IGHS50 - InfoCon2024 VRC Party Preview with Danny Palo

Jim Merrifield (00:00.962)
Well, hello and welcome to the InfoGov hot seat. I'm your host Jim Merrifield and with me today is Danny Palo at VRC. Welcome, Danny.

Danny Palo (00:09.069)
Well, thank you. Appreciate the invite.

Jim Merrifield (00:11.554)
Yeah, it's great to see you here on the hot seat. See you virtually, get to know you a little better. So why don't we get started? Can you tell us a brief introduction of yourself, your current role, and one fun fact about yourself?

Danny Palo (00:25.119)
Okay, so I'm Danny Palo I'm the Chief Executive Officer of VRC Companies, which includes a variety of different IG products and services. I have been, and it's kind of my fun fact, all rolled into one. I have only had two jobs in my entire life. I flipped hamburgers in high school. I still run a mean grill.

and can still dress a Wendy's hamburger in the order of the necessary condiments and as required and have been with all of the different variations of VRC including when there were three of us back in the 80s to today where there are 2,000 of us and so really really appreciate the invite and I guess that

Fun fact is this is all I've really done my entire life is my, I don't know if that's a fun fact or not, but that's a fact.

Jim Merrifield (01:24.664)
Yeah, records management, VRC through and through, I'm sure you mentioned flipping burgers. I'm sure you can run a mean tailgate party.

Danny Palo (01:33.177)
I can't, too lazy to do it, but yes, I could run a guy. I enjoy being at the tailgate. I don't know if I enjoy running them anymore. I think you hit a certain age point where you want to have the burger, you don't want to make the burger, but absolutely.

Jim Merrifield (01:48.33)
Okay, true story, but you look like a fun time. So speaking of parties, see that VRC is hosting the welcome party again on Monday night at Infocon 2024 in Houston. Can you tell us a little more about that event?

Danny Palo (02:03.349)
Absolutely. So this year is at the Rustic, which as I understand it is right next to the convention center and the primary Hilton America's hotel. I haven't seen it personally, but based on the pictures and all that, it looks like it'll be a ton of fun. We had a blast with everybody in Detroit on the showboat last year. And I think the wild horse in Nashville two years ago, I'm not sure we'll ever top that night. It was just...

Just a ton of fun, perfect venue and we're really happy to do it. I had mentioned to you before we started recording that I've been a member of ARMA personally since the fall of 1987. VRC as it's known today didn't actually get started until the spring of 88. And so ARMA helped sort of lay the foundation for how some of the things we operate and do and the customer first approach.

that we use at VRC to this day. And I can remember from my first 20 plus years in ARMA how much fun you would have at the Canadian party or whichever other party might be going on. And that kind of went away for a little while at the time when the conference was shrinking a little bit and such. And now that the conference is starting to grow again, I'm really happy that VRC is in a position to be able to go back to providing that.

night of just, know, hey, I'm on the road, I'm away from my family, I've been sitting in class all day, can I please just go have some fun? so we're really happy to get to offer that.

Jim Merrifield (03:43.618)
Yeah, we're happy as well. We thank you for all your support and over the years and obviously you've been a long time ARMA member as well, not just a business partner. So we thank you for that. Having a little fun on Monday night. I think the theme is like a Western theme.

Danny Palo (04:00.715)
It is, it's a roundup at the rustic. Jennifer with Arma and Chris, my chief development officer, they did all the brainstorming to come up with the planning. We were trying not to make this wild horse 2.0, given that that was only a couple of years ago, but you're in Houston, you're in Texas, amazing city. I'm a huge fan of all things Texas, and so roundup at the rustic just

works well there's no costume contest like we did last year but hoping everybody will bring their jeans and their boots and their hats and have a good time and Chris always has some sort of surprise planned and I know we have live music again and so it'll just be a relaxed fun and the best part about it is like last year in Detroit everybody can walk to it so there's no need for buses and

All of that, it's adjacent to where we're at, so it'll be super easy to get to.

Jim Merrifield (05:01.454)
Yeah, that's great. I mean, who doesn't like to wear jeans, boots, hats?

Danny Palo (05:06.775)
It's a tough thing when you're asking people to just relax, put on your comfortable clothes and come over and have a drink and have a snack and hang out with what are hopefully old friends and make some new friends. so that's the whole point of the whole thing is that the number one benefit of ARMA to me aside from the education and that has always been the networking component of it. have literally leaned on that my entire career.

And I don't hesitate now to reach out to somebody in ARMA if I need something or an introduction or hey, where do I find this or I need a consultant or how does this company do that? The networking and the relationships are in my opinion what makes the ARMA community so wonderful. There's no other association in my career I have been involved in as consistently for 40 years as ARMA because it delivers. So again, in turn, we're

trying to get back a little bit to the association because it's meant so much to us.

Jim Merrifield (06:11.416)
Yeah, I agree. Networking, you kind of get back what you put in and even some more.

Danny Palo (06:16.131)
That's exactly right. If you put a little effort in and foster those relationships, most of the people in the IG space, sounds a little hokey, but I'll do it anyway, they're just nice people. They're just nice folks from all cuts and crosses of life and all over the country and in many cases all over the world. It's great to get to visit them and see them. I've got 30 plus year friends and relationships developed.

So I look forward to it every year.

Jim Merrifield (06:49.592)
Yeah, likewise. I can tell you I'll be wearing my jeans and boots and I'll bring a hat, but I can't promise that I won't be wearing this jersey because the Jets are playing Buffalo on Monday night. So, you know, I'm sure there's going to be TV or two at the rustic, right?

Danny Palo (06:59.737)
There will be, I don't know that Chris will let you take any VRC branded stuff off the TVs, but I'm sure we can sneak one NFL TV or the baseball playoffs are going on as well. If the Royals can manage to make it, I will for sure want a TV with that game on if they get that far.

Jim Merrifield (07:25.56)
Yeah, for sure. I got the VRC colors kind of right with the jet jersey.

Danny Palo (07:28.951)
You do, you've got that's pretty close to the right green and I think our group in fact will be wearing black shirts with red, not red, with green VRC logos on it I think is the plan for Monday night. They generally tell me about two days ahead of time, don't screw this up, wear this, do this and for the love of Lord if you say anything make it intelligible. you know, I do as I'm told.

Jim Merrifield (07:54.678)
That's great. Looking forward to the event.

Danny Palo (07:57.133)
Yeah, we are too and really appreciate you going to the trouble to do a podcast and allow VRC the opportunity just to say hello in a more casual environment and I think that's a really cool thing.

Jim Merrifield (08:12.364)
Yeah, of course, happy to do it. I know too, speaking, we covered the party, but you're also a leading solution provider in the IG space. What are you especially looking forward to at Infocon 2024?

Danny Palo (08:26.297)
So our experience is, know, VRC, have 30,000 plus customers ranging from very small SMB clients all the way up to international, what we internally would call enterprise clients. And all of them, or small, for the most part share the same characteristic. Nobody is entirely physical anymore in their records and IG approach. Nobody is 100 % digital.

at this point or if anybody's in all of one bucket, it's on a small scale. The vast majority, 90 plus percent of the organizations out there are using some sort of a hybrid combination of physical and digital and everybody, know, digital is such a large, it's like a Baskin Robbins of words and terms in the IG space. But, you know, VRC has evolved to where over a third of our business is

workflow and SAS and digital hosting. so, know, Infocon is one of only really a couple of opportunities each year to learn new things, to kind of pitch out there that, we're not just a record storage company anymore. We're a full blown, you know, VRC is one of the 10 largest ECM companies in the United States now and the vast majority of people, I didn't know that. And so,

Infocon is a wonderful opportunity. All the party and the branding and all of that aside, we're at the booth on the expo floor, hopefully wanting to demonstrate that, yes, we have a lot of fun, you want to see, but we got to pay the bills too. so we're pitching, if you will, a full hybrid suite of IG solutions, whatever may need to be done. We're also the third largest shredding services provider in the United States. So whether you're

storing it, managing it, retrieving it, ultimately destroying it. know, VRC literally does it all.

Jim Merrifield (10:31.278)
I didn't know that. I didn't know the third or the tenth largest, largest ECM company. That's...

Danny Palo (10:36.087)
Yeah, BRC is the third largest, well, depends on which measuring stick you use, either the second or the third largest record storage company in the United States, the third largest shredding company in United States, the fifth largest release of information company in the United States. The ECM space is a monster. It's scattered all over the place, but somewhere in the top 10 of the ECM space. we are literally, you've got me going, I got my marketing half out now.

We are the only IG company that can say that, even my big blue friend. We are the only IG company that can say we're in the top five of all of those spaces.

Jim Merrifield (11:06.712)
I it.

Jim Merrifield (11:17.614)
I love it. I love getting you going. I can see that you're excited about your products and you live and breathe it. don't only sell the products, but you actually believe in the products and you believe in the people and that way you're putting out to the market. So that's something that's very special.

Danny Palo (11:32.205)
I appreciate that, you can't, you can't, my opinion, I've been very fortunate because I've always told people that I know my company is offering something that helps other companies and the people that work at other companies, they can choose not to use VRC, that's fine, but I'm not trying to pitch something to somebody that they don't really need and I'm just trying to get my share of the wallet. We're pitching something that is a useful and necessary service and that's more true today than it was when I started my career.

back in the day it was, am I going to do with all this paper? Now it's, how do I manage this information? That's a similar but very different paradigm. And so yeah, I am passionate about it and we really enjoy what we do. And it's a really, it's a niche industry, but it's a really, really cool industry. as I said earlier, it's the only thing I've ever done. I don't know anything else. I don't know anything else anyway. I'm too old to go back and go back to work in the grills. So yeah.

We love what we're doing here.

Jim Merrifield (12:34.126)
Excellent, excellent. I feel like you and I could talk for hours about this topic. I know we've talked about several topics related to Infocon 2024. Again, looking forward to seeing you down in Houston in literally a few days. Is there anything else that you would like to share with the audience, Danny, before we let you go?

Danny Palo (12:57.937)
no, I don't. Other than I hope everybody that's seeing this that, that, that makes it to Houston, please come. there, there is a no strings attached. This is open to anybody and everybody, Monday night at the rustic and the, and the roundup will be, will be a blast. And, if you're not coming to Houston this year and watching this, please come to, to Phoenix next year. I will not let the secret or the cat out of the bag because.

Chris would never forgive me, but we have wanted to do a particular themed party for the last 10 plus years and finally in Phoenix, we are going to have the setup to be able to do, we might be able to top the wild horse next year. So we are super excited about Phoenix. So if you're watching this and you can't make it to Houston, by all means, please come to Phoenix. It'll be a terrific show and all the things.

Jim and I already talked about, but it'll be a heck of a welcome party as well in Phoenix. It is a big deal. That's genuine excitement. have been, as soon as Jennifer Millett told us, she knew kind of what we've always wanted to do, and she said, I think we finally have it. And so we're very excited to dig in and do it next year. It'll be a blast.

Jim Merrifield (14:02.206)
That's a teaser and a half. We got wait the whole year

Jim Merrifield (14:21.464)
That's awesome. Can't wait for the party this year, next year in Phoenix and of course meeting you and the team in person down in Houston. Danny, thanks so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule to.

Danny Palo (14:34.233)
My pleasure and thank you for having VRC and allowing me to speak a few minutes. I appreciate you wearing VRC colors on Monday. That's great.

Jim Merrifield (14:44.642)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And of course to our audience, if you'd like to be a guest on the InfoGov Hot Seat like Danny here, all you have to do is submit your information through our website, infogovhotseat.com. And thank you so much and enjoy the rest of your day.

Danny Palo (14:59.319)
Okay, thank you, you too. See you Monday.