Black Box, an IT solutions provider, recently announced two appointments through which the company says it “will unify, standardize, and enhance its quality division and operations worldwide.” Matt Barnes has been named quality director for global deployment services. In that role he is responsible for leading the quality program for the Black Box global ICT business. David Richards, newly appointed quality and training manager for global deployment services, will oversee BICSI and Black Box Training and Development (T&D) programs. He reports to Barnes.
“To enhance, unify, and implement a world-class quality program is a substantial undertaking, given the breadth of the company’s services and its global footprint,” said Barnes. “It’s a transformational opportunity that is yielding positive results within our North American business. I am thrilled to be part of such a dynamic and diverse team at Black Box, helping to drive our quality objectives across the global business.”
Black Box says that Barnes and Richards, along with industry veterans and certified trainers, quality assurance manager Phil Klingensmith and quality manager Chad Scholtisek, are working to enhance skills training and career pathing for operations staff through T&D programs that are focused on increasing client satisfaction through improved implementation quality, boosting installation and delivery efficiencies, and enhancing Black Box alignments with vendors and clients.
Richard, who is BICSI’s president-elect for 2022-2023, is helping to oversee the buildout of the Black Box Authorized Training Facilities (ATF) that provide technicians with BICSI and other standards-based skills, as well as product-specific knowledge. Richards has been a BICSI-certified trainer for 22 years and holds credentials including RCDD, NTS, OSP, TECH, and CT.
“My passion has always been around training and developing individuals and showing them a path forward, and the opportunity to put that into play was one of the things that drew me to Black Box,” said Richards. “In the field, there’s a lot of knowledge that you simply can’t transfer through on-the-job training; you need more formal, instructor-led training. It says a lot about Black Box that hands-on training and education are part of the company’s commitment to excellence. Ultimately, it’s a commitment that benefits technicians, the business, customers, and Black Box partners as well.”
With construction complete and proprietary installer training courses underway at their Western Region Training Facility in Chandler, Arizona, two additional U.S. training facility locations serving the Central Region in Plano, Texas and the Eastern Region in Charlotte, North Carolina will be opening in the spring and fall of 2023, respectively. All three U.S. Training Facilities are planning to offer all four BICSI Installer-based training courses.
