this is L Your Mark I'm Vince Cortez and today's guest is Chuck Rinker he is the founder of personas one of the earliest digital humans and AI Avatar companies where he currently serves as its CEO as an Innovative Tech leader Chuck is deeply committed to transforming businesses through cuttingedge Technologies Beyond his accomplishments in the tech industry Chuck is a late stage colon cancer survivor which is instilled in him an unwavering determination to make a impact on everything he does Chuck thank you for being my guest here today absolutely I do appreciate you having me Vince hi there and welcome now it's time for America's favorite podcast leave your mark with your host V scz Loz free in itz Leave Your Mark it's about inspiring the world one guess at a time pass the word from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh from Urban to suburb it's you heard and here is our host V Cortez we just had a brief conversation and you have quite a uh a story and and at from your humble beginnings in Arlington Virginia and your mom and dad uh owners of a cattle farm and you have five siblings so there's six of you in the house in this window of your life so I I I'm one of four myself so the action's got to be big with six of you kids in there so what was a fond memory you had of your childhood growing up in Arlington grew up the cattle farm was in Barryville born in Arlington it was a little over the mountain west of DC uh I guess one of the fondest things is my my dad had an incredible work ethic he was a cattle farmer he was also a barber he worked at Shorty male so he was like you know pulling three jobs to make ends meet with everybody we always you know raised ate ate what we raised raised our beef rais raised their vegetable but what was always fun is we had the traditional big kitchen where you know eight of us mom dad and the six kids would sit around and eat dinner and we'd be out in the field working the hayfields or what have you and up on the porch mom had the big old Bell you know the traditional Bell you see in the TV shows and when we heard that bell ringing and the farm was a little over a half mile half mile long my brother and I would just take off running and and and then we'd all jump around and sit around dinner and have the big old Sunday dinners around the table so that was us that was a like a little episode of Little House in the pur in my head now growing up in uh in in the technology space I'm in now that was a an intriguing time in my life where we learned learned a lot about ethics well you you have quite a journey like I want to touch on you know some of the stuff you're doing in the tech world but getting back here to your high school so at Clark County High School the Eagles you were involved in quite a bit coming from the farm so you acclimated yourself into the Student Life uh wholeheartedly you're in the band you're uh Sports uh football and basketball basically in your era the All-American kid and uh also you know a bit of a brainiac performing in the state fairs and getting good marks on your your report cards so share with me what that was like and uh how that began to develop you getting more involved in Tech yeah that's interesting to say that because it was always me uh I always want to as a kid I was you know taking apart whatever I could to figure out how it worked I was probably the first kid on the Block to have the old Mattel football game when you were a kid the little LEDs playing um but we we were a real small community and it was a farming community and a very close Community I think we had 99 people in my class was all we had and my mom was substitute teacher she was bus driver so a lot of the kids at school called my mom mom so it was your it was your just good old um you know what you kind of say the old country town where where there was a lot of uh camaraderie and just feeling of family so we always perform well I was a quintessential goody two shoes you know I was always the teacher's pet always tried to do the right thing and and you know live up to the uh uh uh standards that my my parents put out so um you know I I I I I got into the tech World um with a little bit of tear jerking in my eye my dad always said uh he used to be a barber as well and he'd cut the hair of some of the the high-tech sea suite and the VPS of the DC what we call the Beltway Bandits back then and I remember him coming to me one day and saw that I had an aptitude for computers and I was going to a local College because we didn't offer those programs at our high school um and and saw that I I had an aptitude for that so I remember him taking me to one of his uh customers as a hair getting a haircut and said uh you know Mr Admiral Scoggins was the gentleman's name he was one of the principls of Navy Federal Credit Union he said you know my son's too smart to be a farmer on on that note you went to a number of different colleges but you said you went off there so prior to graduating you had already gotten some tech training outside of the public school so it seemed like that searching or that Curiosity was being fed so you mentioned that you went to a handful of schools yeah after graduating high school so how did that go down it was just me wanting to learn everything I could about everything I I started out like I said at Shen or even while I was in uh high school and to get some of that early computer training ended up going down to University of Miami was in the Air Force there for a little while wanted to try that out see what that was like ended up leaving the Air Force and going civilian with military but that was um University of Miami dou electrical engineering uh ended up transferring up to Virginia Tech had more friends and family closer to home that kind of thing uh went through computer science there after I finished up there I went to uh George Washington University for some postgraduate multimedia Tech work and uh ended up going to a place called The Living Arts College to learn 3D animation and all down here probably uh you know 10 years after it already graduated so it was just that that appetite to always want to experience something new so so that that's as you've probably already learned in the the short 15 20 minutes you and I've known each other that uh the only thing I want to do is what I didn't do yesterday I mean the skill set that you just explained and the education that you went through so what was your first job then coming through all that education and and how does the beginning of your entrepreneurial Journey come together yeah the first job I had unfortunately I'm not one of those guys that can claim to have the life experience of flipping burgers and saying you want fries with that I my first job was thanks to my dad in that statement I mentioned earlier about saying hey my kid's too smart um he got me a job as a uh working punch cars I'm going to show my age here with the computer programmers at Navy Federal Credit Union so my first job at the ripe old age of 16 was working at a data center for one of the largest uh uh banks in the US for for for the for the you know military Navy so I worked in the old paper ticker cards era so that was um how I got started and basically never looked back always had that propensity for Tech always um followed up music my mom was a a music teacher in the church organist so she taught me music my dad Tau me work ethics and and and the value of manual labor and my ability for them to push me through the tech Realms and get me into the technology is kind of why I like to say that I get to use both side of my brains for my career now do you proceed to have uh work with other companies or when does your entrepreneurial uh Journey begin like officially out on your own because your your list of the stuff that you've been involved with I mean Madden Sports and and some of these others we'll mention a little bit later but you're you you made a smooth shift from The Punch Cards into how you decided to and what what were some of the influences that you had as far as deciding to do that well the the Navy Federal C Union was what was right outside of DC and and DC as we all know is um you know big into military funding military operations what we call the Beltway Bandits uh back then which were all government contractors so I I quickly made a stent um for a passion in aviation and got into an aerospace company did battle management software military operations military simulation stuff got into aerospace engineering that got me into satellite reconnaissance so some of those companies around DC I probably work for two or three of them over about an 18 to 20 year period and then decided I needed a break from the big city because wanted to raise kids um got married to a lovely woman who is also a cancer survivor two-time cancer survivor by the way we'll get into that later as well and we decided that DC wasn't where we wanted to raise our kids so we came down to uh Research Triangle Park and ended up doing uh game development which was basically military simulation work but for fun instead of for real yeah exactly um and that's how I got into games and worked for a small game company in Raleigh and immediately showed an aptitude for that for for the reasons I mentioned earlier about left and right braining and I quickly got scooped up by EA Sports and uh got put in charge of the NCAA football franchise and the uh Madden franchise in this day I can state claim to uh my roots as a Miami hurricane and a Virginia Tech Hoke and say that the first two 3D mascots and NCA history were Sebastian from Miami and the Hokey bird from Virginia Tech hokei so uh that's how I got into the gaming world and then um after several years in that world when my my my oldest daughter was born um we decided to come back home to North Carolina for personal reasons and and that's when I decided I had too much of the the fun stuff going on on my head so I decided to uh partner up with a friend of mine and um start New Media at that time person's New Media back in 1999 and I've been running it for 25 years now do you have any specific mentors or role models that play crucial role in guiding you this I mean obviously your parents were fantastic extremely well-versed but coming out of those Arenas you as you put it there's some brainiacs hanging out and I'm sure one or two of them had some sort to influence on you and uh Andor experiences with them so how did that uh kind of curb you going into the more serious side of things it's interesting you say that because um um there there are a lot of individuals you know obviously my dad is is one of my biggest influences from the um he used to always tell me you can do anything you want but not everything you want um so you do have to be a little more selective but basically opened up the reins and said you know if you want to do it Chuck you you're a smart as anybody else just so go for it and and he built that work ethic I can remember many of nights I'd you know show up the next morning when I was a young programmer and I'd be in the same outfit I left and my boss would go you never went home I go no because I had a problem to solve so he kind of instilled that on me my mom as I mentioned she instilled this sense of love and belief in other people she always was the shoulder that everybody cried on like I said everybody I'd say probably a a significant portion of a community called my mom mom as well as far as the how you do things quite honestly um anybody that knows me knows that I I preach and I fall just this short of worshiping the man we all know is Walt Disney but for a different reason I always look at Walt Disney people don't realize how much of Walt's award-winning and advancements were based on being an incredibly big risk taker but also on the technology side he created technology for the sake of creativity and I think that's kind of where I've gotten into computer graphics and computer Ai and human Ai and game development and all is using the technology to visualize and create those realities that you couldn't do without the technology connect with us in LinkedIn be our friend on Facebook follow us on Twitter and Instagram you are listening to be Cortez we just want you to leave your mind now as an entrepreneur what is your favorite part of being an entrepreneur and why does that resonate with you um for me it's the ability to see a future to see a vision and to have some control whether I'm ultimately successful um it depending on your definite successful I'm already successful in my mind um whether I'm scaled to the level of success that you see other people is yet to be determined but um but to me it's the ability to look at a vision to see a future that I believe in and to be able to have some control and some ability to go for that Vision um so so I'm I'm working on that front um that to me is the favorite part of being an entrepreneur is to have have some control over that Destiny now in your career as diverse as it's been from Tech to Aviation what brings you the most joy and creative inspiration to what you currently do that's pretty pretty funny you say that because uh everybody says that everybody says I've had a diverse career actually I haven't I've I've been in diverse Industries diverse verticals diverse uh uh uh spaces military Black Ops cattle farming blah blah but at the end of the day when you look at all of my professional career it's all about human engagement how do we communicate as humans what makes it attractive for you to sit in front how do I engage you enough that you're going to sit in front of that Madden football game and you're going to play it for hours and hours on end how do I create a military simulation that the people Us in the simulation are engaged in that simulation and believe that they're operating that military simulation how do you go through the flight simulator and believe that you're behind that airplane how do I create a human engagement p piece so when you walk into a hospital in next directions you believe you're talking to a sensient being so the whole all these different diverse companies people claim I've had different jobs in at the end of the day have been around human communication and human engagement now the I mean having had a full career now and we come up to the time in which you you find out you have cancer so I H I have to ask you know where were you and how did that news resonate with you emotionally when you first heard it great question and I'm going to I'm going to try to keep from another tear jerker here but it was it was a Left Right Punch my wife several months earlier had been diagnosed with breast cancer and I had just turned 51 I hadn't had my colonoscopy yet so my wife was going through her radiation treatments after lumpectomy and said you know Chuck I got cancer you need to make sure this doesn't happen to you so literally on the last day of her radiation I was scheduled to go in the next day for my colonoscopy so we finished her radiation that left punch and we're celebrating her finishing up radiation and and going through her mental stresses of going through that breast cancer only to get broadsided with my 3C Dukes goldon cancer less than 24 hours later wow so we were we were kind of Blindsided of course at the time I did what everybody should not do but did jump on the internet look at the ACA and look at my 28% life expectancy rates and just basically was you know going oh what do I do what do I do going through all the Pains of uh of how do I get treatment you know just being absolutely overwhelmed is really all all you can say about it scared of course overwhelmed was was first and foremost which leads us to where we came with our human engagement while we're doing a lot of healthcare and patient Centric stuff now but we went through that and uh three years after being clean there um we were in MD Anderson actually getting my three year or fouryear bill of health clean slate and my wife got diagnosed with her second breast cancer so you know we we've been in a Folly of left right left punches um so we're still she's clean her her left wi we did full double myectomy for her so we're we're fully out of the cancer world supposedly but um we're both survivors and five years later I think we're just now regrouping from what does that do to you mentally you know you're a cancer survivor yourself and everybody can say you're clean you're happy you're healthy but at the end of the day especially when you're metastasized cancer it's just it it's it's just something that sits in that back of your head never goes away so true now you're sharing with me her story as you're going through it how much did then you guys weigh in on each other I mean because at that point you know she's wanting you to get checks so that you can remain strong probably more in her mind you know Chuck's doing good he can take care of me but then to have that rug kind of pulled out from under her and it's like she's already sick how's she gonna give me support so like kind of how did you guys work through that that because you said it was a extremely emotional and I mean when you're trying to find a a solid sense of direction or a restful place for your mind to find peace and all that how'd you do that yeah well she's a strong lady as well and she um she has a big family of her own she has you know there's five of her siblings and there's uh six at my side and and we have a very supportive family uh I have a sister who worked at a Cancer Center I have another sister who's a 40-year veteran of the Gi space herself Carolyn my wife had um you know a full family support so you're going to you're going to laugh but I'm going to use the word lucky we're actually Lucky in one sense yes we had three bouts of cancer in five years but we were lucky in the sense that she had hers early she was recovering and gaining strength for with the support of her family then I got my cancer and she supported me and my family helped support me and then it was two or three I think it was three years maybe four I think it was three or four years when I was going through a clean slate and she hadd been clean for four to five years is when she got her second cancer so I was back in at least a good mental place and her family was still there supporting her so as much as it sounds horrible to say it that way we were lucky on the timing it was horrible on the timing but they were staggered so we did we did get a little bit of breathing room but it also gave you a different perspective because when she got cancer and I was trying to be supportive for her when I got it she kind of knew what I was going through so I think she had an apathy and an empathy to help me with my challenges and then when she got it again we had both already been through it and ironically we share the same oncologist how many couples can say that wow no that's crazy so so as as as weird as it sounds the going through that together but at different times gave us a perspective I don't think some couples would have yeah now the attitude of gratitude is the best healer no doubt about that now that leads me to my final question how would you like to leave your mark how do you want to be remembered we do a lot work with the de Community we've been doing a lot of work with breaking down communication barriers we did a work with a group up in um Spokane that we literally trained our avatars to speak an unspoken language for for a tribal Community around there so the one thing I've learned when you're engaging people you can't engage if you can't speak a common communication language whether it's spoken or not so my Mark I would love love love to be thought of the person who spent the last part of their career breaking down the barriers of human communication we all know that the world's getting smaller and smaller it's easier to communicate in any language at all and there's still a lot of I don't want to use the word hatred that's a pretty strong word it it does get to that some point but understanding other humans often boils down to being able to come up with a common language and so if our human Ai and our uh sign language capabilities and multilingual capabilities can be used to break down communication barriers and to make everybody a little more able to engage with people outside of their quote quote Circle their comfort Circle I I'd like to be that guy that's remembered of uh as the guy who breaks down the communication barriers a little bit I think you're doing one heck of a job because the lives that you've touched both for recreational and now on on a more serious life or death issue this is just some tremendous work that you're doing and to have all of that in your background moving forward with this personas an AI and having been a cancer patient yourself along with a caregiver yourself those will be invaluable to you into those intangible ingredients in your product because that will make it feel more humanlike and and relatable and and I think myself having been a cancer patient you do you go out on that island and think nobody knows or feels like what I'm going through but that energy is not in a language but to another cancer patient you just kind of know each other in a different sort of way without saying anything but I I believe you're going to touch on that with your skill set and your right and left brain going to work on this this is something to look forward to so um Before I Let You Go I want you to share with me where we can find your work and find more about you on the internet sure I love to engage on LinkedIn and I say it politely but I I tend to people hear me on podcast and I get a lot of sales pitches I I I really don't want more sales pitches I want people who understand what we're trying to do and literally want to collaborate uh not have me sell anything I mean just just collaborate on what their thoughts are how what use cases they think this type of Technology be applicable for what kind of Ventures that they might be engaging on that would be uh synergistic or part of an ecosystem we could develop together those types of things is is is something I believe in LinkedIn I I love LinkedIn for the background as far as just general information on what what specific Solutions are we deploying with this technology IH Health assist is.com is probably the first place to go for the healthcare patient uh uh purpose belief which is a letter IH Health assist assist.com if you want to know more about the background technology for other developers or people who think they could use this technology for their EMB betterment of their product or their um solution then they'll want to go to persona.com P RS n.com outstanding wow thank you for your time I appreciate you coming and sharing your story today absolutely Vincent congrats on your clean slate as well I'll continue to keep rooting for you yeah I I got you in my prayers as well we will be in touch thank you again I'll be around take care thanks for listening to leave your mark today tune in to our next episode of Leave Your Mark with Vince Cortez be blessed you just left your mark thanks for listening listen to more episodes on demand just click leave your mark with being scorz
2024-03-11