Boyer recently hired Tom Hart as a pre-sales engineer for Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Power Platform. Hart has a range of experiences in small business, software development, and account strategy — and a love for learning new things.
Part of what attracted Hart to Boyer was his experience working at Food Building in Minneapolis in 2015. The job included designing and implementing websites as well as internal systems to help food startups manage order intake and distribution. There he quickly realized that having the right technology made a huge difference in how well these small food companies fared.
“There were key constraints on how those businesses grew or even survived at all,” Hart said. “That was my trigger point of, ‘Oh, software is really important for organizations to grow and survive.’”
He has his own experiences with small business, from restarting a family food business to running a small website development and video production company.
Hart grew up watching his parents run Minnesota-Made Gourmet chocolates. He took the family business in another direction with Artisan MN, drawing on his father’s German roots to make and sell sauerkraut. He also did freelance website development and video production for several of the small food businesses he’d met while at Food Building.
These experiences taught him the importance of business processes, technology and team structure.
Hart attended a software development boot camp in 2017 and spent the next few years honing his skills in website and software development.
His background in both communication and technology meshed well. In 2019 Hart followed a friends’ recommendation to take a role as a solutions engineer. Since then, he has worked in the pre-sales/solution space and likes the chance to work on communication, business process and technological challenges.
“I feel like I’m able to utilize both right and left right brain thinking,” he said. “Solution engineering has been a good specialized-generalist role for me.”
Hart enjoys learning about a client’s particular context and gathering the information required to start designing a solution that can best meet the client’s unique challenges.
He spent the last two years getting an inside look at the Microsoft ecosystem. The more he worked within the software world, the more he found himself gravitating towards the “citizen developer approach” of Microsoft Power Platform.
“I’m excited to get the opportunity to work more closely with Power Platform. I think there’s a lot of potential as low code and intelligent cloud and AI all start converging more closely together,” he said.
Hart knew a couple of Boyer employees from past projects and was impressed with the company’s focus on EOS Traction as a business model to foster stable growth. When a job opportunity arose as a pre-sales engineer for Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Power Platform, Boyer’s track record of successful implementations and a forward-focused mindset made it an easy decision.
“I think Boyer is really uniquely positioned to add a lot of value to existing clients as well as new clients,” Hart said.
Hart and his wife, Abby, live in St. Paul with their corgi, Peaches. They bought a 112-year-old home a few years ago and have enjoyed renovating it. They also enjoy bike riding and frequently take their electric bikes around the city.
When he’s not busy with work or renovations, Hart loves to learn. Always curious, he finds new things to explore. Most recently, he jumped on the cold plunging bandwagon and has been plunging into cold bodies of water for the invigorating mind-body benefits. Pleaches has been loving cold plunging as well and acting like a little corgi lifeguard.
To learn more about Hart and his latest explorations, check out his monthly LinkedIn newsletter, The Curious Connector.
“I’m excited to get the opportunity to work more closely with Power Platform. I think there’s a lot of potential as low code and intelligent cloud and AI all start converging more closely together.”
Tom Hart, Pre-Sales Solution Engineer
