SVP Discusses IT’s Human Aspect and the Challenges Ahead

Chad Lucas has had a successful 20-year career with the Exchange, all of it in Information Technology at headquarters in Dallas, his hometown. But he took a winding path to an IT career and to the Exchange.

“As I was getting ready to go to college, I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist,” says Lucas, senior vice president and chief information officer. “But science was never my strong suit, and as I took a look at the degree plan, it was 80% science classes.”

He entered college at Texas A&M, where he enrolled in the business school.

“The first two years of business school you take classes from all disciplines,” he says. “I initially thought I would focus on accounting; two classes in and after my initial class in technology, I decided to major in Management Information Systems.”

Management being the key word.

“You can be very technical in IT, and there’s a lot of people who love doing that,” he says. “But the other side of it, which is not as common in the IT world, is the management/leadership side, where you’re more involved with people, more involved with the human aspect. I thought that was better geared toward my skill set and more where my area of interest lies.”

A&M has a strong career-placement program, which helped Lucas get hired at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a major consulting firm, when he graduated in 2001. But then his start date, as well as other new hires’ start date that year, was pushed back a few months. Then it was pushed back a couple more times.

“In 2001 the economy, particularly the technology sector, really took a hit from the dot-com bust,” he says “Before I ever started the first day, they called me and said, ‘Hey, that signing bonus we gave you, just go ahead and consider that your severance package. With the state of the economy, we’re not going to be able to bring on any of our new hires like we had planned.’”

At the time, his parents had a neighbor who was overseeing Loss Prevention at the Exchange—an organization Lucas was unfamiliar with but learned about quickly.

“He helped me apply for a job,” Lucas says. “I went through the interview process, started in IT from day one and I’ve been here 20 years.”

The Exchange Post recently talked with Lucas about his career and what’s ahead for IT.

How would you explain what you do to a new associate?

Everything we do in this organization is enabled and executed through technology. IT is a really exciting part of the organization to be a part of. In addition to the technology that runs our various lines of business, a major focus of what we do centers around cybersecurity. It is critically important that any and all data that we process and store is completely secure.

Technology is critical to the Exchange strategy. As an organization we have really matured over the last number of years to ensure that IT is part of the decision-making upfront.

We have a good mix of technologies that we’ve been running for a while as well as cutting-edge technologies. We just implemented a robotics solution at Dan Daniel Distribution Center. It’s cool technology, but it’s also driving efficiency. It’s going to enable an important part of our e-commerce transformation as we continue to grow that sector of our business. Whether it’s Logistics, Merchandising, point of sale, e-commerce or Human Resources, it’s all driven by and through technology.

How has the pandemic affected IT?

With the onset of the pandemic, almost overnight, we had to make sure everybody had the tools needed to work remotely and remain safe. We also had to keep the business running and moving forward. Both objectives required having the correct technology in place.

It was a different challenge, not only for IT but across the organization, because we had to learn how to work, manage and collaborate remotely, across the board. It was a complete change of scenery and change of pace. But I think we made the transition, from both an IT and organizational perspective, very seamlessly. Over the past two years, we’ve turned a challenge into an incredible opportunity and huge success story. We’ve met the need and increased productivity.

Increasing remote work has allowed us to greatly expand our recruiting base. We are now recruiting nationwide and, in some cases, worldwide. Pre-pandemic our recruiting base was primarily the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Remote work has been a huge benefit for existing employees and as we continue to build the bench, it’s really opened up the floodgates with respect to securing new talent.

What’s the biggest challenge facing IT in 2022?

Our biggest challenge right now is recruiting. Today’s labor market is incredibly competitive. From an IT perspective, it’s as competitive as I’ve seen in 20 years. One of our top priorities is recruiting and continuing to build the bench and bring new talent to the organization. We’re partnering very closely with HR. We’re trying to get creative as we compete for limited resources. There are no bad ideas right now when it comes to recruitment strategies.

What is the most significant event that has occurred during your Exchange career?

The pandemic changed everything including the retail industry and how we work.

The winter storm in February 2021 further compounded challenges related to the pandemic. IT has always prided itself on our ability to firefight, to fix problems quickly. There has never been a more significant Exchange-specific challenge than our HQ and data center flooding. It was a huge risk to Exchange operations worldwide, but it was also an opportunity for our IT associates to show what they do and how they respond to adversity. Teammates literally put their safety at risk in the early stages to keep as much water out of the data center as possible and over the course of the next several weeks the entire team went above and beyond to ensure everything was back up and running as soon as possible.

What do you do in your spare time?

We have an 8- and a 9-year-old at home, so there is no spare time in the Lucas house. We’re 10 years away from spare time. I coach my son’s baseball and basketball teams. My daughter’s big into gymnastics and cheerleading. So that consumes most of our time away from work.  I am a big sports guy, so what time I do have, you can usually catch me watching the big games.  If the Aggies are playing, I am tuned in.