News
apprenticeship in the age of tech
Area 97
09/28/19
The Tech industry always seems slightly removed from the rest of the community. It doesn’t matter how prevalent smartphones an smartwatches and talking televisions remotes become — the human beings behind the technology rarely get a face. Instead, they’re seen as stereotypes: faces aglow in blue screen light, t-shirts with indecipherable coding jokes, a rolling desk chair for legs, working endlessly to troubleshoot problems the general public doesn’t understand. In Bend, the stereotype is falling further and further from the truth. With more than 200 tech companies in Central Oregon employing more than 2,000 people, Bend is an integral player in the tech industry.
Navigating the cloud
Techlandia
09/01/19
For Oregon tech firms that were early to embrace the cloud’s potential, the reward has been rapid growth. companies like Five Talent Software are a perfect example. Foudned in 2004, the Bend software consultancy’s employee count has roughly tripled in the last five years, as its clients’ needs have evolved from simple app development to management of complex, data-rich websites, apps and connected devices. Five Talent has leveraged existing cloud technologies, specifically embracing AWS, to become a software solutions provider for a growing number of small and enterprise clients. The company is a certified consulting partner for AWS.
Five Talent to Host Popular AWS GameDay
Event is 1 of only 5 promoted in the US this year
09/27/2019
This October, custom software development firm Five Talent will host an AWS GameDay in Bend, one of only five promoted in the US this year. The workshop will also be a program highlight at the upcoming AWS re:Invent 2019 Conference in Las Vegas this December.
Well-Rounded Individuals with a Strong Work Ethic
WTIA Interview – An interview with Ryan Comingdeer of Five Talent, Apprenti Hiring Partner
09/06/2019
I spoke with Ryan Comingdeer, Chief Technology Officer at Five Talent, about why his company became an Apprenti hiring partner and what makes the apprentices some of the strongest people on his team.
Decoding stumptown – Keeping you up to date on all things tech in PDX
Podcast Featuring Five Talent CTO, Ryan Comingdeer
08/30/2019
Five Talent CTO, Ryan Comingdeer, shared about his experience hiring in Tech in the Pacific Northwest. Five Talent is a software consulting firm that has offices located in Seattle, WA, Bend and Portland, OR. Ryan Leads a team of approximately 50 people across these 3 different locations. Five Talent is a full service consulting business that is language agnostic but leans heavily into cloud services using AWS.
Inspiring the Next Generation of Young Entrepreneurs
Press Release
06/23/2019
Five Talent CEO Preston Callicott spoke to a packed audience of young entrepreneurs at OSU Cascades this past weekend at Young Entrepreneurs Business Week (YEBW). Callicott shared “Life Lessons of a Serial Entrepreneur,” weaving his personal journey with advice for aspiring young business leaders.
Tech Trends — Facial Recognition
Cascade Business News
06/18/2019
Remember HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey” which debuted in 1968? HAL-9000 (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) could recognize who you are, what you’re saying and how you felt about it using facial, voice and sentiment/emotion recognition. HAL could also read lips.
Tech Trends — 5G (Fifth Generation) Cellular Technology
Cascade Business News
05/16/2019
Let’s get nostalgic: Henry Ford built the first mass-produced, affordable autos in the world, the 22 horsepower Ford Model T, with a top speed of 45 miles per hour, however, there were few paved roads and most roads were one shared lane, which dramatically limited their speed and how many cars could travel in the same direction at the same time. How does this relate to cellular networks and 5G?
Completing Bend’s Innovation DNA
Cascade Business News
04/24/2019
High Tech is having a major impact on both jobs and wages in Bend. We’re rebuilding the middle-class which was decimated by the mill closings and the loss of forestry jobs, with higher wages and low-impact jobs. Most of the tech jobs require little to no costly infrastructure, just office space, beer, Humm Kombucha and laptops.
Five Talent Software Among Four Bend Companies Onboarding Apprentices
Cascade Business News
03/19/2019
Five Talent, a software and infrastructure solutions company, doubled its recent cohort to four apprentices, and other Bend-based organizations including Navis, BMS Technologies and Smartz have signed on to partake in the recent cohort.
VERDANT USES WELL-ARCHITECTED REVIEW TO UNLOCK POTENTIAL OF THE AWS CLOUD
Press Release
02/12/2019
For client Verdant Web Technologies, Five Talent’s Well-Architected review catalyzed new product innovation, pipeline expansion, and the deployment of a high-performing, reliable framework capable of scaling to meet its growing market demand.
The Amazing, Unimaginable Consequences of Exponential Technologies
Cascade Business News
02/08/2019
While the world grapples with huge challenges and now commonplace political chaos and intrigue, there are massive advances occurring which will transform our world. This isn’t to minimize the impact of climate change, over-population, damage to our ecosystem, war tensions and an alarming lack of civility, but there are also major positive trends which gives us hope and a fighting chance.Peter Diamandis, a futurist many in tech follow, refers to these tech trends as “Exponential Technologies.”
AWS Awards DevOps Competency to Advanced Consulting Partner Five Talent Software
Press Release
01/23/2019
Five Talent has achieved its DevOps Competency status with Amazon Web Services (AWS) after demonstrating technical expertise and customer success using AWS DevOps tools, techniques and technologies. This is the second competency the firm has secured in addition to Mobile, and among several others currently in the validation process.
Introducing the AWS Well-Architected Partner Program
AWS Partner Network, AWS Re:Invent
11/27/2018
The AWS Well-Architected Framework helps cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for their applications. It provides a consistent approach for Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers and AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners to evaluate architectures and implement designs that will scale over time.
AWS Awards DevOps Competency to Advanced Consulting Partner Five Talent Software
11/20/2018
Five Talent has achieved its DevOps Competency status with Amazon Web Services (AWS) after demonstrating technical expertise and customer success using AWS DevOps tools, techniques and technologies. This is the second competency the firm has secured in addition to Mobile, and among several others currently in the validation process.
Say Hello to 25 New AWS Competency Partners Added in October
AWS Partner Network
11/15/2018
The AWS Competency Program welcomed 25 new AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners in October—spanning workload, solution, and industry designations. Please join us in welcoming our newest AWS Competency Partners!
How the AWS Well-Architected Framework Drives Growth for Customers and APN Partners
AWS Partner Network
9/19/2018
As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) authorized reviewer, Five Talent is redesigning its business from traditional software development to solutions architecture based on the 5 Pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
2018 SAGE Business Award winners announced
KTVZ
9/08/2018
It was a spectacular Friday night at the Riverhouse Convention Center with the who’s who of Bend’s business community gathering for the 2018 SAGE Business Awards, presented by the Bend Chamber and U.S. Bank. Join the Bend Chamber in congratulating the 2018 SAGE Award recipients!
- Large Business of the Year – Five Talent
- Small Business of the Year – Powers of Automation
- Nonprofit of the Year – Guardian Group
- Citizen of the Year – Amy Tykeson
- People’s Choice – Guardian Group.
GROWING TALENT – Apprenticeships: APPRENTI
Techlandia
02/01/2018
Bend based software architecture firm Five Talent is growing faster than it can recruit talent. With a deepening partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and an expanding pipeline of new clients, the 30 person consultancy is on pace to double in size by the end of 2018. The challenge facing CTO Ryan Comingdeer is finding candidate in a local job market with over 500 tech openings.
Coding education in Bend gains momentum
Bend Bulletin
9/11/2016
Ryan Comingdeer, chief technology officer at the Bend software development firm FiveTalent, took his first computer programming course as a seventh-grader and landed his first job in programming as a sophomore. This was Comingdeer’s experience as a student in Oklahoma City public schools in the 1990s. Although computer science-driven jobs are among the highest-paying, fastest-growing in the modern economy, the effort to teach computer science and programming in Central Oregon public schools is fragmented.
Bend TechCrawl draws interest from industry participants
Cascade Business News
9/13/2016
The Central Oregon branch of the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO-Central Oregon) hosted the 1st annual Bend TechCrawl. The unique and fun evening was the first statewide technology networking event with simultaneously TechCrawls in Bend, Eugene and Portland.
High housing costs deter Bend job applicants
Bend Bulletin
8/13/2016
It’s happened to several Bend employers — they hire new employees, but the new hires quit weeks after moving to Bend when they’re unable to find a place to live. “I had a well-paid developer and his family move in state, and he had a wife and a little baby,” said Preston Callicott, CEO of Five Talent Software. “I put him up in a hotel, and two weeks after, he says, ‘I can’t find anything, we have to move back.”
A better future Bend? ‘Bend Livability Project’ launches
KTVZ
4/19/2016
It’s the question on all our minds: How do we protect the livability of our community in the face of such dramatic growth and change? The answer is clear—it’s up to us to define our future together by learning about the challenges facing our town, understanding how we can shape the outcomes and engaging to implement innovative and effective solutions for our community.
Smart Technology Putting Business First
Oregon Business
3/08/2016
Going into software development was a no-brainer for Ryan Comingdeer. “I took my first programming class in seventh grade,” he says. “I was kind of a geek from day one.” But when he started technology firm Five Talent in 2004, he discovered he had a knack for something in addition to writing code. Many clients came to him with problems that could be helped by technology, but they weren’t always considering the right solution. “They would contact us about an off-the-shelf e-commerce approach when they really needed a custom software solution,” Comingdeer says. “Or they would seek out more visitor traffic when they needed a better website to improve sales.”
High Desert starts model to promote innovation
High Desert Education Service District
3/06/2016
High Desert is a publicly funded agency that provides various services to Central Oregon school districts, from legal and financial advice to special education and career and technical education support. Participants in i4 get help refining their ideas at workshops with local entrepreneurs before pitching to a five-person panel, including High Desert leaders and people from the private sector.
Smart Technology Putting Business First
Bend Bulletin
7/27/2015
While Californians being drawn to Bend is not a new story, the new arrivals have had a profound impact on the tech scene in Central Oregon. When Callicott arrived in 2003, tech companies were still few and far between, meaning he had to commute back and forth to Silicon Valley to continue working in the industry before finally taking his current position at Five Talent, which he converted into a growing software consulting firm, in 2010.
Tech: Predictions from an industry insider, CEO of Five Talent Software sees bright future, worries about Bend housing
Bend Bulletin
9/16/2015
Bend has become a rising star among tech clusters across the country. Finding experienced software developers has been a challenge, but Five Talent Software CEO Preston Callicott believes a four-year university will allow technology companies to recruit more talent locally.
Build vs. Buy: Weighing Custom Software against Off-the-Shelf Solutions from Five Talent in Bend, Oregon
Cascade Business News
8/06/2015
Company leaders face this decision more often than they’d like and it’s not going away. How do you navigate the build vs. buy question and ensure you get a system that adapts and evolves as you do? Five Talent CEO Preston Callicott and CTO Ryan Comingdeer dive into the debate.
More than 1,000 rentals proposed in Bend
Bend Bulletin
6/07/2015
“It’s hard enough for us to find software developers. They’re in extreme high demand,” said Preston Callicott, CEO of Five Talent, a software company in Bend. “Once you get them, and they come to town, they start saying, ‘Well, I can’t find a place to live.’” Callicott said he sometimes calls real estate brokers looking for unlisted vacancies, and, in one case, put up a new hire and his family in his own home while they looked for a place of their own.
IT’S A MAN’S MAN’S MAN’S WORLD, Male tech workers weigh in on the industry’s gender troubles
Oregon Business
4/24/2015
Men in Oregon’s tech sector work in one of the country’s most forward-looking industries, one that prides itself on meritocracy and disruption. They live in some of the most liberal leaning cities in the country: Portland, Bend, Eugene. Add those two components together and you get a business sector that prides itself on being more collaborative and less competitive than its peers in the rest of the country.
Growing the tech scene in Bend. What Bend needs to do to take it to the next level
Bend Bulletin
8/24/2014
Bend has been dubbed an entrepreneurial hot spot, as well as a growing tech cluster. It’s received national attention for its ecosystem that includes a startup accelerator called FoundersPad and the largest angel conference in the Pacific Northwest, the Bend Venture Conference. Yet, McDonald, a user-experience designer, had never heard of Bend until several months ago.
Five Talent Driving by the Finger
Cascade Business News
8/02/2012
What makes a web development company unique in a town where nearly everyone and their brother is a “website developer?”According to Preston Callicott, partner and chief operating officer with Five Talent, it’s the deep technical knowledge and the ability to use that in business applications. It’s being on the “bleeding edge” of technology.
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