The Future Is Now: Ryan Esparza Of EspriGas On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
No matter what you think you know, stay curious and never stop learning.
As a part of our series about cutting-edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Esparza.
Ryan Esparza is the Chief Technology Officer at EspriGas, leading the technology strategy for the company based on his 20 years of diverse experience in technology leadership roles. He is focused on integrating and advancing EspriGas’ technology platform. He is committed to driving innovation at EspriGas keeping the focus on the customer and supply partner experience.
He joined EspriGas after spending over four years as the Chief Information Officer of Jackson Healthcare, LLC. Prior to Jackson Healthcare, Ryan worked for some of the leading brands in Atlanta including The Weather Channel, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Cox Enterprises, and The Home Depot. An active member of the Atlanta community, he currently serves on the board of Inspiredu and is a member of the 2022 class of Leadership Atlanta. Ryan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and studied at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Monterrery, Mexico. He is a licensed pilot, scuba diver, avid traveler and resides with his wife, Brittany, and two children in Brookhaven, GA.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I like to say that I took the logical, direct path to the industrial gas industry… from big box e-commerce to online media, hospitality, TV, then healthcare and finally EspriGas. Isn’t that how everyone got here? Really though, my story of career progression is all about other people introducing me to different opportunities and me keeping an open mind enough to hear them out. Getting to EspriGas was no different, and what excited me was the opportunity to make an impact in a company and industry by bringing what I’ve learned from my previous positions to my current role as Chief Technology Officer at EspriGas, a technology-driven industrial gas company.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I’ve been fortunate to work on innovative, cutting-edge projects throughout my career, and there are definitely a few pivotal launches and moments that stand out.
The first would be early in my career when I was at Home Depot and helped relaunch HomeDepot.com on a new, modern technology platform — after too many trips to remember between Austin and Atlanta, the countdown, final click to refresh, and subsequent reloading of the webpage with years of work on display was both exhilarating and extremely rewarding — I think it was in that moment that I was hooked on solving big problems.
Similarly, while at The Weather Channel, I helped oversee the upgrade of the network’s proprietary localization system and relaunch of the television network. The stakes were high; The Weather Channel was in 100 million households, and accuracy was measured to one-thirtieth of a second — we needed to ensure the transition, while live on air, was seamless and without a single frame of black… kind of like changing the tires on a car while moving at 70 miles an hour down the highway. No pressure, right? We stayed through the night, and after yet another countdown and successful launch, there were cheers, maybe a few tears and some much-needed sleep. Again, I felt that exhilarating feeling of watching years of work from a lot of really talented people come to fruition.
Another interesting project that I oversaw was the launch of the first mobile key at the InterContinental Hotels Group. We, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, were the first major hotel company to pilot this kind of technology. Now, the timeframe is important context… this was 2010 before everyone had a smartphone in their pocket and could simply hold up their phones to unlock a door using NFC like you can today. Imagine trying to solve for an Android, iPhone, AND a flip phone all at the same time. With this early-stage innovation, hotel guests would dial a phone number from their cell phone, hold it up to a modified door lock at their room (and only their room, an important detail about which I was often asked), and a dial-up modem like sound would unlock the door. Gen Zers, if you don’t know it, google that sound — it’s unmistakable and was the sound of opportunity in the early days of the internet. Back to mobile key — I helped run a pilot program at two hotels in Houston and Chicago, where I was lucky enough to do everything from install demo locks, man the front desk, explain how the innovation works to arriving guests and even take calls directly (day and night) when the batteries of the door died, and people needed to get into their rooms. I relived that familiar excitement from past launches every time I watched a guest successfully open their door using their cell phone.
There have been a lot of interesting and exciting moments in my career where my team and I were on the cusp of an innovation or launch that was monumental for a company or industry — it was exciting to be on the front lines of all these efforts.
Can you tell us about the technology innovation that you are working on? How do you think it will help people?
At EspriGas, we’re supplying industrial gas, medical grade oxygen, bulk CO2, beer gas, and more to our customers — our innovation here looks a lot different than some of the other B2B projects I’ve worked on; however, it’s all relative. We’re hyper-focused on meeting our customers where they are and how we can improve their experience with EspriGas. For our beverage sector, that means building a beverage portal that makes ordering beverage-grade CO2 from EspriGas easier. We’re applying best practices and lessons learned from e-commerce in the B2C space to our operations, giving our customers a quick and convenient way to buy gas quickly.
Another area that I am excited about is the idea of predictive ordering. We’re furthering our promise of “making the complex simple” by removing the need for manual order placement altogether and by proactively notifying customers when it’s time to order. We’re expanding on some preliminary models where we use machine learning to look at gas usage to determine when the next order might occur and send a text message to customers with a quick option to re-order.
How do you think this might change the world?
We’re changing the perspective that consumer experiences should only be expected in B2C interactions. As digital natives continue to enter the workforce, they shouldn’t have to learn what carbon paper is or how to use a fax machine to complete an order. At the end of the day, everyone is a consumer — we should be giving our customers the same customer-centric experiences they get at home at work.
The experiences we’re focused on creating at EspriGas will impact people’s lives at work to apply innovative practices from the consumer space to our gas supply efforts — it’s something that we are holding ourselves accountable for at EspriGas to improve our customers’ day-to-day operations.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
There wasn’t necessarily one tipping point, but there was an accumulation of different experiences and seeing commonalities throughout in terms of what’s successful. What I’ve learned across the board from the various medical, beverage, and industrial verticals that I have worked in is that empathizing with our customers should be our top priority — it’s an everyday journey that requires a ton of focus, testing and re-testing and willingness to get it wrong, adjust and try again.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
As with all industries, there needs to be a shift in the gas industry overall for widespread adoption of the types of technology we’re working on. Right now, there’s still a lot of manual work and effort taking place to get gas in the hands of folks who need it. We’re working to educate our customers and the industry at large on the value and benefits of embracing innovation to improve operations and systems.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I am grateful for many people who have given (and continue to give) me opportunities throughout my career, but David Tai is at the top of the list. I started at Home Depot with nothing more than a six-week contract, and he quickly saw potential in me — so much so that he helped turn the six-week contract into over three years of full-time employment. David advocated for me and ultimately convinced me to move from Austin to Atlanta for the first of many opportunities to come at The Home Depot. He even went as far as to store my boxes in his garage while I looked for a place to live. In addition to giving me this first opportunity, he also let me fail like crazy — he gave me hard challenges — challenges to which he already knew the answer, mind you — and (at times frustratingly) ‘encouraged’ me to get to the finish line on my own. David pushed me beyond what I thought was possible, letting me fail and learn along the way, and for that, I’ll always be thankful.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started”?
- Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.
- Strong relationships are key to your future success.
- To get to where you want to be, you have to put in the work and be patient.
- No matter what you think you know, stay curious and never stop learning.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?
“Do the right thing even when no one is looking.”
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
