Why Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month Matters
In 1843, a boat containing a 14-year-old Japanese fisherman named Manjiro became America’s first Asian immigrant. Manjiro and his crew were caught in a violent storm during a routine fishing trip. The little boat was carried out to sea, eventually washing up on a desert island some 300 miles away from Manjiro’s coastal Japanese village.
After Manjiro and the crew spent nearly five months on the island, an American whaling ship finally arrived at the island and rescued them, which is how the Japanese boy became the first Japanese immigrant in America. Manjiro was eventually adopted by American Captain William Whitfield, and he went on to not only become a samurai, but also a political emissary between his home country and the West.
Since Manjiro first stepped foot on American soil, the journeys of Asians and Pacific Islanders have been synonymous with America’s journey. They have included Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii to work the sugarcane fields, and the Chinese laborers who, in May 1869, were integral in building the First Transcontinental Railroad. They’ve included activists such as Larry Itliong, a Filipino activist who was instrumental in creating the United Farm Workers, as well as an array of artists and writers who have produced some of the greatest works of art and literature, ranging from The Ramayana to The Joy Luck Club, as well as fashion icon Vera Wang and the architect behind the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the National Gallery of Art. They include Wong Kim Ark, a Chinese immigrant whose persistence laid the groundwork for landmark legislation on birthright citizenship. And they include technological pioneers who conceived such revolutionary ideas as Yahoo!, YouTube, and the USB.
In fact, Asian and Pacific Islanders’ cultures are inextricably woven into the fabric of American life. As President Ronald Reagan once said, “In a variety of fields that span the spectrum of human endeavor — including art, dance, agriculture, the sciences, medicine, commerce, government, and philosophy — Asian and Pacific Americans have made outstanding contributions to the cultural and technological development of their adopted Nation.”
Palo Alto Networks also benefits from the tremendous contributions of many Asian and Pacific Americans, whose career journeys are a vital part of the story of our company.
They include Hien La, who escaped Communist Vietnam in a small fishing boat with his siblings and cousins, eventually making his way to America, where his determination to teach himself to fix computers helped him to begin a career in asset management. Today, he is Palo Alto Networks’ IT Asset Management Specialist at headquarters.
They include Bobo Yu, a first-generation Chinese American who took STEM courses in college as a default because she was a stereotypical “good-at-math” Asian student who wasn’t confident to speak in public. As a woman in engineering, Bobo earned an internship in Hawaii with the U.S. Coast Guard and an opportunity to participate in a rotational leadership program while at her first job. After a sabbatical, during which she traveled through five continents, she returned to the U.S. and began working as a yoga teacher, enjoying this chance to practice what she needed and do what she loved. Eventually, she returned to technology and earned a Systems Engineer role with Palo Alto Networks, utilizing her engineering skills as well as the public speaking skills she developed and her talents for putting others at ease.
They include Jerry Poon, who immigrated with his family from Hong Kong to Toronto, Canada, when he was only three. His family began their life in North America with almost no belongings of their own, finding discarded mattresses on which they could sleep. Jerry’s early love of computers led to him earning a degree in IT support services, working his way to Palo Alto Networks’ Sales team. Today, he works as a Sales Engineer for Channel Partners
They also include Yumei Peterson, Go To Market Strategic Program Manager. Born in Korea, Yumei moved with her family to New York City when she was just eight years old. After starting her career with a degree in education and experience operating a daycare center, Yumei took a risk and connected with a representative from HP at a career fair, indicating her interest in working in IT. The risk paid off. She eventually worked her way up through the organization by exceeding sales goals and joined Palo Alto Networks four years ago. Since coming here, she has earned three promotions, built enablement programs for the Inside Sales team, built the Sales Academy program in collaboration with the LEAP team for early-in-career graduates, and is now executing strategic initiatives for our WorldWide Shared Services organization.
These are just a few of the many members of the Asian and Pacific Island American community whose backgrounds, experiences, and contributions we celebrate.
Empowered To Be My Authentic Self
Upon university graduation, I was so scared of entering Corporate America because I was different. I have had internships where I have heard and seen, a Director make fun of the way I talk and even mimic my mannerisms around the office. From that moment on, I was genuinely scared that I wasn’t going to be taken seriously in Corporate America because of my age, the way I sound, or because I identify as LGBTQIA, but this was definitely not the case at Palo Alto Networks. Palo Alto Network’s vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before, starting with its people.
Since the moment I stepped foot into this organization, Palo Alto Networks has never once made me feel different but has actually made me feel empowered to celebrate my difference. This company has given me an opportunity to scale my career as an Executive Recruiting Researcher, partnering with our top-level executives to build their next-gen teams, while allowing me to overcome my preconceived fears of corporate America. But what I am most thankful for is the opportunity to co-lead our amazing LGBTQIA+ Employee Network Group. Through the work of the Employee Network Group, we are able to foster an inclusive and safe working environment for our employees, while also building ties to the community at large.
During covid, we partnered with the Open House Senior Center in San Francisco to create 20 covid-safe care packages, for LGBTQIA+ Seniors consisting of no-sew scarves, hats, and gloves. Our Employee Network Group also hosted a Family Planning Webinar to promote our inclusive adoption, fertility, and surrogacy benefits offered to our employees and families, including those of the same sex. To further promote an inclusive culture and equal rights, PANW has also declared its support for the #EqualityAct, a federal legislation that would provide the basic protections to LGBTQ people as are provided to other protected groups under federal law.
Through our work volunteering with the LGBTQIA community, inclusive company benefits, and declaring our support for the #EqualityAct, I am excited to share that for the second year in a row Palo Alto Networks has achieved 100% rating in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2021 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) and achieved designation as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality. Palo Alto Networks is taking its stand for equality and letting its employees know that they have our back. With our growing accomplishments year over year, I am excited to continue to help make PANW a “safer and more secure” environment for current and future LGBTQIA+ employees.
Go Palo Alto Networks!
Reflections on a Year of Pandemic Mom Life
The COVID-19 crisis has taught us many things we never expected to learn, but perhaps at the top of the list is resilience. We’ve learned to take unexpected challenges — and frequent disasters — in stride and come back swinging. Perhaps no segment of the world’s population has been more resilient than mothers.
Achieving the elusive “work-life balance” has notoriously been a struggle for women, who often are expected to bear the brunt of the child care and domestic duties while maintaining their careers. And just as they were making big strides in the workplace, as research into the last year reveals, the pandemic came along and turned everything upside down.
Here at Palo Alto Networks, we realize that mothers bring a remarkable set of skills that make them invaluable in the workplace. Nothing about the pandemic has been easy, especially for mothers, who almost overnight had to change how and where they work, perhaps even their job titles and descriptions, while also becoming teachers, chefs, nurses, counselors, activity coordinators, and playmates.
Here you’ll meet just a few of the mothers working at Palo Alto Networks’ and discover what helped, what didn’t, and what this year has taught them.
What’s one thing Palo Alto Networks did during this time that made it easier to be a working mom?
Swati Bhosale, Principal UI Engineer
It takes a village to raise kids, and for me, that village is my employer. Palo Alto Networks (PANW) created a strong support system with a parents’ Slack channel and Connect Groups, providing a safe space to talk and help one another navigate this temporary normal. Being a mom of two kids, it was difficult for me to attend every Connect Group meeting, but when I did, just listening to other parents made me feel like I wasn’t alone and helped me become a better person/parent/employee by being more patient and empathetic toward everyone around me. These groups kept me strong and kept me going.
Sofia Dona, Manager, Safety and Security
During the first company all-hands meeting of the pandemic, some executives had their babies or children either join them on their laps or playing in the background. Being a mom of two toddlers, it meant a lot to me to see that they wanted to normalize kids interrupting meetings and becoming our new coworkers. I really felt comforted and supported.
Vickie Gladieux, Senior Cyber Transformation Leader
Palo Alto Networks cares about its employees and helped me truly excel, as a female worker, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, volunteer, coach, mentor, and more. The people here are not just supporting women in the workplace; they are helping women thrive! Equal opportunity, rewarding career roles, a strong learning environment, encouragement and support — it’s all here. The company also has exceptional leadership, challenging work assignments, and flexible schedules, which has further helped me grow my career. As many know, maintaining a manageable work-life balance is not always easy. Palo Alto Networks supports me all the way. I love it here.
Bobo Yu, Systems Engineer 1
Oftentimes, the role of motherhood doesn’t just stop just because the workday begins. As I went into the lockdown, I took on the role of teacher, around-the-clock chef, mediator of sibling rivalry, and house cleaner, all while being a Systems Engineer in a new company, lear
ning awesome new platforms, and configuring VPN for students who need access for remote learning! Life can be overwhelming at times. I was fortunate that everyone, from our CEO (Nikesh) to my director and my manager, echoed their support and understanding of the “new normal.” There is a culture within the team of everyone being so willing to help each other. Nikesh hosts roundtable discussions, just to check in on the employees on the field, and Liane (our CPO) put words into action by creating the FLEXWORK and FLEXLearn programs. I’m so grateful to be part of this family.
What’s one way that being a mom has made you a better employee?
Dilruba Malik, SQA Manager 
Being a mother, I became extremely efficient in multitasking and prioritizing the goals to execute in a timely manner. I developed a sense of maturity in decision-making, approaching human interactions with patience, and gaining empathy while driving team members with business urgency. I became more productive in generating results.
My two daughters are likely to learn and follow my examples. It motivates me to do well in both my career and family life. Motherhood has taught me how to balance, which is an essential component to being a better employee and people manager. My work energizes me to give my best to the family.
Soundarya Sivaramakrishnan, Senior Manager, SW Engineering
I’ve learned planning and executing efficiently! Managing both my children’s interests and activities while working as a software engineer for the most competitive cybersecurity company will not happen if I don’t plan my time efficiently. Working efficiently with the resources I have at hand makes me create wonders at home and at work.
As a mom, I have come to understand that each individual is different and special in their own ways, and there is a way to work with each of them. This makes it easier for me to work amicably with everyone. After all, I want to work in a happy environment!
(Picture from an at-home volunteer project provided by Palo Alto Networks. We made a beehive using bee pollinator kits, it was so much fun!)
Can you share one funny or memorable story that illustrates your life as a pandemic mom?
Wailohia Woolsey, Sr. Mgr, Information Security Governance, Risk & Compliance
During a company all-hands meeting, the CEO was interrupted by his 5-year-old. I have never identified with him more than I did while witnessing that moment. There’s not one meeting that goes by without one of my kids interrupting to ask me a question. My kids have been introduced to most of my teammates, and they don’t hesitate to drop in on my Zooms to share how their distance learning day is going. The kids have also been participating in Ujima (our Black Employee Network) at home volunteer projects and Black to Yoga fitness classes The pandemic has brought work into the home, and we’ve all been doing the best we can to survive. But I can say one thing: The kids are fine!
Sonal Sethia, Manager, Service Delivery
The pandemic has challenged us working mothers to be our efficient best at multitasking, juggling between our jobs and caregiving multiple times through the day, working smarter to make more out of less time.
Trust
me, this is nothing short of an extreme sport. What is most important right now is that we sometimes lower our expectations, always keep our sense of humor, and hang up that SuperMom cape from time to time to recharge!
My 5-year-old daughter, Kiara, loves to be in front of the camera. She is often found pressing herself against the glass on my office door, making funny faces, strutting around wearing her princess crown, and passing her special drawings through the door to “show to my friends from work.”
Early into the pandemic, one bright morning, I was hosting an Executive Business Review for a very important customer. I woke up extra early to get organized, fed the kids their breakfast, gave them 100% charged iPads, and got them settled. Around 90 minutes into the call, with no interruptions, I was super proud of myself for figuring this out. Just then, out of nowhere, the sassy little diva walked in. She gestured her hand to her mouth and rubbed her belly with the other hand, then pretended to faint. As if I wasn’t mortified enough and before I could hit the mute button, she announced, “You know, people, she’s my mommy first! I NEED her to feed me right now.” Thankfully, the customer executive on the call came to my rescue. He burst out laughing and announced “Time for a PB&J break.” This past year, my husband and I have had the pleasure of spending more time with our children — something that we will treasure forever. At times, when things get hard and stressful, the memories we have together as a family remind me of how lucky I am for the flexibility and support provided by Palo Alto Networks.
Thank you to all you mamas out there: We see you and how hard you work. We celebrate you, we honor you, and we truly couldn’t do what we do without you.
Found in Translation: How learning English from TV and movies helped me escape a war-torn Iraq and start a new life in America
By Fadi Fadhil, Cybersecurity Strategist
As a child growing up in Baghdad, Iraq, I developed a passion for computers from watching the American movie WarGames. I thought, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”
My family was not your average Iraqi family. I was born the same year Saddam Hussein took power, in 1979, and I knew nothing but war. But my parents, in their own way, were kind of rebels, starting when my dad married my mother, an exchange student from Jordan. My siblings and I were raised with their “free-thinking” mentality, which didn’t jive well with Saddam and his regime. The Ba’ath Party controlled everything, including what was on TV. In fact, VHS tapes containing western media content like news, talk shows, or even MTV were banned, like most other things. We grew up having our parents tell us, “What we talk about here at home, you are not to say in school,” because people were truly being executed for everything. There was nobody in Iraq who didn’t have a relative who had been executed. I know someone who had been jailed for talking about a dream he had to visit a neighboring country. People were dispensable, let alone their thoughts and dreams.
I learned English from American movies. Some people would put satellites on their rooftops and cover them with bedsheets so they couldn’t be detected by helicopters. I smuggled VHS tapes under my shirt and carried them home on my bike — I could have been executed for smuggling Hot Shot! Part Deux, in which they make fun of Saddam.
When you reached a certain age in Iraq, you were supposed to sign a paper swearing allegiance to Saddam’s regime. If you didn’t, they would execute you, so of course, everyone lied and signed it. Sometimes the papers would be sent around at school, or government officials would come door to door in the neighborhood. When it came time for me to sign, I told the school, “I signed that in my neighborhood,” and when they came to our door at home I said, “I signed that at school.” I would not sell myself to the Ba’ath Party, and nobody knew I was getting away with it, not even my family. I got my college degree in computer engineering, then my master’s degree, and I hadn’t been caught. But on the day of my graduation for my master’s, at the ceremony, someone from the Ba’ath Party was doing spot checks. That’s how I got caught.
They put a bag over my head, to make a spectacle out of me, and I was taken to political prison to be executed. There was no trial in court or anything, I just got a number and waited to die. We called it the meat grinder. My family and I gave up hope for my survival.
But this was 2003, the year U.S. forces invaded Iraq. After two weeks in prison, on the morning of April 9, I awoke to silence. The guards were gone. American troops were in Firdos Square in Baghdad, toppling the statue of Saddam. This was my moment — I got a second shot at life. I escaped prison and began running, saw American tanks on the streets for the first time, found someone to give me a ride, and I made it home. Still today I can’t believe I was this fortunate.
A few weeks later, on a busy street in Baghdad, I came across American soldiers and their commander trying to communicate with the local people; they had no interpreter. Here, at this point, I was angry at the world from the injustice of it all, and I saw a way to thumb my nose at the regime. A U.S. soldier was yelling at a local Imam, or cleric, “Where is your power plant? America is trying to help you!” and the Imam was yelling in Arabic, “Don’t raise your voice, this is still my country!”
Here was my chance. Drawing on the English I knew, I spoke my first English words ever to a foreigner: “Dude, I can help. I can translate.”
The soldier was shocked. “You speak English? Did you just call me dude?”
I quickly explained that I knew some English from movies and TV, and when he saw I could help, he immediately let the other Americans know, and they took me with them.
I was fortunate to develop a good relationship with them. Although most translators working with the Americans covered their faces, to protect their identities, I saw that as having no integrity, so I never covered mine. But others like me were being executed one by one by the insurgency and the foreign Jihadists who came to Iraq seeking a “holy war against the crusaders.” One day I came home from the army base, and my dad showed me a threatening note that had been left at our house. “Don’t worry about the family,” he told me. “Just go. Do what you need to do.”
That was the last time I saw my family for 10 years. I moved to the U.S. Army base, so they wouldn’t pay the price for my “calling,” and they moved to a safe house. Soon after that, our family home was bombed.
In 2005, a production company came to the base to make a documentary about the invasion of Iraq, and when they learned my story and realized they needed a translator to help subtitle their film, they offered me the opportunity to come to New York. So with a special visa, only $700 in my pocket, and instructions from the military guys to “eat at Subway,” I came to New York. (Unfortunately, they never told me it was a sandwich shop, so for three days I starved because I kept going to the subway station looking for food!)
I eventually figured things out, and when my work in New York was through, I went to Fort Hood in Texas for reunification with the military unit I had worked with last. I also got to connect again with an Army colonel with whom I had worked as a personal interpreter back in Baghdad. He was originally from Minnesota, so after my six months of working with the unit were finished and he was preparing to retire, he said to me, “I’m about to start a new life as a civilian. You’re about to start a new life, too. Have you seen snow before?”
I told him I hadn’t, and he said, “Well, there’s a football team there called the Vikings, and they’ll keep letting you down. We survived a roadside bomb. Let’s go survive Minneapolis.” So in 2006, I was given political asylum and followed the retired colonel to Minnesota, and was lucky enough to get my first job at Saint Paul school district working with computers: unboxing and imaging them for schools. In 2013, I officially became an American citizen. It was one of the happiest days of my life, similar to the day I got out of prison.
Before long, someone realized I had a master’s degree in computer systems networking and telecommunications, and I was given a promotion, and then another. I worked my way up to IT Services Manager for Saint Paul Public Schools, then to Director of IT Services Management at Minneapolis Public Schools, then to its Chief Information Officer (CIO). And in 2019, I became the CIO for the City of Minneapolis, where, in 2020, when Covid hit and the death of George Floyd sparked riots, I first worked with Palo Alto Networks to secure the city’s information infrastructure. I was so impressed with the company’s cybersecurity work and its impact that when a position came up at the end of the year, I applied and was eventually hired.
I’ve never had a bad day since I came to America. Every morning, when I wake up, hear people speaking English, and see the snow falling outside, I realize I’m an American, and I’m safe. I feel gratitude every day for this. Although my mother passed away from cancer and I never got to see her again, I’m happy to say that my father, brother, and sisters all managed to escape Iraq, settling in Sweden and England. We are all safe.
I don’t think people truly understand how fortunate we are to be Americans, or what many of us who have immigrated here have experienced. To explain what Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month means to me, I’ll share a story. The other day, I was in an Uber, and the driver was from Mexico. We got to talking about many things, particularly the corruption in the governments of our home countries. We had a conversation about how this doesn’t happen in America, and we started wondering what makes Americans different from people elsewhere in the world.
Then we started thinking about this country’s history, all it has gone through to become what it is today, and eventually we came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as Americans. What makes this country special is that it is made up of people from everywhere — Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, Africa… This month is important because it’s one way in which we can celebrate the contributions of every immigrant in helping to make America what it is today.
Turning the Tide: How I sailed away from Communist Vietnam to begin life as an American.
By Hien La, IT Asset Management Specialist
This May, which is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, marks an important anniversary for me. It was this month in 1975 when my home country of South Vietnam ceased to exist, and Vietnam became a unified country under Communist control. And it was in May of 1982 when I fled the communist regime, becoming a refugee.
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, many people in democratic South Vietnam made plans to escape the grip of communism, which had made our living conditions unbearable, with starvation, loss of livelihood, and even re-education in camps where torture, starvation, and hard labor were common. To escape, I would become one of the thousands of Boat People who escaped by sea to freedom.
Boat People
Boat is similiar to mine which was 7m (21 ft) which carried 45 of us
I was 16 years old when my sister and brother and I, along with several cousins, left Vũng Tàu in South Vietnam in a tiny, rickety, open fishing boat, with 44 other refugees. Our parents stayed behind because if you left your house for longer than a day, the government would confiscate it and the family, if they were not successful, would have nowhere to go. Leaving would give my siblings and me a chance at a better life.
We had to escape at night, illegally, hiding in people’s homes until we reached the beach. Every person on the boat was supposed to bring a 20-liter can of either water or oil, for just over 20 cans each. But as we approached the beach, rumors reached us that the police were chasing us, so we all ran to the boat.
In our rush, many of the escapees dropped their cans. As we began to sail for our destination, Malaysia, we realized that we only had 22 cans total, and 20 of them were oil. We only had two cans of water for 45 people on what was a 10-day journey by sea, and much of it had already been drunk. We began to ration our water by the spoonful; each person would get a teaspoon of water a day, just to keep our mouths wet. At first, we felt strong, but soon the seasickness came over us, and that made the lack of water worse. Our bodies began to deteriorate after several days at sea. At one point, I felt so thirsty that I tried to drink some of my cousin’s urine — it tasted terrible!
Pirates were the biggest concern for those sailing in the Gulf of Thailand, as they had been known to slaughter innocent people, so we took the long way to avoid them, meaning that our journey took 10 days instead of the three we’d expected. And we frequently saw ships that we hoped would save us, so we waved at 65 of them (yes, I counted personally), but only one saw us — it turned out to be from the U.S.S.R., one of communist Vietnam’s allies, so we had to turn away from the ship. But I also saw one of the most beautiful sights of my life during the two-week voyage. The sun was setting and a school of dolphins began racing our boat, jumping out of the water, almost close enough to touch.
Our journey took place right before monsoon season, and we suffered a massive storm that tossed us around so much we had to wrap the boat in a fishing net to keep us from falling out. But we were so happy because it was raining; we used ponchos to collect water, so we had enough to drink until we reached land.
Bataan picture was taken in Bataan Refugee camp
Smoother Sailing
An army ship on the island directed us to the refugee camp in Malaysia, where we would find out where we’d end up next; only a few countries were accepting Vietnamese refugees. Because one of my brothers worked for the U.S. government before the war, we were allowed to go to the United States. In two and a half months, I transferred to a transitional camp for several months to learn some basic English and American culture, and then we were sent to Tucson, Arizona, where there was a family who was willing to take us in. After two months there, we received refugee aid money from the U.S. government, and my brother left Texas with his family and picked us up, and all of us relocated to Silicon Valley, California, where I have lived ever since.
Because we didn’t have much money, we had to move every couple of years, but I was lucky to be able to attend a local city college, where I studied electrical engineering during the day. At night, I would work from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. as a semiconductor tester. I also really loved music and wanted to learn how to make music. Of course, I really wanted a Macintosh computer for this, but I couldn’t afford that, so instead, I bought a cheap computer with one megabyte of memory and 40 megabytes of hard drive. But it broke all the time, so I had to learn how to fix it because I couldn’t afford to pay anyone else to do it.
Because I had taught myself to fix my computer, I applied for a job at a company called Digital Equipment Corporation, or DEC. I told the hiring manager, “Just give me a one-week trial. If I don’t cut it, and if I can’t serve your computers appropriately, you don’t even have to pay me.” So he did. One of the site managers, Joe Dixon, was so happy with my work that years later after he’d left the company, he gave me an opportunity at his new company. After that, every couple of years, I was given opportunities to continue moving forward. I was officially granted U.S. citizenship in 1987, and I eventually grew in my career to become an Asset Management Specialist at Palo Alto Networks, where I have been very happy!
In the last couple of years, I have been frustrated, angry, and sad to see what’s happening at America’s borders, where immigrants have been refused entry, despite the horrific conditions in their homelands, and separated from their families, robbed of their dignity and basic human decency. I think about my difficult journey by boat, surviving dehydration and storms, and I think about the opportunities I’ve received that they are being deprived of. That’s why I’m so happy to see us celebrating Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, because even when immigrants succeed as I have, we can’t forget the people we leave behind. I’m honored to be able to tell my story and look back to see that I have achieved success and am happy. We need to work to make this a country that celebrates its diversity so that others have the same opportunities that I had.
Changing Lanes: How I transitioned unexpectedly from one career path toward another.
By Luiza Klaus, Corporate Systems Engineer II
With my bachelor’s degree in marketing and a couple years’ worth of professional experience in marketing and consumer relations, a position in sales seemed like a great fit. But for me, that all changed after one phone call.
When I joined Palo Alto Networks in 2018, it was as a Business Development Representative (BDR). As part of this job, I needed to cold-call customers to talk about how our solutions could address their needs and bring value to their businesses. It’s a competitive role, which is a situation I thrive in, and I really enjoyed that job. In fact, I got so caught up in getting ahead and doing so well that within just a few months I was ready for the next challenge.
I started thinking about career advancement, and the next logical step from BDR was a Corporate Sales Representative (CSR) position. Typically, if I encountered a potential corporate customer, I would then turn the business over to a CSR. So I decided that if I wanted to move ahead career-wise, it would be a good idea to start listening in on those calls. And one day I did.
On this particular call, the CSR worked with a Systems Engineer (SE) to talk to the customer. The CSR addressed the business aspects of the conversation, whereas the SE dealt in more technical terms. That SE would demonstrate the products and talk specifics about the technology involved in our products and how they could address the customer’s needs. During that call, the SE was explaining the details of a product I’d never heard about before. I grew excited about the product and the interactions they were having — the customer fully relied on the SE to explain its nuances. Unexpectedly, I felt more drawn to what the SE was doing.
I decided I wanted to figure out a way to transition into an SE position. How could I make this happen? I remembered a prior experience with my previous employer, when I’d expressed interest in moving into a different role within the company. I was instantly met with negativity from my manager – I hadn’t been there long enough, I was needed in his department and not elsewhere, I had to earn my stripes before I moved to another department, etc. But I also believed that things happen for a reason, and I knew I had to at least try. Plus, if I was going to invest the time and effort into becoming an engineer, I should start as soon as possible.
Fortunately, my manager at the time had always been helpful and approachable, and the culture has been one that is supportive of internal mobility. So I went for it! I explained to him that I was really interested in a Systems Engineer position, but that I’d earned a degree in marketing and had no real technical background. I asked for his thoughts on what it would take for me to make that transition.
He responded just as I’d hoped. He was not only positive and supportive, but he encouraged me to talk to the SE manager about it.
I reached out to the SE manager to ask what steps I should take to become an SE. He was happy to help by putting together a list of steps. That list, which he emailed me several weeks later, became my unofficial SE training program. I was becoming a guinea pig by trying something that had never been done before at Palo Alto Networks!
I completed all the steps in about seven months because I was so interested in what I was doing. I loved every bit of the process. When I wasn’t working in my BDR role or when I had any downtime at all, I was studying my SE materials or accomplishing a new phase of training. Every week, I met with the SE manager to update him on my progress and address any questions I had about the content.
When I was finished, an SE role became available. I threw my hat in the ring, interviewed, and was thrilled to be offered the job in February 2019! Additionally, because of the success of the training program my former manager had developed for me, I was given the opportunity to share my feedback and work with him to create a standardized two-year Systems Engineering Academy, which recently became an official part of LEAP, the company’s early-in-career training program.
Now that I’m in my current SE role, I know I absolutely made the right decision to pursue this career. This doesn’t even feel like work to me — I’m having so much fun with my customers and my team. This is everything I could have ever wanted, and although I am always looking forward to new challenges and ways to advance my skills, I know that I want to remain in the Systems Engineering realm no matter what. There’s truly nowhere else I could see myself than right here with Palo Alto Networks.
What this experience has shown me is that it’s important to take that first step and ask for what you want. The worst that can happen is that someone tells you no — but at Palo Alto Networks, that’s unlikely to happen. I’ve seen other colleagues of mine make moves to other positions within the company in similar ways. As long as you are honest and have good intentions for your team and the company, the best approach is a direct one. I would also recommend really talking to people about what you’re interested in and asking lots of questions. Do your research to be sure this is really what you want, and to demonstrate that you’re willing to put in the work. If you do that, chances are great that you’ll end up where you’re meant to be.
Embracing Hope
By Jerry Poon, Systems Engineer, Major Accounts
I’m a Systems Engineer for Major Accounts with Palo Alto Networks in Toronto, Canada. I’m happily married to my wife, Lily, and together we parents play with/raise our three little girls, Demi, Chelsea, and Lia. Like a lot of people who work in technology, my love for it started early on. I was very influenced by my older siblings, who did super geeky things like LAN parties, where they’d hook up a bunch of computers and play multiplayer video games inside for hours. In wintertime, all the heat from the computers would fog up the windows.
It sounds like an experience many North Americans had as kids, but there’s a lot about my background that is also pretty different.
I grew up in a really large family. I’m the youngest of four children, and the age gaps between us are significant. My oldest brother is 18 years older than I am. We were born in Hong Kong, but when I was three years old, we emigrated to Toronto, Canada. My parents, who were born in Shanghai, China, at the tail end of World War II, also came from large families — in fact, my dad was one of 12 kids — and they each had siblings who already lived in Canada, which made the decision to come here an easy one and helped smooth the transition.
Still, being immigrants wasn’t easy. I was only three, so I was shielded from a lot of the challenges my parents and siblings faced. To me, life was easy and carefree, but it’s only now, as an adult, that I realize how challenging it was for my parents and older siblings.
In Hong Kong, my parents ran several restaurants and businesses, but after moving to Canada, for the first couple of years, my dad — a former business owner and member of the Asian Olympics council — had to work at a foam factory. Money was very tight for them, especially with such a large family. A lot of things we take for granted were struggles for them … like mattresses. I spoke on the phone with my dad the other day and discovered that when we first moved here, they couldn’t afford mattresses for all of us. For a while, the whole family, including my adult brother, had to sleep together in one bed in my uncle’s basement. At one point my parents actually had to fish mattresses out of dumpsters for us to sleep on. I had never known that before, and I found it heartbreaking.
The cultural differences were a big adjustment as well. When we first came to Canada, there were no Asian grocery stores where my parents could get the staples they needed to make certain dishes. In Hong Kong, we had access to a lot of fish and seafood. My mom would use fish heads and bones to make soup or stir frys, but in Canada, they threw those out before customers could ever get them. I remember waiting with my mom outside for the supermarket to close because her friend worked in the seafood department and would save bones and fish heads in bags to give my mom.
There were other things I noticed at the time but didn’t really think about until I was much older: funny comments from neighbors who weren’t used to seeing immigrants, offensive notes left at our house or on our car, or being told there were places I wasn’t allowed to go alone. At the time, I just thought, “New country, different rules.” But now, looking back, I feel such gratitude for what my parents did for us and how they really provided us with the skills we needed to survive and thrive, while also giving us a positive experience growing up.
Eventually, they were able to buy us each a mattress, and we were able to move out of our uncle’s basement and rent our own home, and then a few years later rented a bigger one, and then a bigger one. They have always been supportive of higher education and helped all of us to go to college. These are things many people take for granted, and I am constantly reminded of all my parents sacrificed for us, for which I am truly grateful.
I’m so fortunate that my parents and several other members of our family are nearby, and we have weathered the pandemic together, which has been a lifeline for us. But even 50 years after immigrating to this country, my parents still are unable to buy their own home. Being immigrants has not been easy, but it was done in order to give my siblings and me better lives and opportunities that we might not have had in Hong Kong.
This is why I think setting aside a month to recognize Asian and Pacific American heritage is important: to highlight the fact that despite our different languages and cultures and traditions, we’re all just people. We work hard to provide for our families, share many of the same values, enjoy many of the same pastimes, and aspire to better futures. I look forward to a day when there is no need for a heritage month, when we won’t have to remind the general population of our challenges and accomplishments, and we can all see each other as equally valuable and worthy of celebration.
Covid and lockdowns have been incredibly difficult on all of us, and people seem to be digging in, focusing too heavily on the negative and pointing fingers at each other these days. But I like to think of this time as a sort of incubation period, allowing us to see things more clearly and from a different perspective. We can’t let the hate consume us — we need to find ways to overcome the hate with health, love, and happiness. As cheesy as it may sound, I think we have a lot of reasons to be grateful right now. We need to focus on that. I know from seeing what some members of my family have experienced, there are real struggles out there. Let’s look for the good and use this time to be better. If we do that, I believe that in the future, the hate will die out.
LEAP of Faith: Palo Alto Networks offers a just-right place for early-in-career talent to get started.
When I was in high school, I actually was aiming to go to medical school and become a pediatrician. The patient-interaction aspect of that career appealed to me, but its challenges didn’t really become clear to me until my mother and I became caretakers for my grandmother, who suffered and eventually died from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). It made me realize the emotional toll a career in medicine might take on me, and I had to face the fact that I just wasn’t cut out for that career path. But I couldn’t have imagined then that I would go on to become a systems engineer with Palo Alto Networks.
Having grown up in a family of tech professionals — both my parents work in IT and my sister studied computer science — it made sense for me to obtain a computer science degree, which I did, at the University of Colorado Boulder. What I would do with that degree, I didn’t yet know. In my mind, this would lead to a career as a web developer, and I wasn’t really interested in writing code all day long.
I was fortunate while in college to be accepted into CU Boulder’s BOLD (Broadening Opportunity through Leadership and Diversity) program. Among other things, BOLD supports students from diverse, underrepresented backgrounds by providing access to scholarships, internships, job opportunities, and career development. This program helped me learn more about the career options a computer science degree might lead me to, and I realized that I didn’t necessarily have to go down a development path.
In my last year of college, I found an internship in Professional Services with Palo Alto Networks. This team works with enterprises to help them deploy, configure, and manage operations of cybersecurity products and services.
Though the role, which was quite advanced for me, didn’t seem like a perfect fit, I learned a tremendous amount and felt very positive about the company. When my internship was over, I did not go on to work full time in that department, but I left having talked to several people about my interest in returning at some point if a position elsewhere within the company opened up. By the time I graduated college, I knew I wanted to work in cybersecurity in some capacity.
Before long, I discovered an opportunity with Palo Alto Networks’ Systems Engineering (SE) Academy, a division of its LEAP Academy program for early-in-career graduates. I reached out to my previous connections at the company to express my interest and find out more, and several months later, after interviewing, I was offered a position in the next SE Academy cohort in Plano, Texas beginning in August 2020!
Laying a Career Foundation
The goal of the SE Academy — and the LEAP Program in general — is to provide a sort of intermediary work experience that sits somewhere between internship and full-fledged professional. The LEAP Program is really tailored to the exact stage of life we’re in. We’re never really trained in what it’s like to start a career — that there are things we’re going to need to know. You just have to learn by doing. In a lot of ways, the SE Academy has been a godsend to me, because in this role, I get to work full time as an Associate Systems Engineer while also being granted the time and space to learn under the direction of seasoned professionals. We’re not expected to know everything, but we can build on our knowledge and gradually take on more responsibility.
LEAP participants are offered workshops on things like what a 401K is or how stock plans work … as well as some life skills that we might otherwise be too shy to ask about. We’re invited to speaker series, where we learn from others’ experiences and are offered their contact information, so we can follow up with questions and further development. My involvement in LEAP has led me to opportunities I didn’t even know existed.
Even as an intern, I was impressed by the Palo Alto Networks team — its collaborative nature and demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion. It’s evident throughout the company, and I’m part of many Employee Network Groups (ENGs) dedicated to groups such as women, early-in-career professionals, those of Asian descent, and many more. The steps made toward inclusion and diversity here I haven’t seen before in any other place I’ve worked.
Before the SE Academy, I really didn’t know what a Systems Engineer did, so joining was a “leap” of faith. I discovered that SEs are involved in the presales process; we work with sales representatives to talk to prospective customers, and the SE speaks from the engineering side, demonstrating the product and explaining some of the technical aspects about how it works. It’s actually perfect for me: I’m dealing with the technical details that I enjoy, but I’m interacting with customers and others across the company, which is also something I really like. This is a role I never knew existed in college, but it’s really the sweet spot I was looking for, and I hope that after my two years with the SE Academy are completed, I’ll have the chance to stay long-term and grow my career with Palo Alto Networks.
The Right Fit
In 2017, as I was heading into the last year of my bachelor’s program in computer systems engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I was given the opportunity to do a three-month summer internship with Palo Alto Networks. In my program, the curriculum actually focused on both hardware and software, providing graduates with a more well-rounded education. But my interest had mostly been in software. However, when Palo Alto Networks approached me about an internship with the Hardware Engineering team, I decided to take it. I thought this would be a great experience that would expand on my academic training. Plus, I knew this was a great company to work for and this would help me get my foot in the door.
In this role, I worked hands-on with circuit boards — testing, analyzing, and reporting signal integrity issues. It was a good experience with an amazing team, but about halfway through the internship, I realized hardware wasn’t really for me. I spoke to my managers about it and explained that I was feeling more drawn to software engineering. It couldn’t have been a better experience. They not only understood, but they worked quickly to transition the remainder of my internship from hardware testing to automating a lot of their testing platform. So I was able to write up a lot of the infrastructure for testing the circuit boards, which gave me a chance to work more with software. We began having discussions about what a full-time role might look like for me — the Hardware Engineering team seemed excited to keep me at the company, but I was also very clear that I wasn’t looking for a full-time hardware role.
The internship went so well that as I was approaching the end, my manager connected me to the Director of the VM Series team and put in a good word for me. I was invited to interview for a software engineering position, and soon after my senior year began, I was offered a position!
Perhaps it’s unusual at some companies to speak that openly about a desire to switch roles or departments, but from what I’ve heard from others and experienced myself at Palo Alto Networks, its leaders are really open to having those conversations and helping you find the right fit. It may not happen in an instant, but if you approach your manager and are open and honest about your intentions, they seem very open and willing to help make it happen.
I also believe it’s important to branch outside your team and discover what’s happening elsewhere in the company. For me, as a recent intern in the first “real” job of my career,I found the Early in Career employee network group hugely helpful because it allowed me to meet new graduates as well as longtime employees who were willing to share their insights and experiences with me. This helped me to fully understand what work the company was doing and what areas most appealed to me.
I think a lot of people come into their jobs not fully understanding what those jobs entail or where they’d like to end up. But once you have that understanding, communicate that with your manager — it benefits them and the company as a whole to have people using their strengths in areas that they love. The amount and quality of work people do correlates to the amount of passion they have for it, so there’s a benefit to encouraging people to follow their interests.
My current manager and my director are both incredible people who genuinely look out for their employees and want what’s best for us, so I’d feel very comfortable talking to them about anything — including any possible changes I might want to make in the future. I think every employee has the right to explore different career opportunities, and speaking from my experience, Palo Alto Networks does an incredible job of putting people in the right positions to succeed.
Coming to America: My experience as a Vietnamese American and former refugee
I joined Palo Alto Networks two months ago to manage a small team of people who work in Global Enablement. In my role, I develop technical training programs and materials for employees, partners, and customers. It’s really my dream job, because in addition to working with technology, I’ve always loved mentoring and teaching others. In fact, early in my career, I worked for about four years as a fifth-grade teacher.
I’ve always loved teaching because I enjoy helping set others up for success. As a continuous learner myself, I love acquiring knowledge and get excited when I learn something new. When I was first starting my career, I had a desire to share my own experiences as an Asian American with a new generation of young people who may have been struggling — out of an inability to speak English or from frequent discrimination — in American schools, to help them succeed.
You see, I was once just like them. I came to America as a Vietnamese refugee when I was just three years old.
I was born in 1972 to Vietnamese parents. My mom, one of 12 kids, lived with her family in Nha Trang, a small beach town in South Vietnam. During the Vietnam War (1955-1975), her father would frequently rent out extra rooms in their house to soldiers. My dad, a helicopter pilot with the South Vietnam Air Force, which fought alongside the Americans, was stationed at the Nha Trang air base and needed a temporary place to stay — he found a room at my mother’s house. The two met and fell in love, eventually getting married and having three children, myself and my two younger sisters.
In April 1975, when I was three years old, the war ended and my father faced a predicament: He could either become a prisoner of war, or he and his family could flee the country and live as refugees. He chose the latter. He took a military helicopter, flew it to his in-laws’ house, lowered a ladder to the ground from just above the house, and watched as his wife (with two toddlers, an infant, and one green suitcase) climbed up into the chopper. We managed to escape Vietnam and made it to a small island off the coast of Thailand that was home to a war refugee camp. That was my first memory.
My second memory is of Coca-Cola. We had a long walk on a dirt road to the airport where my family would fly on a 747 airliner to America. On the long walk from the camp to the airport, I told my mother I was thirsty. An American soldier who heard me and understood Vietnamesereached into a parachuted crate full of glass bottles of Coca-Cola, opened a bottle for me, and handed it to me. Even at age three, being handed my own bottle of this iconic American drink — which I promptly dropped, shattering it all over the ground — was a moment I’ve never forgotten.
My third memory was getting on the plane that would take us from that small island in Thailand to Fort Jaffe in Arkansas. Here I had my very first airplane meal, heard my father exhale a giant sigh of relief, and fell asleep under a gray wool army blanket.
In Arkansas, my dad and our family were granted political asylum, and we ended up being sponsored by a Christian family out of Seattle, where we lived for several months (and saw our first snowfall!) before eventually settling for good in San Jose, California.
We eventually acclimated to the States, learning English from school and pop culture — especially song lyrics! — as well as by volunteering in the community. At the time, the attitude was that we should abandon our language and culture and assimilate into American life, but I’m glad that we maintained our use and understanding of Vietnamese language, which is an important part of who we are.
Though we were lucky to make it to America, it certainly wasn’t easy. Vietnam was the first war the United States had lost, and even though my family was from South Vietnam — America’s ally — we, like many immigrants, faced continued discrimination.
Asian Americans, in my experience, have been expected to be the model minority — passive, unlikely to cause trouble. We’re seen as diligent, docile workers, doing what we’re told without question. But there is a glass ceiling for us. I know I’m fortunate to have had the career opportunities I’ve had and to be in my current role. Asian and Pacific Americans don’t often have access to the leadership or management opportunities that European Americans do. You don’t see Asians getting many lead roles in movies — they’re often portrayed as stereotypes.
This is why I’m happy that May is dedicated to celebrating Asian and Pacific American heritage. I think some Americans prefer Asians to remain invisible. In light of recent events that again raise the spectre of hate and discrimination against Asians in America, I appreciate that people like me are being highlighted in history books or on the news for good things, in ways that make Asians feel like Americans, rather than forever being immigrants. I’ve been here since 1975, and yet I’m still frequently treated as not really American. A lot of that has to do with education and asking tough questions. So dedicating this month to celebrating our successes, and to recognizing that Asians can be trailblazers and an important part of what makes America special, is really important.