Meet Roger
Our team members come from diverse and experienced backgrounds in electrical training, and many have been in critical power for years. We pride ourselves on choosing the best people to service our customers to ensure that you get the most out of your equipment.
Meet Roger
Our team members come from diverse and experienced backgrounds in electrical training, and many have been in critical power for years. We pride ourselves on choosing the best people to service our customers to ensure that you get the most out of your equipment.
Roger Lo
Region: Southern California
As a seasoned UPS technician of 18 years, Roger Lo currently works at CPT- A Service Branch of Mitsubishi Electric, primarily serving San Diego and surrounding areas. Learn more about Roger and the changes he’s witnessed in the critical power industry.
Certifications
Powervar, XPC-Xtreme power conversion, Cellwatch, Batt-safe, BTech, NFPA 70E, OSHA 10
Field Trained
7011B; 1100 Series; 9900AEGIS; 9900D; SUMMIT Series®; 2033A; 2033C; 2033D; 2033G; 7011A; 9700; 9800; 9900A
Where are you from?
“I’m actually from Taiwan - came here when I was 12 - been here in California ever since.”
Did you always think you were going to be in Electronics?
“Yeah. I always thought I was going to be in IT. I worked with computers a lot when I was younger and somehow, after the army, I wanted to do something like field work, just to give it a shot and next thing you know [it’s been] 18 years later.”
How did you get into critical power?
“I always knew what UPSs were, but I didn’t realize that they were that big. Then I just thought, ‘Oh UPSs, they’re backup power and that this is field work.’
I didn’t think I could work in offices, so I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to give this field work a shot,’ and I actually enjoyed it. Basically, I gave it a shot and I ended up liking it.”
What is something you think people would find surprising about working in critical power?
“I think a lot of people don’t realize how important these customers’ critical loads are.
We work in hospitals. We work in banks. We work in research, manufacturing - the stuff that’s on our UPS is so important [to] the customer. And before this, I didn’t realize how important - how critical - [this business was].
If the power goes [out], it could be the hospital’s ICU or bank’s communication stuff, and [if] the power goes out, they’re crippled.
There could be millions of dollars they lost so I just [hadn’t realized it was] that important before all this.”
What do you think is something people should know when looking for the ideal UPS?
“Mainly reliability because… it’s not cheap and this is pretty critical for equipment because it provides power, runtime when there are power outages. And once you buy it - once you own one - you want to take care of it. But reliability - that’s the main thing to look for.
We’ve (CPT) worked on hundreds of UPSs, different brands, different ones out there. And I think Mitsubishi [Electric] is the most reliable because we don’t really fix a lot of them. And other brands…some break down or the customers [are] just not happy with [them].
A lot of customers, they’re really happy with Mitsubishi [Electric] so I think, basically, just get Mitsubishi [Electric]!”
In your opinion, what do you think sets Mitsubishi Electric apart?
“I think our customer service.
Before Mitsubishi [Electric] acquired CPT, every time we [had] any problems, I’d call the Mitsubishi [Electric] Tech Support line and they’d always be there - they’re 24 hours. You could call at midnight or 3 am and they’re always there; they pick up pretty fast.
We were third party - we were not Mitsubishi [Electric] - but we had to deal with all UPS makers. The Mitsubishi Electric technicians and the customer service - I liked calling them, they were really helpful.
Sometimes when you work with different groups, it’s hard. They don’t want to help you out or they say, 'It’s not your equipment, let us handle it,' so not a lot of support from other manufacturers, so that’s why [Mitsubishi Electric] is different from other groups.”
What are some other industries that you think will see an increase in critical power?
“For us, mainly California, we have this thing we call the OSHPD, so it’s basically like a standard all hospitals have to follow. They’re building a lot of hospitals and they’re retrofitting old hospitals and upgrading anything electrical because they have this code - it’s an earthquake thing.
All these hospitals need new equipment to follow these earthquake standards out in California. So that’s the thing here. When we install the units, it’s a lot – the government has to be involved, they have their inspector come out to make sure everything is correct [and that] it’s by the code.”
Do you think other places will follow suit as a byproduct of environmental concerns?
“Probably. They pushed it really hard here. So, hospitals here, they can’t just do any electrical work or buy any units; they have to go through a lot of inspection, and everything takes a long time, so it’s all the hospital work here that’s really different from anything else that we do here.”
What advice would you give to a facility manager?
“Take care of their unit. Just do the maintenance, change the batteries when [it’s time] to change out the batteries. Take care of it!
It’s [an] investment. I’ve seen sites… it doesn’t matter how good their UPSs are, if they don’t take care of it, clean it… it doesn’t last a long time. So, take care of their equipment.”
* Interested in learning about UPS Service Contracts? Learn more or Contact us!
Is that a common mistake you see on site?
“The UPS is a weird item.
The IT - the computer people - they don’t think it’s theirs.
The facility people think it’s IT’s equipment, but they don’t want it.
So, they’re the sites we go to that [have been] neglected. No one knows whose [UPS] it is and the next thing you know, it’s broken. Cause nobody checked on it for the past 8 years or 9 years.”
* What happens when you neglect UPS maintenance? Learn from this story.
What do you think are characteristics that field technicians should have?
“I can’t speak for every technician. I think every technician has their own way [of] dealing with stuff and working at this type of job, but I think for me, a good quality is just being sincere.
[Also], customer service because you do have to meet a lot of different people. It’s not like office work where you meet the same group of people every day.
[With field work], you work with different people every day, so you have to be able to interact with different people all the time. Some are easy to get along [with], some are harder to talk to. But at the end of the day, you have to provide service, so you have to make sure they’re happy with it. So, I think a big thing is customer service.”
Do you think that that can be hard for technicians, all that pressure? Do you find that to be challenging?
“Yeah. I think it’s not for everybody, this job. It is challenging because a lot of times when you go to a site, there are 10 [people] looking at you who want to find out what’s wrong with it, [and] you have to be able to help them out - that does come with a lot of pressure.
Sometimes, you go to a job site, they’ll tell you that if you turn [something] off, they’ll lose millions, so it’s challenging but that’s probably why I like it.
But you know, I think for people who enjoy regular office jobs, something predictable, this is not for them. Every day’s different. Different times, different places. Some days are easy, some days are really hard.”
Do you think that the role of field technicians will change in critical power in the future?
“For a lot of UPS technicians, their main strength is electrical - a lot of mechanical stuff - but when it comes to IT or computer or networking, we do have to adapt.
We have to understand a lot of IT and a lot of UPSs have a lot of network capability so customers can monitor what’s wrong with the unit or it can send them emails, so we do have to [do] setup for them.”
What’s a big change or shift you’ve noticed in the industry?
“I think what jumps out is… a long time ago, different companies [would] have a big server room, a lot of servers, and they needed big UPSs. And then throughout the years, everything [has been] changing.
There's the cloud, the colocation, so they’re moving their equipment to a basic server farm.
So, in a customer server room [now], they don’t have that much equipment anymore. They don’t need that big of a UPS to carry their equipment; they need smaller.
Everything is getting smaller. They use less power. So we have sites - especially a lot of government and hospital sites - they have big UPSs from 15, 20 years ago [and] they’re not carrying any power because there are no servers on their site anymore.”
What’s your take on the sustainability conversation?
“UPS-wise, I see changes on a lot of different units. Like everything has become modular. A long time ago, UPSs [had] a lot of components and a lot of boards.
But now, UPSs are modular, so everything is [swappable], and it’s smaller. The footprint is a lot smaller. So, I think mainly UPSs nowadays are more efficient, lighter.”
What is your most memorable story from the field?
“I would say the most memorable are always the harder jobs. The [Big Game last February] because I don’t think any job would beat being [there]. People have to pay thousands of dollars just to be there, but we get to be there [for work]. You get to watch the game - it’s an experience. It’s a big sports event and it’s very memorable.”
What is something that you’re passionate about outside of work?
“I watch a lot of sports and my daughter plays softball, so I’m always there helping out, coaching, [so] mainly sports and spending time with my daughter. I watch a lot of football. I play a lot of basketball, and now, I’m learning a lot about softball. I like the [Las Vegas] Raiders.”
What is the best advice you have received?
“Have a mindset of a student. We [as techs] learn something every day, [and] we work with different people.”