Chase Wright

His Brother Told Him to Learn Technology. He'd Tell His Son the Same Thing.

Chase Wright's brother is seven years older, spent his career in the military, and was deep enough into computers that young Chase, by his own account, would have probably called him a super nerd. Before Chase had held a job at all, that brother gave him a piece of advice.

"He told me I better learn technology, because one day it will rule the world."

It stuck, but it took a while to act on. Chase is a hands-on person by default, and his early working years were construction, concrete, electrical, and building houses. He built computers on the side before anyone paid him to touch one. And as he moved between trades, he kept noticing the same thing: technology was working its way into every business, whatever that business happened to be.

About a decade ago he took his first official IT job, at a company called H-Wire. The person who hired him was Kyle Thompson. He spent two years there as a systems administrator, then moved to Executech, where he led the IT service desk for the next three. Along the way he also ran a small automotive business of his own. Across those roles he worked with clients in education, large business, and small business. Kyle kept in touch the whole time, and not casually. He reached out quite often, Chase says, to tell him they were still looking for somebody, that he needed him, that he should jump on board.

Chase finally said yes. That was four years ago, and he came on as Regional Services Director.

What Pine Cove wanted was a set of eyes from outside the building. Someone who had seen how other companies ran, who could connect departments that weren't always sharing what they knew, and who could help figure out what services Pine Cove should offer next.

Ask him what makes Pine Cove different as a business and he doesn't start with the technology. Brandon has a word for how the company does business that came from his father: the handshake.

"I think that they're a very almost family-oriented business. Very personable, very understanding of what individual people's needs are, clients' needs are. They understand who we are as people, as employees, as clients."

The same instinct shows up in the work. With a decade in the industry behind him, Chase sees Pine Cove as a lot less reactive and more proactive than what he's seen elsewhere, because the starting point is the client rather than the product.

PathFinder360™ is where that becomes an actual service. Chase has watched clients get handed a long list of things that all genuinely matter, with nothing to tell them what order to do them in. His own question, from his years as a tech director, was how you decide which one matters most and what has to happen first. Most of the industry, in his experience, works from a surface-level picture of the environment and reacts when something breaks. PathFinder360 goes deep into the environment first and comes back with a sequence.

"It helps us dig into what their needs are, not just what our needs are."

Today he splits his time about evenly, half on Pine Cove's own systems and service offerings, half on the clients he carries as a TAM. Pine Cove is spread across the Mountain West rather than sitting in one building, which means his accounts are too, and he spends real time on site with them. As he puts it, they can help people that are 5,000 miles away.

The clients are the priority, in his view. As long as they're taken care of, the rest gets figured out.

"I've built really great relationships with individuals within their organization and almost know every single one by first name basis. To me, that fulfills my everyday role."

Chase has lived in Utah his whole life. He and his wife have been married nine years and together ten, and they have two kids, a boy and a girl. They're an outdoors family, with camping, a side-by-side, and mountains right behind the house.

"We call it our church. We're not very religious, but more so spiritual. We love being outside, which makes us feel more spiritual and more closer to God in a sense. It's just kind of like our peace, where we're happy the most."

He hunts with family every year, he fishes, and he's a serious baseball fan. A recent game ran late enough that the kids paid for it the next morning.

Which brings the story back to where it started. Asked where technology is heading, Chase doesn't hedge about the risk. He compares AI to what the Macintosh was to the computer industry.

"It does scare me a little bit because of the power it has. And without control, I think it could take off in the wrong direction. But with understanding AI, and using our experience and abilities to kind of control it, I think it can definitely be probably the best thing that the world has probably ever seen."

His kids are young. But Chase already knows what he'd tell his son, because someone told him first.