Set 2 - Rep 8 with Patricia Finger

Episode Summary

Today’s guest is definitely one to look up to. We have the honor of having Miss Patricia Finger at The Metric Mate Minute Podcast! 

Patricia earned a degree in Mathematics from North Carolina Central University, but little did she know then that she would end up being the first black CCIE in the United States. Her work experience started at IBM as a system engineer and through the years she worked and developed different wired and wireless networks that we use on a daily basis. She gracefully reflects on her days when the fastest digital communication system worked with 9,600 bits per second. 

Patricia is an inspiration to every young man and woman interested in technology, listen to her journey on this episode!

TheMetricMatePodcast_Set 2_Rep 8_Patricia Finger: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

TheMetricMatePodcast_Set 2_Rep 8_Patricia Finger: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

M-T:
What's going on, everybody! This is your boy Brother M-T, and we're here with another Metric Mate Minute Podcast. On the Metric Mate Minute Podcast, we cover leaders from all over the world telling you about how they do what they do, why they do what they do and how staying fit keeps them in their best mindset. Let's go!

M-T:
What's going on, everybody, man? Welcome to another Metric Mate Minute Podcast is your boy Brother M-T. And as you know, from the Metric Mate Minute we do our best to bring you the most exclusive, the most amazing, the most powerful people that we can find. And this week is no different. I say it every week, I know, y'all get on my nerves telling me I say it every week, I'ma keep saying it every week. As long as I get the opportunity to interview these amazing people. And Miss Patricia Finger is no different. This is the first time I've called anybody "miss anything" and she definitely deserves it. So I'm going to make sure I give her the respect, that put the respect to her name that she should be having in. CCIE, Cisco certified internetworking expert, engineer, extraordinaire, bringing you all of the functionality that you need to be able to work on the Internet. But as you know, I am not the best person to tell you about what these people do, man. They have all the experience. They know they can hype themselves up. I'm just here to bring you the positive energy and the information that you need to be the best that you can be. So Miss Finger, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on here with us. Man, this is absolutely amazing. I'm excited being an engineer, being in networking myself, learning as much as I can about network security and to have you want to talk as the first black Cisco certified internetworking Expert, out of Cisco and you work for Cisco and you never mind, tell the people, the community all about yourself and everything you want them to know. Please.

Patricia Finger:
Well, thank you so much for having me. It is an honor to be here. As you know, I'm a Fan of Metric Mate and I'm a fan of yours too, Marcus-Tor. So I started my career maybe about 50 years ago. You know, stem before there was stem and definitely a black and a woman in the networking industry before we were accepted. So there were a lot of times when I struggled with whether I was in the right place or whether I should go teach but I persevered. I had responsibility, so I had to have a job and this was a job, it pays well. And hopefully, you guys out there that are looking for a career, IT is good, desktop is good. But that information highway that allows the applications to survive is the heartbeat of the Internet, there're jobs that's there. So please be aware of that when you're looking at other avenues to explore. So I was there, of course, just like a lot of places, you know, you're not wanted. And just in a lot of instances, you are judged by how you look and who you are. And that wasn't something that was acceptable to me. So in the early part of my career, there was the certification, the certification that was hard. So I figured, you know, I'm going to go for this certification then maybe I'll be judged by that data, by what I can do, not how I looked. And it worked for me and it provided me an opportunity to exceed. And as I told you earlier, there's this story I have about Patricia Impact. My name, here the name is Patricia. But what, in that time, being a woman provided or suggested things about you that didn't necessarily have to be true. So I went by Pat. They didn't know whether I was a man or a woman. They assumed because my name was Pat, that that was a man. So I got in front of them before they were actually allowed to assume who I was about what my name was. So now that I got in there, I really don't care if they know or not because I know my stuff. And that's all that matters today versus when I came into the industry yesterday. You know, I came from nothing, three-room house in North Carolina, raised by my grandparents, third-grade education. So I came from nothing. But what they provided me was the strength in who I was and what they told me to do not let anybody tell you who you are. Do not let your self-worth be dependent on anybody except you. And so you know that. And the faith that they instilled in me, provided me with the foundation that I needed to go through these obstacles and hopefully come out ahead. And then, you know, sometimes you just got to walk it off. And I'm a walker and I used to get up in the morning and just walk. Sometimes you don't know why you're walking, but you know that once you finish, you feel so much better. So exercise has always been a part of my healing part of me, just a spiritual talking with the Lord and walking and huffing and get your heart rate up and just sweating and just trying to just get it all out because sometimes the obstacles dictate that you just have to do that.

M-T:
Wow. Wow. That's all I got. That's all I got. Because that, that was the realest story that anybody who shared about themselves on this podcast, on this series of interviews that we've conducted, because that is real. And just so you all know her CCIE Number is 2304. There are 60,000 CCIE's in the world at this time. And as she said, the CCIE is the highest of the Cisco internetworking certifications that you can get. It is the hardest to attain and was just made harder last year when they instituted new ways that you actually have to go through the tracks to get to CCIE. So to be number 2304, two thousand three hundred and four out of 60,000 definitely means, ... Fact-check me on this. I want you to fact-check me on this as she was the first Black Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert. And I would dare to say just non-white, not even just black, not white Cisco certified internetworking expert back in the 80s, period. And as you said, she did it for her family. She did it to continue to move herself forward. And you came out of college with a mathematics degree.

Patricia Finger:
That's correct.

M-T:
How did you translate from math into seeing the future of technology being, not just the PC or the Mainframe, but the actual Internet working between all of them?

Patricia Finger:
Well, of course, there's a story with that. Let me tell you the beginning of my interest in math, because sometimes when you're poor, you don't know what you have. So my eighth-grade teacher back in the segregated schools that cared for us and wiped our snotty nose and all the things that showed us that they loved us. I was, salutatorian in the eighth-grade class, I tried to catch Esther Gordon who was valedictorian, but I could not catch her. So I was the salutatorian. And the principal, Mr. Jingles came to me, he says, you know, you're good at math. He says you ought to study math. Hey, OK, no problem. I'll study math. So when I came out of Central, you know everybody's what's got to do with math? And of course, I thought about teaching.

M-T:
Central, central, is North Carolina Central University?

Patricia Finger:
Yeah.

M-T:
Yes, it's, shout that out and that, they don't prepare you for the real world. Well, this is a testament that they prepared for real the world.

Patricia Finger:
Oh yeah. And they reinforce your power, your value. So it's, ..., you know, you have all these interviews to go to, etc, and I was looking for teaching because what else do you do with math except teach back in the 1970s? So IBM was there and they said, you need to come work for us. And at that time, here, here, let me date myself. IBM paid me eleven thousand dollars, teachers were going to pay me eight thousand dollars. I'm sorry. I work for money. I mean, I love it, but I work for money. So I went to work for IBM as a systems engineer, decoding HEX in the COBOL Compiler. I did it. You know.

M-T:
Wow.

Patricia Finger:
So after that I went to programming and after that I came to Southern Bell in Atlanta. And that was the time that they were introducing data into their network, not just voice but data. At the introduction of that, I went to MIT for six weeks. I went to Utah for six weeks because they were training us about this intern networking, that was just at the beginning. So that math degree, logical thinking is what it brought to me. And it allowed me to enter into this networking industry at a time of its infancy and not come out of Central, Delta Sigma Theta there you go!

M-T:
I love it. I love it. So the transferable skills and that's something that a lot of people don't talk about. They think when you go down a path and you're doing a specific thing, that you're not gaining anything that goes outside of that realm when in actuality, like you said, that cognitive thinking, that analysis, the understanding of how things fit together and being able to see those logical steps, that's something that you got with your math degree and was able to transfer into computers and networking and data transfer, which is now so seamlessly a part of our lives and will continue to gain momentum as we move forward. Tell us about those first days of sending data by wire, sending electrical impulses that could turn into a keystroke or a sent message. What was that like?

Patricia Finger:
You know, we were going at ninety-six hundred bits per second and we felt we were flying.

M-T:
Let's put this in context, for everybody that doesn't understand the difference between a bit, a kilobit, megabit, a kilobit and a gigabit.

Patricia Finger:
Isn't that fair, huh?

M-T:
There you go, when you say sixty-nine bits,

Patricia Finger:
Ninety-six hundred.

M-T:
Ninety six hundred bits.

Patricia Finger:
Bits per second. Now we're at terabit. Wow. Which is a trillion bits per second. But when we first started we, I mean, we went from the three-hundred bit per second to a ninety-six hundred bit per second and we were flying, I mean, it took all day to pay the screen. But you know, we were in the beginning, so it didn't matter if I had to seat here, you know, for an hour to get a document transmitted because it was, it was something that had never been done before.

M-T:
Right.

Patricia Finger:
So we weren't in a hurry, we were just in...

M-T:
In terms of sending it by ship across the ocean.

Patricia Finger:
Yes! So we were, we were doing good. We were doing really good. So the advancement in technology, the transmitters and the receivers, the faster they get, of course, they have to contend with the latency and the copper wire, but now we've got fiber and I think very soon we'll get to the speed of light. With some resistance there, but to the speed of light and maybe the repeaters will be closer together in order to get the correct signal to the destination. But it is absolutely astronomical. The last customer that I worked with and I retired a couple of months ago, retired from having to go to work every day, but still working, but the last customer, and because of the pandemic, because of the work from home, they need so much bandwidth that we were deploying for them terabit switches and each card has like 40 terabit ports. So can you imagine the switching that goes on in these devices in order to be able to get that data from one place to another accurately, because we're becoming impatient, you know, we hit send and we want it to come right in. You know, we are impatient. And, you know, Marcus-Tor, what I have found in a lot, is that we are so engrossed in what happens at the desktop when we hit send, we have no idea what's going on. You know, as long as it gets to the destination instantaneously, we have no idea of the manipulation of that hello message as it goes from point to point to get it to the destination. There's money to be made for both of you and us that know what happens there, there's money to be made.

M-T:
There it is. I couldn't put it any simpler than that. She's dropping jewels all over the place, letting you know where it is. And I can attest to it, I know people that can attest to it, being a part of the networking, the switching, the routing of this data that we see as minuscule by even the pictures that we're posting on Instagram, the fact that we're even able to Zoom right now and have this video conversation from miles away. You were actually on the first intercontinental video call.

Patricia Finger:
Yeah.

M-T:
You've got to tell them about that.

Patricia Finger:
Well, believe me, it was markedly different because, you know, video and voice, the delay in the network can just mess up a conversation. So you're talking, I'm sure you've seen a Zoom, not in this one, where you, the person talks and, you know, the other person hasn't heard it yet because there's a delay. So, you know, just like a walkie-talkie, you just say "over". So, you know, that I was finish talking. So you will not talk over me. But we've just come a long way. We've just come a long way. But a bit is a bit. A bit was a bit back in 1980. A bit is a bit now. So that basic understanding is still relevant. Even though we're going millions times faster, we still manipulate the bits in the same way.

M-T:
Got it. So this logic, this form factor that we thought about over forty years ago now at the beginning of the Internet is still the basis for everything that we're doing today. The technology has just gotten more refined. Moore's Law has taken full effect. And for those that don't know Moore's Law, I'm not here to drop all the jewels. Go Google it. Moore's Law is absolutely, it's been accurate up to now. And I'm pretty sure it will continue to be accurate all the way as far as we can take the physicality of these machines. And now that we're moving to the cloud and Internetworking, the actual processors and allowing them to work together then, that will take effect on that as well and continue to reduce that to the point where everything's working together. And this Internet of ours is a million times faster than what it is now, which I can't even fathom. And I'm sure you all can fathom this, back when was first coming around, but with all of this change, with all of this growth, you've still stayed on top of your game. You've still been a part of some of the backbones of the web that we use every day and making sure that they can meet these demands, meet the structural stresses, overcome any of the obstacles that might get dropped in their way as far as advancing the network. How have you stayed like, in your groove for this much time when we've got parents out here that can't even figure out how to take a picture on their cellphone? You're building the backbone of the network. Where is that different from? How do you stay in front?

Patricia Finger:
Well, I love it. You know, I make money and I am blessed to enjoy the area in which my financial well-being comes from. I enjoy bringing up a network of terabits and then turning over the customers. And you see Google come up and you see Microsoft come up soyou know that somebody is on the other end, the far end, that's actually benefiting from the fact that you've given more network and you know, somebody is making money. So I'm making money. They're making money. We're all happy. I just enjoy it. I enjoy that part of the network. You know, as I was coming up, I had friends to and your audience may not know the OSI model, the seven layers. I'm down in layer one, two and three. And they would say Pat let's go up to, I'm going to go to the applications layer. I'm going to go to the applications layer, which is layer seven. And I'm going to do this voice-over IP. I'm going to do a video and I would say "nahh man". I will stay down at the lower levels. I mean, because all the crap up there at the top, that these bottom layers don't work, they don't have to, don't meant, don't happened up there at the top. I have stayed at the layers one, two and three. I like it. It probably doesn't get as much recognition as the top players, but I know how important Al Gore's superhighway is.

M-T:
That's right. I'll say, I'll go give him credit for the Interwaves, the Internet.

Patricia Finger:
That came before him, but I know how important it is. So I like it. It's not easy. It's not intuitive, but, you know, it's logical, you know, as long as on and off mean 0 and 1, then I'm OK. That's the only thing I can do in our area. Layers one, two and three.

M-T:
Love it. I mean, that's, that's the jewel in of itself. And making sure that you are engaged and that you admire and are intensely enthralled by what you're doing makes it so much easier. And if you find something that's going to pay you well, that's even better. You can live a very positive life of that and support yourself and the ones that you love and that that makes it even easier to stay on top. I definitely see that.

Patricia Finger:
It makes it not work. It just makes it not work.

Patricia Finger:
Love it, love it, love it, love it. Love it. So you're an active person.

Patricia Finger:
Yes.

M-T:
You stay fit. You get your walking and you talk about you got to walk after this, you know?

Patricia Finger:
Yes, I do.

M-T:
You're already ready to get going. How has that mindset that fit mind, body and spirit lifestyle helped you continue to climb and grow and learn and help ride the wave of this expanding network that we call our lives nowadays?

Patricia Finger:
Well, I think what I've always appreciated and always felt is that I need to take care of myself first before I can take care of anything else. and I'm a morning person, so my routine and, you know, sometimes I'm a slacker. Let's be serious. But my normal routine is I get up and I walk. I don't want to do it at the end of the day because I, I can find every excuse not to do it at the end of the day. So I'd like to start out in the morning. I walk, you know, I do a little weights and but mostly I walk. I remember I walk in the community and I know my community and it's safe. But I remember one lady says, you know, you walk too fast. You look like you're going to be in the Olympics, you're going to be a power-walker says, well, no ma'am, I said, well if I'm gonna be out there, I'm gonna try to use every muscle possible. My lungs, my heart. I've looked in my arms, I've listened to music and stuff in. So, you know, if I going to do it and I know that I should do it, then I've got to make the most of that time that I'm walking and so it's, it's a release. I'm taking care of myself. Hopefully that activity will provide me with a couple of years along the line. What else can I say? Enjoy my grandkids.

M-T:
There you go. There you go. That is amazing. That is amazing. I mean, and that touches on so many portions of working, why fitness is important. I mean, it maintains your tempo. Of course, you can't fill from an empty cup which alludes to you taking care of yourself because I mean, if you don't have any water and, you, who else you're going to ... It's all going be worth it and extending that life, making sure you have a better quality of life for those longer years and that you can be as active then as you are now.

Patricia Finger:
Yes

M-T:
I can't, I can't put it any better than that. That's why we're here. That's why MetricMate is working so hard to bring our technology to the people, because we want everybody to be able to enjoy every moment that they're on this planet and take life as a precious commodity that though it is fleeting, you can do everything that you can to maintain your level and your longevity and just be free.

Patricia Finger:
Yeah,

M-T:
That's that's one of the craziest part is talking to older people later on in their in their lives is losing that freedom. It's the biggest bummer like the driving is, is OK, but at least I can still walk if I want to go outside and get some fresh air. Well bye gum, I'm going to get up, go outside and get some fresh air. But once you lose that mobility and that freedom or it is laborious to actually just walk down the steps or walk down the street to see your friend, your neighbor, that, that's when it really becomes a bummer to be around. And that's not what life is. That's not what you should be able to.

Patricia Finger:
No, I think that's one of the reasons that I really fell in love with MetricMate, even though I'm not a user, because I don't do a lot of weights. But when I did, I, you know, I had hip surgery a few years ago, doing well, thank the Lord. But when I got to the physical therapist and she make me do what she made me do, I had no way to know what she made me do. You know, I had no record, even though she did a good job. I'm doing well. I'm walking, I could probably run if I want to, but not this age. There is a record so you can see your progress, so you can see where you need to change what you're doing. I really think that's going to take off not only for the average person, but quite frankly, you know, physical therapist is one person. You know, she had me over there doing this and she has somebody else over here doing this and somebody so being able to actually see what they did and go home at night and analyze what they did and try to make sure that you're giving them the best service that you can give them. I think MetricMate with the ability to track the information, the strength training, the repetitions and calories and all of that stuff that you're able to track, I think it'll make it a lot easier for a physical therapist, I think and also, let's think about Tom Brady and your brains last night, you know, in the training room. These guys are working as hard as they can. I don't know, maybe they're jotted down in their pad with a pencil and, you know, not able to analyze it. But this is why I fell in love with Metric Mate, and those of you that haven't tried to give it a try.

M-T:
Hey, you know, I can't even give a better endorsement for myself than that. You are killing this day. I appreciate that so much. I mean, we are doing our best to be able to provide everybody with access to that because it shouldn't just be confined to the folks that can afford it. Everybody should be able to see their data. Everybody should be able to see their progress and track their progress and be more, hold themselves more accountable for what they do. You know, like you said, when you go walk, you try to use every muscle in your body and you try to get every movement so that you're taking full advantage of what you're doing. Well, a lot of people aren't doing that because they don't know. MetricMate wants to be a remedy for that. We want you to know I am giving everything that I intend on giving at the gym. No questions, not me speculating about somebody else looking and saying you might not be doing that much, because well, here's my data. I am actually, this is the force I'm putting out. This is the exertion I'm taking calories that I'm burning. I'm doing everything that I need to do for myself to live a better life. And if we can do that, we will feel absolutely accomplished. Right. period. Thank you. Thank you. I, go and we're going to cut some of that out and use it as commercial. I know.

Patricia Finger:
I'm a believer. I'm a believer.

M-T:
Yes, yes, Yes, yes. Well, excellent, excellent. Excellent. Miss Patricia, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast. I mean, I'm ... you got a LinkedIn or Facebook or something and tell people where they might be able to find you. If you got an email address, definitely let them know. Man, tell, tell the community where they might be able to get in touch with you if they have any questions about networking and technology and computers and such.

Patricia Finger:
Yeah, if you have any questions, e-mail. I don't even know my LinkedIn. I probably never changed it. But ta...phfinger@comcast.net. And I want to help somebody as I travel along this fair. If I can help you understand networking or, you know, just give you an atta boy or an atta girl or, you know, just words of encouragement. I just want to help this generation. I'm in love with y'all. I think you're doing so much. So I'm there.

M-T:
Terrific. Terrific. I mean. Yeah, y'all better take advantage of this resource as well, man, she's giving you her email address, you can get in contact with her. She does have a LinkedIn. Like I said, she had had to have updated it. But we're going to talk about that. We want to make sure she gets a LinkedIn up there, that's a great way for you to communicate with her. Miss Patricia Finger, thank you so much. You dropped so many jewels I'm not even gonna ask you to do a question. You gave them so much to think about, so much information. This is living history. This is a living legend in the space that will be existent. Even if we go to another planet, there will be the Internet. Electricity is one of our natural resources that is abundant in every way it is and even inside of us. So we know that anything that's done digitally will be transcendent of this planet, of this time into the next. And she was at the foundation of one of our biggest developments that has allowed us to be able to share all this information about what's going on in our part of the world, allowing us to be able to communicate with each other even when we don't have access to each other for a long period of time or because of distance. She was a part of the bedrock of all of that. So please share this with any young lady or any young man that is interested in going into the technological space and might not know what they can achieve. She is definitely a testament of what can be achieved.

M-T:
Anybody listening, thank y'all! You don't have to spend your time with us at The Metric Mate Minute, man. Thank you all so much for joining us. And until next time, next week, same time, same place we put these things out on Wednesdays, I will catch out then. This is your boy Brother MT. Check us out at TheMetricMate.com. Now, peace!

M-T:
Man, thanks, everybody, for joining us for another Metric Mate Minute. We appreciate everybody that comes through and shows us love in the Metric Mate community. Make sure that you stopover at TheMetricMate.com to find out more information about the podcast, about what we're doing, any of our blog information, the transcript of the show and just to show us massive support. Also, remember to follow us on social media at Metric Mate. Check us out, y'all. Peace!

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Get to know Patricia Finger

Patricia Finger is a living legend in the Tech & Comms industries.

She is the first Black Cisco Certified InterNetworking Expert (CCIE), worked on the first international video call from the US to China, and has not only worked on the development of some of the most state of the art wired and wireless networks but has instructed hundreds of new engineers on networking architecture and principles.

Key Take-aways: 

• Find the transferable skills between your degree and different types of jobs.

• Immediacy has made human beings impatient.

• The basis developed for the Internet to work is the same we're using today.

• OSI model is made of 7 layers: physical, data link, network, transport, session, presentation, application.

• Take care of yourself first before you can take care of anything else. 

• Physical exercise helps have longevity and mobility when older. 

Resources:

• Find Miss Patricia on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-finger-b6191413/ 

• Know more about Cisco’s Expert Certifications here: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/training-certifications/certifications/expert.html