Aaron Walker: Future-Proofing the Sacramento Valley

Q: What is your new role?

A: I’m the Vice President of Technical Operations for the Sacramento Valley area. I lead a group of six hundred employees that are responsible for delivering Comcast customers the best experience. My team includes field personnel, more commonly known as “techs” who visit customers’ homes. They perform installs and repairs while the network team manages and maintains our infrastructure. Our team takes care of residential and commercial business customers.

Q: What has prepared you for this position?

A: I have more than 20 years of experience in the cable and telecommunications industry. 17 of those years I held various leadership roles, including supervisor, manager, senior manager, director, and now Vice President of Technical Operations. I have worked in different areas in California so I understand that the East Bay, San Francisco, SF Peninsula, Fresno and Sacramento Valley present different challenges and opportunities.

Q: What are the top three things you plan to implement?

A: I’m determined to improve the customer experience. It’s not lost on me that Comcast has work to do in that area. We’ve made significant improvements, but there is room for growth here. One way to deliver a great customer experience is ensuring that we deliver the most reliable products and services; connecting people to the things they love. My team would do that by accelerating our plans to expand and enhance the infrastructure in the Sacramento area. But I can’t do that without strengthening the work culture in Sacramento. I hope to earn recognition for Comcast as a great place to work.

Q: What’s unique about the Sacramento Valley?

A: The culture and pride of the Sacramento area is palpable.  Sacramento is not only known for being home to the state capitol, home to the farm-to-fork community and home to technology consumers that expect reliable and robust Internet service. Sacramento is the new intersection of the new and old.  Also, having lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley areas, my family has expressed a deep desire to grow our roots in the Sacramento area.  We love this valley because it is family-friendly; it has a community that’s committed to education, youth sports and outdoor recreation activities.

Q: What’s your vision for the technical operations team in Sacramento?

A: To be the leading example for others to follow at Comcast and the industry.  I look to them as change leaders for our employees to better understand and connect the vision between our customer experience efforts and how that change in culture will ultimately benefit our employees.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish in 2018?

A: I hope to improve customer experience significantly in Sacramento and beyond. There are already plans in place to upgrade more than 100,000 homes with a reliable and robust fiber network. I would love to accomplish all of this while our employees nominate the Sacramento office as one of the ‘Best Places to Work’ by The Sacramento Business Journal for the third consecutive year.

Q: Tell me something people may not know about you?

A: I’m a huge Oakland A’s baseball fan, Oakland Warriors basketball fan and San Francisco 49er fan.  I love camping and spending as much time outdoors as possible. Despite working for one of the largest media and technology companies in the world, I spend very little time watching television; less than 30 minutes a day.

Q: What are you passionate about as a leader?

A: I value integrity, effort a well-balanced approach when it comes to doing what’s right for our employees and our customers. As part of our improvements to customer experience, we have an empty chair at each of our meetings. That chair represents our customers. We make decisions based on what’s right for the customer versus what’s right for the company.

Q: What are you passionate about as a father?

A: I love watching my children experience new things and the awesome conversations we have about the world around them. I’m passionate about them growing up to be caring adults and have compassion for others.  I enjoy being a part of their passion for school, music and sports, which will make them into more well-rounded adults.