About us
Telecommunications Technicians and direct seller of telecommunications, energy and essential services for your home and business
Origin
Hi, I'm the company's founder, Paul "The Groove" McCain. I studied Industrial Electronics and Computer Repair at Carver Vocational Technical High school in Baltimore, MD in 1994. By '97, some of the other members of my trade-class and I had acquired an internship at Bell Atlantic, the telephone company back then, where we worked with various leaders in the industry. For the next year, we learned Telecommunications Engineering at Edmonson Westside Skill Development Center in Baltimore. After the internship was over, I got my first job at Lisn Inc, a telecommunications contracting company, whose main focus was to install equipment, racks and cable in Bell Atlantic's Central Offices all over Maryland... and there began my career as a contractor.
Military
In 2000, I took a break from contracting and joined the United States Air Force as a Satellite / Wideband Telecommunications and Electronic Systems Equipmpent Technician, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait with the 54th Combat Communications Squadron, 5th Mobility Group (5th Mob) at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, GA.
There, I met my wife and a short time later the military moved us to Okinawa, Japan. I wasn't a huge fan of eating off base, but my wife is super-adventurous. She tricked me into eating Japanese Curry and I was hooked. If you ever get a chance to go to Okinawa, you've got to go to the CoCo Ichibanya restaurant. My favorite was the level 3, chicken cutlet curry.
While stationed in Okinawa, I deployed back to Iraq a few more times but my favorite deployment was to Pattaya Beach, Thailand with the 18th Mission Support Group, 18th Theater Deployable Communications Squadron (TDC). Alcohol was cheap there, so I got drunk and stumbled across a real Thai boxing tournament outdoors. I mean, these guys were really going at it! I talked so much trash to the fighters that the winner and the referee let me come in there for a challenge. Now it's time to put my money where my mouth is. By then, I had studied Jeet Kune Do, Taekwondo, Jiujitsu, Aikido and Taijutsu but had never fought against a Thai boxer before. I don't know the rules to Thai boxing, and the guy probably let me win. He clearly wasn't really trying to hurt me like he was against his other opponents and I wasn't trying to make him mad lol. We were just having a good time and he and the referee were really great sports. The ref even took a picture of the fighter and me in the ring. I'm extremely grateful for the entire experience and If I ever find that picture, I'll put it on the website.
Government Contractor
After the military, I went to work for a contracting company named Globecomm, where we setup and maintained Satellite Communications equipment in multiple countries including the USA, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Angola, Quatamala and Nicaragua. There, I contracted for the 2008 Presidential campaign, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), US Agency for International Development (USAID), Food Drug Administration (FDA), US Embassies in multiple foreign Countries, National Security Agency (NSA), Peace Corps, Social Security Administration (SSA), Dyncorp and more.
With my career on the fast track, I moved on to ITT inc. and contracted in Afghanistan as a civilian for a year installing and repairing VSAT terminals, C-band radios, Emergency-Tracking GPS Transmitters, Thuraya DSL Mobile Fly-Away Comm Kits and etcetera.
After Afghanistan, I was tired of getting shot at and decided it's time for safer career choices. So I contracted for L3 in El Paso TX, Verizon in Chantilly VA and Erricson in Richmond VA.
Independent Contractor
By 2014, I decided to create my first web store using Yahoo's SiteBuilder but none of the buttons I placed on my site would do anything. Nobody told me I had to use "code" to make those buttons work. So now I need to learn JavaScript? I taught myself the front-end web-programming language and quickly fell in love with it. In fact, I loved it so much, I decided to abandon the web store and pursue programming concepts instead. In doing so, I ended up learning JavaScript, PHP, Java, SQL, C, C++, C#, Batch, Python, HTML, CSS and XML, all to varying degrees.
I wasn't making enough money, and some months I made nothing at all, and now my wife and I had 2 toddlers. Obviously, my wife was on my neck everyday about bills and other responsibilities, so I had to put my pride to the side and get back to the "regular" workforce. I was either over-qualified for some jobs or there had been too big of a gap in my resume for other jobs but it got to the point where I couldn't even get hired at Walmart. Now that was embarrassing!
During my job search in 2018, I found an Independent Contractor position at Dish Network that I kept skipping because it said the candidate had to use his/her own tools and vehicle. I had lots of tools but hadn't heard of this type of work before, so I thought it was less than legit AND I didn't want to mess up any of my nice tools. Well, I got hungry enough... and my wife got on my nerves enough... so I just applied. They called within 30 minutes of me applying and I signed up. I bought a work van and became the newest Independent Contractor at Dish Network.
I was no stranger to installing and repairing telecommunication systems but up to this point, all of my customers were government agencies and civilian companies. I had zero experience working inside of people's homes and having to interact with them on such a personal level. And when I say personal, I mean personal. People talk to us like we're their favorite barber. I was actually so uncomfortable, I stayed in on-the-job training for 2 and a half months, where most other people do about 2 weeks of training. It got to the point where my trainer had to literally kick me out of training and make me just do it.
I'll never forget my first day on my own. I spent 8 and a half hours struggling at the first house, trying to get a signal between a forest of trees in the pouring rain and trying to dig a trench through massive tree roots, with just a shovel, to bury 50 feet of cable from the dish to the side of the house. I took so long, the boss called my trainer at 8 O'clock at night while he was at the gym with his wife, for him to come and rescue me. Talk about humilated! Big Johnny pulled up in his work van that looked like the Mystery Machine on Scooby Doo. He got out and handed me a pickaxe to finish the last 10 feet of the ditch while he was getting the signal right at the dish. Then it happened... I accidentally hit the cable with the pickaxe and Johnny saw it! "Go ahead and pull the whole cable up and run a new one", he quickly said. I tried to tell him that I barely touched the cable and that it was going to be fine, but Johnny didn't play those types of games. He was sent there to rescue me and rescue me, he did! Johnny grabbed the pickaxe and completely plowed the field! He and his pickaxe looked like John Henry with his hammer. Those tree roots and buried rocks were no match for Big Johnny. He had completely dug a whole new trench in 5 minutes. When we were done with the entire job, we went back into the house where Johnny explained to the family that this was my very first day. Their displeasure and annoyance with me being there so late had turned to empathy, as they gave me a round of applause for trying so hard and sticking it out. I learned a lot that day. I learned a lot from Johnny in general. I had the pleasure of also learning from Johnny's trainer, Dave, and his trainer, Jeff. We were consistently the top 4 techs in our area and had our own specific ways of doing the same thing, but what we all had in common... was perfection. Since then, I've been an Independent Contractor for Dish Network, Sudden Link, Spectrum and will soon acquire a contract with Lumen (formerly Century Link), and the common thing I always aspire to bring to the table is the level of perfection I learned from those guys, all those years ago.
I know that was a long story but it's the foundation of why I am, who I am and why I strive for the level of perfection that I do now.
Company
We're a military-family-owned and operated small business.
With a versatile and broad range of competencies, various contracts, associations with two large sales networks and the many contacts that I've made, the next logical step was to incorporate all of these assets into one brand, GrooVon Everything! As a new small business, one of our goals is to start off very simple and gradually integrate more complex ideas, like software development and engineering.
We live and work by the core values of the Air Force: Integrity first, service before self and excellence in all we do. We take the time to do the job right, the first time. We respect your time, your family, your house and the work we put in, from the time we call to tell you we're on the way, to the time we give you the end-of-the-job education and leave your property. We have a personal 1-year guarantee for any and all work that we perform, regardless of companies only holding contractors and employees responsible for 30 to 90 days, and you can call or text us directly if you have any questions or problems.
Partners for Life
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