From Military SATCOM to Utility IT: How Tim "Boss" Bagwell Delivers Mission-Critical Infrastructure

A Q&A with Tim Bagwell, far left, Senior Solutions Consultant, Tamazari

Q: Tim, before we get into the consulting work, take us back to the start. What was your role in the Air Force?

A: I spent roughly 1998 to 2005 in the Air Force as a satellite communications technician. By the end I was a Staff Sergeant running a small team. The shorthand is "SATCOM," but the practical reality was setting up and maintaining the data links that let dispersed units talk to each other and to higher headquarters. When those links worked, nobody noticed. When they didn't, missions stopped.

Q: You spent time at Hurlburt Field and deployed early. What kind of work were you doing?

A: Hurlburt put me in the special operations world, which shapes how you think about every job after. Late 2001 I was in Afghanistan supporting the initial response. In 2004 I was in Iraq attached to the 106 Airborne Trucking Company, setting up USC-60 SATCOM links all over the country in support of JSOC, JSOTF, and JSOAC components. I had two airmen with me. We would roll into a site, stand up the link, stabilize it, and move to the next one. We were in Mosul during the Christmas chow hall bombing at FOB Marez. It was a serious year.

Q: That's a long way from utility consulting. What's the first thing from that environment that translated directly to your current work?

A: Mission-critical thinking. In a combat zone, you assume something will break, and you plan the backup before you plan the primary. That mindset is exactly what utilities and energy companies need on systems like ETRM, SCADA, and grid communications.

"These are not "nice to have" platforms. When they fail, a utility can't trade gas, can't dispatch the grid, can't bill customers. I walk into client environments looking for the single points of failure before I look at the org chart."

Q: You were an Air Force technician embedded with an Army unit, working alongside special operations elements. How does that show up in how you work with clients today?

A: Every engagement I'm on now is a mixed team. At PSE I'm coordinating across the utility, the software vendor, multiple consultancies, and internal Tamazari leadership. Nobody reports to me. Everybody has different priorities. That's exactly what cross-service augmentation looked like in 2004. You learn quickly that you can't lead with rank or title; you lead with reliability.

"You do what you said you'd do, you tell people the truth when something is off, and you make sure the people next to you look good. That's how you get trusted with the harder work."

Q: After the Air Force, you moved into telecom and utility work. What stands out from that arc?

A: My first civilian chapter was AT&T Alascom, supporting DAMA satellite service to more than 400 remote villages across Alaska. It was satellite work, but the customer changed from a task force to a school district or a clinic. After that I went to KAMO Power and managed OPGW fiber deployments across four states, plus modular data centers and land mobile radio. Tacoma Public Utilities, Sound Transit, and Integral Analytics followed, and now I'm with Tamazari. The connecting thread is communications and operational technology.

"The Air Force taught me to be comfortable in places where the infrastructure has to work even when conditions are not friendly. That has been useful in every job since."

Q: What do you find clients are surprised by when they learn about your background?

A: Most clients see the resume and assume the military piece is a footnote. What they don't expect is how directly the operational discipline carries over. Things like a clear commander's intent before you start, a written communications plan, a rehearsal before a cutover, and an after-action review when it's done. Those are not military-specific concepts; they are just standard practice in environments where mistakes are expensive. Most enterprise programs would deliver better outcomes if they borrowed more of that rigor.

Q: There's also a leadership angle. What does leading a small team in austere conditions teach you that you can't get anywhere else?

A: It teaches you that your people don't need a speech, they need a plan and a leader who is calm when things go wrong. I had two airmen, a truck, a generator, and a long list of sites. When something failed, they watched how I handled it. That's still how I think about leading project teams. If the project manager is panicking, the team is panicking.

"The job is to absorb the pressure, sort the next three problems by priority, and keep moving."

Q: What would you tell a company that's thinking about hiring more veterans into technical or consulting roles?

A: Hire for the wiring, not just the resume. Veterans who came out of operational career fields have been trained to deliver under conditions most enterprise teams have never seen. They are usually comfortable with ambiguity, they understand chain of command, and they tend to default to action. The trade-off is sometimes they need help translating their experience into business language. That's a coaching problem, not a hiring problem, and it's worth solving.

Q: Last one. What advice would you give to a young service member thinking about life after the uniform?

A: Your technical skills got you in the door, but your habits will carry you the rest of the way. Write things down. Brief up and brief down. Be the person who closes the loop. The civilian world rewards the same behaviors the military rewards, the labels are just different. And, don't undersell what you did. If you ran satellite links in Iraq with a two-person team, that is not a line item on a resume, that is a leadership story. Tell it.

About Tim

Tim Bagwell is a Senior Solutions Consultant at Tamazari with 20+ years delivering complex IT initiatives across the utility, energy, and telecommunications sectors. He is a U.S. Air Force veteran who served as a satellite communications technician in support of special operations from 1998 to 2005, including deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. His civilian career spans AT&T Alascom, KAMO Power, Tacoma Public Utilities, Sound Transit, and Integral Analytics. He lives in Gig Harbor, Washington.