change come to our corner of the world and really impact us. So I’m really excited about what that brings us.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

I know it’s early in the conference, but are there insights or takeaways you’ve enjoyed or is there a session you’re looking forward to?

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

I think this morning’s digital transformation keynote was fantastic. I’m on the board of CSIA. I love the organization. I love it when people come and talk about what we actually do and deliver value to our members. That particular presentation, George talked about the importance of the human, which I think is often skipped. We engineers like to talk about machines and we like to talk about technologies, but the emotional… he made the point that proposals don’t have to just hit financially and technically, they need to make an emotional connection with our customers. It’s great to hear leaders in our field talk about the human element. So to me that was really cool. I’m also looking forward to Matt Wise’s presentation tomorrow, late tomorrow afternoon. Matt is the CEO of E Tech and I hold him in very high regard. I think they run a very good company and are growing and I think that’s one of the current leading lights in our industry.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Shout out to our client E Tech Group,

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

While you’re shouting out, let’s do a shout out to Sam Hoff who couldn’t be here and he’s, he’s a great guy. Love the guy, anyway.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

He’s a staple on our podcast, so we are missing him as well.

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Awesome.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Yeah, I enjoyed the morning as well. I thought CSIA knocked it out of the park with the lineup. That panel was especially intriguing. These integrators came and made themselves vulnerable talking about things that went wrong in the effort to help the rest of the audience avoid those same pitfalls.

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

That’s the best part of these conferences is integrators learning from other integrators and yeah, I agree. That panel was fantastic. There were just solid takeaways everywhere throughout that panel. And you’re right, there’re just great folks, great leaders, but great leaders have humility and you all recognize that in the journey to get where we’ve gotten to today, we’ve made a lot of mistakes and we share those together, we learn from ’em and the industry gets stronger and our companies get stronger. So it’s great to hear, I agree.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Anything else you’d like to share?

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Just what an awesome organization this is. I’ve been coming to the conference since 2003. It’s made a huge impact on our company. Our outgoing CEO, Jose Rivera, is awesome and he’s been amazing for 10 years. And now we have our incoming CEO, Adrienne, will be introducing herself tomorrow and starting formally in a few weeks and just super excited about where CSIA is going, so thank you very much.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

We will all miss Jose.

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Oh, we will.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Also look forward to the future.

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

That’s it. That’s it, I’m thrilled with both sides. That’s great.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

How can people connect with you?

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Probably the easiest way is just on LinkedIn and the cool thing is I have a very unique name, Wright Sullivan and Wright, like the Wright brothers. So just reach out to me on LinkedIn, you’ll find me.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Awesome. Thank you.

Wright Sullivan – SkyIO:

Thank you so much.

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Please introduce yourself. Name, title and company.

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Jeff Miller. I am a senior consultant at Exotek. SI consultant. Been coming to the conference for a lot of years, but I was actually an SI before, so enjoy being on the other side now.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

At Exotek. What kind of role do you play there as a consultant?

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Yeah. So I work with the project management peer groups. I facilitate those. Also, one of the new things that we’ll be doing is teaching a leadership development program for up-and-coming SI candidates, folks that are part of your organization that need to have better leadership training. And so we’re going to start that.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

That’s exciting. Are there any trends or challenges you’re seeing in the industry right now?

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Well, a lot of what we see is some of the work that they’re doing now as being postponed. A lot of capital expenditures are getting postponed and it means SIs have to tighten their belts and that’s where we come in. We can help them kind of streamline their processes, figure out what works better, what canm I always called it when I was working as an SI – bleed less. If you’re bleeding cash, you’re not making good money. So that’s something we can help them with.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Are there sizes of SIs that you work with? Do you work for a small, medium, and large or do you focus on…

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Yeah, pretty much all of them. My peer groups, I now have a small SI group, a medium size, and a large, and that really works nice because they have different problems they’re solving, so we used to have them kind of mixed together and realized, oh, we’re really solving different problems and sometimes just more than they’re able to invest in if they’re a small meeting with large. So that really helped out a lot. It’s made some really nice improvements in the peer groups.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Great. Are there any technology innovations you’re excited about?

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Well, one of the things that I continue to use, even as a consultant is really the AI side of things. And I talk a lot about this in our peer groups because project management in particular is one of those parts of an SI organization that can benefit from using it for things like note taking or analyzing data that we might have. So it’s really, there are just a lot of different applications and it doesn’t expose your data to the outside world, it’s just things you put in and let it analyze. So it’s been really good. I think it’s going to, if you listen to the Project Management Institute, they say it is absolutely going to take a lot of the monotonous work out of the PM’s hand and that’s what I want to be able to do is find ways that we get to do the fun stuff and not so much the non-fun stuff.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

I love that. So here we are at the CSIA, we’re finishing up day one. Are there any insights or takeaways from today or a session you’re looking forward to tomorrow that you would like to mention?

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Yeah, so today just looking at some of the data transformation, that was really interesting, talking with some companies that are doing it really well. A lot of the systems integrators have been trying it for a while, but it’s taken a while to catch on. It changes so much. But tomorrow, definitely the economics presentation is always one of my favorites. Not just that it’s fun, but also now that I am semi retired, I can laugh at those that have to fight with it all the time. It’s always a great presentation.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

The economics is my favorite, honestly. It helps you see around the corner a little bit.

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Right, right.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Anything else you’d like to share?

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

No. Thanks for letting me chat with you. I look forward to seeing you out in the conference.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Appreciate that. And how can people connect with you?

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

My email address, jeffmiller@exotek.com.

Christine McQuilkin – Rivergate Marketing:

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Jeff Miller – Exotek:

Thank you.