You’ve seen them quite often around the Pathfinder-verse, heard them speak at events or virtual meetings, maybe even dialogued with them in a forum thread—they’re our Most Valuable Pathfinders! They are the spark keeping the Pathfinder Community ablaze, so it was about time we took a beat to really get to know each one of our MVPs better and share their unique stories with you!

So without further ado, let’s get to know…
 

Jason Dornblaser

The Basics

• Years of automation experience: 4
• Current company: Leidos
• Official title: Software Engineering Manager - Robotic Process Automation & Intelligent Automation

But this is how Jason would actually describe what he does: I oversee everything related to our internal RPA projects at Leidos—from reviewing bot requests to evaluate if they are a good fit and setting up all necessary user accounts and accesses for developers in our development environment, to working with our process architects to help push along the development of our detail process map and address any questions related to bot development. I hold weekly touch bases with stakeholders about development, production, and any enhancements coming down the pipeline. I also talk to people in programs that have interest in RPA, where perhaps we can loan a developer out and try to bring ideas to them so they can automate as much as possible. I pretty much have my hands in anything and everything.

• Biggest professional achievement to date: Building up the automation program at Leidos from scratch—from getting set-up and through security to deploying 150 bots into production in just 4 years. Bravo, Jason!

Five Fun Facts (alt: Five Fast Facts)

• His birthday is January 14 - new year, new Jason!
• His favorite TV show of all time is Married with Children
• If he could have any superpower, he’d want the ability to fly - a good classic choice, we’d say!
• The most adventurous thing he’s done is gone skydiving
• The next place on his travel bucket list is Australia

Expertise

When it comes to the Automation Success Platform, Jason and his team mainly utilize the Control Room and IQ Bot. As an Automation Leader, Jason considers himself a technical junkie. He loves getting into the nitty gritty of tech and would love to learn more about the world of APIs and explore how he could leverage them more often in his program.
 

Jason in the Community

To help foster professional development among his peers, Jason hosts bi-weekly internal workshops at Leidos, both for their citizen developers and general RPA team members. They discuss development issues, cover special topics or updates like new APIs or python scripts, and team members can highlight their recently created bots. This has been a very helpful forum, especially for their citizen developers. Jason also participates in a monthly CoE meeting, where his leader acts as the meeting chairperson, and they cover topics like what’s new with Automation Anywhere, what’s coming down the pipeline, and lately, of course, everyone’s favorite topic—generative AI.

If he had one piece of advice for someone new to automation it would be:
 

“Train, train, train. Practice, practice, practice. Getting hands-on is always better... Practicing in our lab environment is the quickest way they’re going to learn—by doing.”

What’s Next for Jason

From an automation point of view, Jason is laser focused on continuing to grow the program that he and his leader started. He says AI, ML, and chatbots are all on the horizon for Leidos, but at the moment he's invested in working within their existing toolbelt to achieve substantial wins within in the next year to year-and-a-half. Part of his plan is to move away from low-hanging fruit use cases and instead work to unearth those bigger needle-moving automations. He and his team are engaging managers and process owners in specific areas to evaluate where they can benefit from automation and try to pull impactful opportunities out from those discussions.

He's also extremely dedicated to helping anyone on his team get where they need to go—even if that means helping someone promote to a management level and leave his team. Jason wants to help them do that to achieve their professional goals. On the personal side, a role bump is in the near future for Jason himself, which would mean more responsibility and afford him more direct dialogue with senior management. But unfortunately for this junkie, it would likely also mean less technical work. He says he going to be sure to still find some time for that. Can't stop, won't stop—right, Jason?

Thank you, Jason, for letting us all get to know you better. And thank you for your continued contributions to our Pathfinder Community!