Meet a Helpful Human – Ethan Price

We’re the employees you would hire if you could. Responsive, helpful, and dedicated in ways automation simply can’t be. We’re your team.

Each month we recognize one of our Most Helpful Humans in Hosting.

Meet Ethan Price

Why did you join Liquid Web?

I used to work in the oil field and thought my career was set. The next thing I knew, oil prices dropped and I didn’t have a job. I found out how unstable that career path actually was and decided I needed to find a more lucrative and stable path moving forward.

At first, I wasn’t sure what kind of field I would like, so I decided to go back to school while working multiple jobs to see if anything interested me. After taking a few IT courses in college, I fell in love with computers and technology. I also did some research in the field and saw that Liquid Web was hiring. I felt there was an opportunity to learn, to better myself, and to work with the latest technology in the Cloud Industry. So I applied and joined the Managed Applications Support Team as a Support Technician at Liquid Web. It’s so awesome to be able to work at a company with Liquid Web’s reputation and culture.

Is there something specific at Liquid Web that you just love?

The variety of issues that I troubleshoot on a daily basis makes this job challenging and fun at the same time. For instance, the other day I was helping three customers simultaneously in live chat. The first customer needed help creating Nginx rewrites; the second needed a backup recovered for their website, and the third was requesting information on best practices for securing their WordPress sites. It was rewarding to be able to help different customers with diverse needs all at the same time.

Experiences such as these at Liquid Web have shown me how to give customers the best support possible. And that makes me a more Helpful Human.

What’s your favorite part about the company culture at Liquid Web?

The concept of open-source learning, or “teaching a person how to fish,” rather than just giving him the fish, is relevant at Liquid Web. When starting my journey here, my coworkers were very helpful and understanding. Whether it was asking questions, sharing notes, or training with veterans, I always had the resources I needed to learn and grow.

A huge thanks to those that mentored me: Rory, JC, Jennifer, Ian, and Steven. Thanks for teaching me “how to fish!”

In your eyes, what’s the difference between Liquid Web and other employers?

Our team outings are always amazing! Each quarter, our team will get out of the office and take half a day off to discuss the previous and upcoming quarters. The best part is that we get to pick the place we have our meeting (this involves a lot of food and fun!).

Over the last two years, we have gone to Top Golf, a Brazilian steakhouse, and Dave & Busters. A few other teams even went to Schlitterbahn, an amazing water park in Texas (I’m a little jealous of that one!).

Tell us about a truly rewarding experience you’ve had with a customer.

I was helping a Managed WordPress customer that had a site that was intermittently crashing. Initially, it looked like the site was being brute force attacked (which is when automation software from a malicious source tries to gain access to your site through attempting to “guess” your login credentials by trial-and-error using hundreds or thousands of login attempts) and the customer was worried the site might have been compromised.

After digging into the server’s processes and checking for malicious content, I found that wp-cron was causing the issue. It was causing too many cron jobs to run. Once I disabled wp-cron, the site came back online and ran smoothly once more.

The customer was very happy with the results. Not only was their site not compromised, but performance was also restored! They thanked me profusely. It is these kinds of scenarios that make me love being one of The Most Helpful Humans in Hosting™.

Work aside, what are some of your hobbies?

I love to play with my dog Rosey! My family and I are currently working on training her to play fetch (it doesn’t come natural to all dogs…who knew?). I am also on a Liquid Web kickball team. We meet up once a week to compete and have fun. This usually involves a few beers, a lot of laughs, and a few pulled muscles!

If you could have dinner with one famous person [dead or alive], who would it be?

Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, hands down. I really admire Teddy as a great conservationist. I would like to discuss our current climate issues and pick his brain on how he would encourage more people to get involved and help to make a difference.

You can follow Ethan Price on LinkedIn.

We hope you enjoyed our series, and stay tuned for the next Most Helpful Human in Hosting profile.