Five Questions: Todd Gaito, Wayne Alarm Systems

Todd Gaito, director of technical operations, Wayne Alarm Systems, took some time out of his schedule to chat with SSN about life and the industry.

Are you married? Any kids? Pets?
I am married. I have a daughter; she's nine years old and we also have a dog … a little Jack Russel-Chihuahua who is my daughter's best friend.

How did you first get started in the industry?
I started actually in the town where Wayne Alarm is — Lynn, Mass. — they have a vocational school. I went to that voc. school for electrical and part of the voc. program, what they do is, in your junior year, you work for a company, so Wayne Alarm was my co-op school and I started working for Wayne in 1995. I basically worked one week and then went to school the next week, and just kept alternating. I started as a technical helper — helper technician — and then I stayed on with the company [Wayne Alarms] and worked my way up to installer.

What are your hobbies?
Music — I'm a huge music nerd: going to concerts; finding new bands; turning people on to bands they've probably never heard of before; listening to strange, obscure bands that nobody knows who they are. I also play guitar badly; it's fun, but I'm not good at it!

What's the best way to start the day to ensure it's productive?
For me, it's really all about being organized. At the end of the day, prior, before you kick off your next day, which in a perfect world that really means trying to get through emails, I keep a working Word doc where I can keep myself organized for the next morning of things I want to follow up on before they get lost in the millions of emails that we end up with in our crazy days!

What podcast would you recommend to others and why?
A very random one, but it's great is a podcast called “Stuff You Should Know.” It's two guys who talk about random things that you kind-of know a little bit about, but they give you the history and background story on it. You can gather tons of random facts about things that other people don't know about so you can fill them in.