Rock Island tech business helping people in increasingly computerized world - Quad City Times

Rock Island tech business helping people in increasingly computerized world - Quad City Times

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Shaun Brown is owner/operator of Bit Tech Computer Solutions at 3929 14th Ave., Rock Island.

KEVIN E. SCHMIDT

The advice is straightforward from an experienced computer tech to those considering pursuing the same career.

“Be nice,” Shaun Brown, 39, of Milan, said recently. He owns and operates Bit Tech Computer Solutions in Rock Island and has done so for about four years.

Computer problems that might seem small to the tech savvy will look big to the people who need those problems fixed, Brown said. It’s important not to talk above the customers’ heads when dealing with their issues.

“Treat them the way you would want to be treated,” he said.

Bit Tech does everything from virus removal to recovering lost data, and it shows. The business, on 14th Avenue, has that “IT chic” feel that seems to be characteristic of information technology businesses.

In a corner was a pile of laptops, awaiting recycling. Nearby, another laptop was skinned to the bare bones, its screen scooped out, leaving only the metal backing. Sprinkled here and there were PC towers opened up so their wires and guts showed. Monitors marked for sale were fixed to the walls.

Tinkering led to career

Brown said he has always been interested in how things worked, especially electronics.

That curiosity led him to tinkering with computers off and on throughout his life, beginning in the 1980s, when he began fiddling with Nintendo gaming systems.

He was working as a handyman when his uncle, a chiropractor, warned him he was ruining his back and needed to find a new career.

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So he got his GED through Black Hawk College, and his instructor told him he was smarter than he was giving himself credit for, Brown said. That instructor got him in touch with an adviser who helped him enroll at the college, where he earned an associate degree in applied computer science.

Brown had more advice for would-be computer experts: Try it out for a while before committing the money to the pursuit. Be sure.

For him, the challenges include the fact that computer technology is constantly evolving, Brown said. He is always learning something new, and he will never know it all.

The biggest reward is helping people, he said. A large part of his business comes from older people.

"They almost look at me as a grandkid when they come in here," he said.

Internet and computer services is a growing market, he said. It can be a moneymaker, depending on which aspect of the field a person enters.

Computers have been integrated into everyone’s lives, he said. Everything is connected to the internet now.

“Your refrigerator can order groceries for you,” Brown said.

All of those things will need repair and maintenance, he said.

His general goal for Bit Tech is to have three locations in operation before he retires, Brown said. Bit Tech’s projected growth for 2020 is already about twice what he anticipated.

“We’ve grown at such a rapid pace, it’s almost hurt,” he said.

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2020-03-01 06:00:00Z
https://qctimes.com/news/local/rock-island-tech-business-helping-people-in-increasingly-computerized-world/article_e28080c1-309c-5de0-8b65-2169cc93851a.html

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