Mike Borek has always been fascinated by technology, ever since he ran his first bulletin board service on a 300 baud analog modem using phone lines in grade school in the 1980s. Now as CEO of CoorWorks, Inc., a tech solutions company, he is still tapping into that same passion to help other companies thrive.
“My goal was to always be in a position to chase my interest and passion for innovation. I want to keep starting at the bleeding edge of tech – the combination of the new and the now,” said Borek, who graduated from Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in information management and technology.
“Launching new product lines, pursuing my own startups, and consulting and strategizing with others on their strategies and executions is just my idea of fun,” he added.
At CoorWorks, based in Herndon, Va., Borek and his team develop tech solutions for complex logistical operations, such as armored cash transport, ATM field maintenance and retail and remote operations management. He started the company as a carveout from another organization in 2019 and has organically grown CoorWorks without outside venture capital or private equity.
Borek’s team manages more than $5 billion a month in cash logistics for various national armored car and ATM processing organizations. They also manage access to more than 300,000 ATMs monthly and help run revenue-critical business operations for other industries.
CoorWorks is currently developing a machine learning forecasting engine for the ATM cash management industry, creating a fully automated and self optimizing decision algorithm to monitor machine cash positions in real-time, automate the ordering of cash to reload machines and to optimize the cash usage and profitability of ATM portfolios.
This kind of work is complex, Borek says, because they must factor in variables such as the current cost of cash, historical machine returns, WIC and EBT government benefit paydays and artificial demand events, such as concerts, sports games, etc.
“The project is personally meaningful as, again, I am in a position to leverage cutting edge technologies to solve interesting business problems and enable new growth strategies,” he said. “This is where I always wanted to be and have been consistently through my career.”
Borek’s career has included some incredible successes, including driving the design requirements for the IRS’ 1040 telephone filing system, plotting a 10-year IT investment strategy for the U.S. Postal Service, designing and developing the first Internet-based payment management for the World Bank, and starting two venture-backed tech startups.
Now, he is focused on using blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence foundations in new and exciting ways.
“Even with the rapid commoditization of baseline technologies and the advent of new scary predictions of the future of tech employment due to AI, there will always be a market for smart, driven, passionate leaders to emerge and drive the next generation,” Borek said.
He encourages current iSchool students to embrace that philosophy and be passionate about reaching their goals, just like he has.
“After years of hiring and firing, the one true statement I have concluded is that the smart companies hire on attitude and train for aptitude,” he said. “Be that, and the doors will open.”