Our Mission

Trident Innovation was born out of the growing need for organizations to better make use of technological resources available to them so that they can focus on their core mission instead of dealing with frustrations from tangential business responsibilities. Our approach to developing solutions for our clients encompasses certain principals. These tenets we strive to achieve include:

Project ownership & Accountability

Any major project (and, therefore, investment) should be able to have realtime status available for project sponsors and/or project managers to track its progress. Additionally, status should be provided in such a manner as to provides insight into areas where a impasse may be emerging so that it can be recognized and quickly dealt with by the appropriate team before it jeopardizes a deadline.

While experienced with the traditional waterfall model for approaching projects, we are major proponents of the Agile Scrum Methodology. In our experience, Agile permits greater transparency with the evolution of various parts of a project by allowing business analysts and project managers to quickly recognize roadblocks that may stymie progress when they arise through the use of burndown charts. Additionally, Agile affords development teams the ability to quickly pivot so as to not to bring progress to a complete halt.  

DESIGNING SOLUTIONS AROUND THE END USER (AND NOT END USERS AROUND SOLUTIONS)

It has been said that the best user interfaces are those that get out of the way and allows end users to get right to work. One should not have to feel like they are a part-time computer engineer to do their work. Instead, a well designed solution should feel intuitive to use.

At Trident Innovation, we feel good user experience is critical to the success of our clients and approach all projects from this perspective.  By designing solutions that way, it lowers the training time for employees, reduces the possibility of errors, and increases overall efficiency. 

DATA INTEGRITY, EXTENSIBILTY & INTEROPERABILITY

The data obtained by today's organizations is both a responsibility and an asset. The growth of digital data and its use has spurred regulatory protections requiring businesses to perform strict privacy, security and archiving practices or risk heavy fines and potential litigation. Concurrently, data management implemented correctly can dramatically increase organization efficiency as well as open a wealth of knowledge through data analysis. New information gleaned from data analysis can provide insight that allows better service to clients.

At Trident Innovation, we believe our clients' data should be treated with the utmost sanctity. To that end, we tend to eschew software systems that lock one's data into a black box that, while the data may be accessible, does not permit data portability. Whether your organization is looking for a SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS solution, we promote solutions that allow extensibility (allowing a solution to be able to extend its feature set and thus achieve greater efficiency) and interoperability (which provides for competing solutions to be able to share data with one another to, again, achieve greater efficiency).

Principal & Founder

Juan Torres

Juan’s love of computers and what they can help people achieve traces back to playing with the Apple ][e at school where he would write games using BASIC before moving on to small applications using COBOL. In high school, he discovered UNIX and how it could help him in science courses. By college, he was often the science lab Mister Fixit keeping the science labs Macintosh and Window computers humming along. His study of biological and environmental systems, including work on an animal behavior and population dynamics study in tandem with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, planted the seed for his appreciation of efficiencies in systems.

After college, Juan found himself in the U.S. capital for a few years helping design and implement computer systems for both government offices and campaigns to operate reliably. It was here that he first began professionally working on designing both analog and digital workflows to help achieve optimal efficiency. By diving into HTML, SQL and Microsoft Visual Basic, he was able create solutions to help offices obtain quality achievement targets and improve public services. It was also here that he learned the importance of best practices for system deployment, user interface (UI), security, vendor management, and training support. Subsequent to working in government, Juan has helped busy organizations, some catering to Fortune Global 100 companies, convert to new computer systems to meet regulatory standards, improve customer service, increase efficiency, and stay competitive.

Juan holds a Bachelors of Arts in Biology from the University of St. Thomas where he graduated with honors in Biology as well as his minor of Philosophy (with focus on biomedical ethics and science). During college, he also was nominated into the Omicon Delta Kappa (ODK) Society for Leadership. He holds membership to the International Institute for Business Analysis (IIBA), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the Project Management Institute (PMI), and the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP).

To bolster his knowledge of healthcare services and delivery, Juan has spent time getting exposure to numerous medical clinical settings during off hours in various technician roles and continues to volunteer as a healthcare technician whenever possible in underserved communities. Among Juan's latest interests involves emerging health wearable technologies, so he is currently learning Swift while developing a proof of concept application for improving personal health habits. In his free time, if not keeping up on the newest breakthroughs and trends in technology for improving both workplace efficiency and quality of life, Juan enjoys scuba diving, sailing, and any travel that permits him to soak up the local culture.

Principal & Founder

Robert Jordan

Robert fell in love with technology while playing with his Texas Instruments TI 85. He wrote his first programs and marveled at how he could save them to a cassette tape. He also took apart his first IBM to figure out how it works (and much to the chagrin of his parents). While attending the University Illinois Chicago, Robert helped the Chemistry Department with their first website and first saw a potential career within technology.

Following university, Robert attained a MCSE and worked as a Network Admin briefly before settling on a sales career in technology. Robert started in sales providing technology solutions with a large, value-added reseller followed by a major computer hardware manufacturer where he excelled at building relationships with enterprise level clients within the manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and financial industries. As his career progressed, Robert recognized the need to move beyond just hardware sales and evolved into providing support, software integration, and MSP solutions to clients. It was during this time that he also learned the value of properly staffing these engagements.

Robert then shifted his career to recruiting in-demand, IT professionals for project-based and permanent engagements. Much of his success during this period was due to his thorough understanding of technology, relentless curiosity to learn new technologies, and relationship-building skills honed as a sales person. Those same skills would come in handy as Robert moved into providing project-based solutions to enterprise level clients in a variety of industries as well as building or managing the solution teams. In time, Robert pivoted to specializing in finding and supplying IT professionals within ERP, HR, CRM and collaboration platforms.

Most recently, Robert was the main Technology and Engineering Recruiter for a global software company based in the Chicagoland area. During his tenure there, he was responsible for staffing two large engineering solutions resulting in over 120 hires composed of engineering, project management, product owner and support roles. As the main recruiter, Robert specialized in identifying and hiring Salesforce professionals in a contract or permanent capacity for large CRM upgrades and integrations. It was during these CRM projects that Robert’s curiosity became piqued, and he decided to specialize in Salesforce implementations and integrations; to that end, Robert took it upon himself to train and attain certifications as a Salesforce Administrator, a Salesforce Certified Einstein Analytics and Discovery Consultant, and as a Salesforce Certified Pardot Consultant. Building on his ability to build relationships, consultative discovery techniques, understanding of business processes, and curiosity, Robert strives to provide the best solutions to his clients as they implement Salesforce and further integrate its robust solutions into their organization.