People at Prometheus Group: Stephen Taylor

Since Prometheus Group was founded in 1998, we have continued to find more ways to provide for our customers. We’ve grown to provide more holistic solutions with integrated offerings in planning and scheduling, reporting and analytics, permitting and safety, Master Data, and even shutdowns, turnarounds and outages (STOs). With offices and customers around the world and so many areas of expertise, it only makes sense that we would have passionate, empowered team members to lead the delivery and development of these solutions.

Stephen Taylor, the Product Lead for Prometheus Group STO solutions, began working at Prometheus Group back in 2015 after graduating from North Carolina State University. His six-year journey has given him the opportunity to play many roles in the company, from a technical support consultant to a senior program manager, making Stephen a trusted source of knowledge. His experience with Prometheus Group solutions and passion for innovation make him a great leader for our team, partners, and customers. Get to know Stephen here!
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1. Tell us about your role at Prometheus Group and what your day-to-day engagements look like. 

I am the product lead for the Shutdown, Turnaround, and Outage platform — also known as STO. I actively work with our development, sales engineers and sales team to ensure we are accurately talking about our products and that we understand the needs of our customers. Through that, I lead several sessions that focus on STOs during our onboarding process for new employees where they become familiar with our software and customers.  

We work with customers, listening to their needs, goals, and challenges to refine our offerings and create new functionality. I collaborate with the sales and development team members to make sure we take those ideas from concept to reality.
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2. You mentioned you’re the product lead. Is that new or have you been in that position for a while?

I have been in this role for the past several months. When I started at Prometheus Group six years ago, I was on our customer support team. Then, I began running implementations, where I travelled a good bit and got to spend time at customer’s sites in places like Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Canada. Travelling usually entailed configuration, implementation meetings, and super-user trainings.  

In 2018, I was promoted to be a project manager — specifically for a project with Marathon. Marathon wanted to partner with us to build a new solution for enhanced management of their turnarounds. So, from 2018 through 2020, I was managing the development of our turnaround projects for Marathon. This project eventually blossomed into the full STO Suite that we offer today.

Recently, I transitioned into this role, to focus solely on the STO platform. I had been managing projects in several different areas of the Prometheus Platform (Routine Maintenance, Mobility, Permitting and Safety, and STOs), but am passionate about improving STOs and wanted to focus my work in that area.
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3. Have you always been with Prometheus Group, or did you have previous maintenance management experience that led you to come here?

Prometheus Group is where I was able to realize my professional goals and where my career took off, but I had some experience in manufacturing on the production side before starting here. In college, I did a several-year co-op with Revlon at their manufacturing plant in Oxford, NC. Revlon was implementing SAP while I was there, which was helpful experience to have had when I started at Prometheus Group.  
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4. How does the Prometheus Group mission of building customer or partner relationships integrate with your day-to-day activities?

We're a cohesive team that supports our clients from all sides of the aisle: support, services, and software. Our customers want rich knowledge of the maintenance space, not just with one maintenance management tool, like SAP, but with any management tool. We provide our customers with each of the cogs on the wheel to make their movement through that lifecycle process efficient and effective.

Our customers might not be doing shutdowns and turnarounds every week, but they will be doing routine maintenance, permitting, reporting, and find themselves in some phase of the maintenance lifecycle that we support. They’re baking the cake and we give them the recipe book that makes using their ingredients that much easier.  

What I find refreshing about Prometheus Group is how we are willing to partner with our customers and expand our solutions to help solve specific problems as well as the overarching ones.

We’re not just a one-trick pony. We’re committed to working with our customers to produce the best solutions and support them throughout the asset lifecycle.

I’ve learned a lot since I was conducting client trainings onsite, but what has always stuck with me is that there’s nothing more valuable than listening to your customer.
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5. What in your opinion are some of the best practices from companies that are adopting the Prometheus Group STO module?

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that you do not need to keep doing things the way you are doing them now. We want to have the same outcome. We want to have a good execution, plan, and report, but the mechanism or methodology to get there does not need to be the same as what you’re using today. At the end of the day, there will be several constants or things that you must do to achieve your goals and objectives, but these goals can be achieved through various means. We’re here to help you refine your processes so they’re the best they can be.

At Prometheus Group, we don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution. There’s not necessarily a “Prometheus way” to do shutdowns and turnarounds. Each of our customers have their own tweaks and variations of processes, and we put ourselves in a position where we can accommodate those different use-cases.  

Now, many of our customers are generally doing the same macro-level things, but on a micro-level there are key differentiators. I think other companies in our position might come in and say, “this is the only way to do shutdowns and turnarounds.” I think Prometheus Group really trusts the customers’ expertise in their area but also adds value through our own experiences and knowledgebase.  

This is where we come to a good balance of finding ways to make configurable software that adjusts for multiple industries or companies. We have customers in nuclear power plants, petrochemical refineries, mines, or food and beverage plants all able to configure the software to make it work for them. Prometheus Group is so willing to engage and cover many different industries, I think that’s why our product may be a little more flexible compared to other companies. Overall, we do whatever we can to help our customers no matter where they are coming from.
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6. What is unique about working at Prometheus Group for you? What’s your favorite aspect of working at Prometheus Group?  

I'm fortunate to get to work so closely with our software development team. I think in many places, someone in my position may not get to work so closely with the development team, but here, we make sure we are closing that gap, keeping people in the loop. There’s a group of people who I’ve worked with very closely over the last several years who, if I need something, I can count on them to get it done. If I need something for a call tomorrow, I could go to them. They trust me to go to them with the right initiatives and information, and I trust them in return. I would also say that, especially in software development, there is usually a process made to help the team fulfill a certain goal. There may be times where breaking that process is the best way to achieve that goal. We see the big picture and go for it.

So, I would say what’s unique here is having co-workers who understand the need to look at the big picture and put in the effort to reach that vision. It's great to have an idea and in a few days, start to see that come to fruition in our products.

Another unique part of working at Prometheus Group is the ability to work with a wide variety of industries. We’re not just working with oil and gas companies; we’re talking to people in different areas, and, from a professional perspective, that really allows you to grow. You’re not getting cornered into this one industry. While there are unique aspects of each industry, there are general principles and standards that can be applied to maintenance and reliability across sectors.  
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7. What’s a fun fact about you that isn’t work related?  

My wife and I are Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) who advocate for children in foster care. In every foster-case there are three tables in the courtroom: the family, the state, and the children. We go to court to advocate for the best interests of the children. We’ve been doing that for the last three or four years. It’s been a truly rewarding and humbling experience, and it’s a program that we are proud to be involved with.

Check out the Prometheus Platform to see our wide range of enterprise asset management and support solutions. To view our current employment opportunities and apply to join our team, take a look at our careers.