In this ADDcast episode, CSI Committee co-chairs Eric Boberg from Dysart’s and Doug Beverage from Crystal Flash discuss the formation of the new Core Systems & Integrations (CSI) Committee, which combines technical and integration-focused discussions into a collaborative forum for all AUG members. They share the committee’s vision, upcoming topics such as server architecture, cloud vs. on-prem hosting, and AI, and explain how members of all technical skill levels can learn, network, and help shape future discussions.
You can subscribe to the ADDcast at any of the following locations, or read the transcript below.
Apple Podcasts / iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/add-systems-addcast/id1604865113
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1atj72i5AnIwTJDBFD9DzX
Amazon / Audible: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/df7c9f4a-8a3f-431f-8787-50eee85b2bcd
Castbox: https://castbox.fm/channel/id4744519?country=us
You can also search “ADD Systems” wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
Brian Cohen: Welcome to ADDcast. I’m ADD Systems Multimedia Specialist, Brian Cohen. Joining me today are Eric Boberg, Chief Information Officer at Dysart’s, and Doug Beverage, Chief Information Officer at Crystal Flash. Together, they are the Co-chairs of the ADD User Group’s CSI Committee. Gentlemen, thank you both for joining me today.
Doug Beverage: Thank you, Brian. Happy to be here.
Eric Boberg: Yeah, thanks, Brian. Appreciate it.
Brian: Eric, we’ll start with you. If you could tell us a little bit about your company and your role there.
Eric: Oh, sure. Yeah, happy to. As you said, I’m the Chief Information Officer here at Dysart’s. I’ve been employed basically my whole career, so we’re looking at 35 years here at Dysart’s. We are a few – well, we do many different things, including fuel. We own 10 convenience stores, we’re in the wholesale fuel business, we own a truck stop and two restaurants, and we’re also in fleet fuel locations, and we own a marina. We’re in the lubricants business. So, gosh, it takes me a minute to think of all of these different lines of business that we’re in, and I’ve really been blessed to be at Dysart’s for my full career, and look forward to starting this new CSI Committee with the ADD User Group.
Brian: Fantastic. And Doug, same question to you, if you could tell us a little bit about your company and your role there.
Doug Beverage: Yeah, absolutely. So, Crystal Flash is a propane fuels and lubricants marketer distributor headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We service throughout Michigan. We have home heat propane customers. We also service propane into industrial and agricultural commercial usages as well. On the fuel side, we’re providing mostly diesel, but also gasoline and other fuels to anybody that has onsite fueling needs, again, agriculture, construction, kind of some of the bigger industry segments for us there. And then again, we also service lubricants, and then we have a transportation division as well. We don’t get so much into the wholesale side of the fuel and products, but we do offer third-party common carrier services. As noted, Crystal Flash, 100% employee-owned company. I always like to throw that out there as well. We’re roughly about 300 employees, and my role there is Chief Information Officer. I’ve been with the company for a little over 10 years now, come from a background in software development, and then later IT management from different industry verticals. So, only been in the fuels and propane world for about the last 10 years, but it’s been a great journey at Crystal Flash. A very interesting industry with a lot of good challenges and opportunities. And really look forward to working with Eric and the team at ADD, as we form this new Core Systems and Integrations Committee, and look at how it can continue to help us improve our operations at Crystal Flash, but also help others to leverage the solutions within ADD’s ecosystem.
Brian: Fantastic. A lot of diversity between both companies. So, moving this into the ADD User Group, how long have you each been members of the AUG, and what has your experience been with the group thus far? Eric, we’ll start with you.
Eric: Yeah, sure, Brian. So, I’ve been a member of the AUG for about, let’s see, four years. It was three years ago at the last BTC, three years ago, where I actually started the Lubricants and Warehouse Management group of the ADD User Group, and then I ran that as the chair for three years until I felt like I needed to be doing something different, and so we joined forces with Doug to start this CSI Committee.
Brian: And Doug?
Doug: Yeah, so I’ve been involved with the ADD User Group really about the same timeline as Eric. I got engaged during the BTC back in 2023. That’s when, actually, when Crystal Flash was implementing E3 was shortly thereafter, right? So we went live on E3 in August of 2023. And so, became engaged with the AUG at that time. I got involved with the SmartConnect Committee as a Co-chair, and then later Chair of that committee, and now, of course, we’re folding the responsibilities of the SmartConnect Committee and the Technical Committee, and maybe some other things together under this new CSI umbrella. But definitely found the AUG a very rewarding experience, one in that it gives you the opportunity to interact with ADD and build a deeper relationship with the folks at ADD, but the number one thing for me is also the networking with folks like Eric and other professionals that are utilizing the solutions in the same industries, facing the same challenges that we have, and being able to network and collaborate and share ideas and best practices amongst that group has been very rewarding for me.
Brian: Fantastic. So you’ve both had leadership roles within the AUG already. So can you talk a bit about what inspired each of you to come together to form this new committee?
Eric: Yeah, sure. It’s actually kind of an interesting story, because, as I said, three years ago, I started the Lubricant Warehouse Management Committee of AUG, but I always felt like I was, I don’t want to say a misfit, but I didn’t feel as though I could contribute as much, because I was on the technical side. So I wasn’t a daily user, whereas I think a lot of the members in that group are daily users, so it was, it was almost a struggle for me to come up with topics. But again, with that collaboration that Doug was talking about, certainly we made it through those three years just fine, and it’s continuing on, and continues to be strong with the Lubricants Committee, but I wanted more of that technical side of things to make use of the skills that I have, and when I heard Doug was also looking for a Co-chair with SmartConnect, and then we just kind of started it. It almost happened organically, didn’t it, Doug? I don’t recall there was like, hey, we need to form a new committee; it was more organic. SmartConnect was certainly technical, but we wanted to bring in other things other than just integrations.
Doug: Yeah, absolutely, Eric. It did kind of just organically formulate, right? We had the SmartConnect Committee, which was, yes, very technical, and frankly, as Co-chair and Chair in the SmartConnect Committee, I was frequently challenged by a high level of difference of the people within the committee, our membership within the SmartConnect Committee, because we had technical folks like Eric and I coming from an IT or a development background that really wanted to dig into the technical details, and then we had a lot of business owners, stakeholder leadership level folks who are like, what is SmartConnect? What can this thing do? How can this make my business better? But they’re not looking to figure out how to make a SOAP UI call or deal with the details of, you know, what happens when things don’t go right, and that type of stuff. You couple that with the Technical Committee having kind of floundered, I think, a little bit at the AUG without a chair for a while, and I think Eric and I both kind of had been looking at the Technical Committee as a potential. On the SmartConnect side, I was struggling a little bit with content and topics to keep a monthly meeting going, and I think between those conversations, Eric and I just kind of realized, like, hey, what if we brought these things together? It would allow us to give us more technical topics than just integrations, and really help maybe fill a need within the AUG, and within the AUG leadership, and kind of the enhancement process as well to kind of help group some of these integration things together, because the general category that comes out, like best practices and enhancements, has continued to grow over the years, right? And it’s gotten a little unwieldy, so hoping this can kind of fold into that.
Brian: So let’s get into the name of the group, the CSI Committee. While Ted Danson isn’t involved, and I don’t think crimes are being solved here, can you talk about the meaning behind the name, and how you both came up with it?
Eric: Oh, goodness. Doug has full credit on this one, as we were deciding what we were going to be calling this new group, and again, a migration or a combination of SmartConnect and Technical Committee, you know, we were just patting around ideas. I think it even happened at one of the leadership teams, where all of the user group chairs get together. And we started brainstorming there, we wrote those down, and then Doug sent me an email saying, hey, this is what I have so far, and I just looked down through the list, and my eyes just stopped on Core Systems and Integration, because I immediately went to the acronym, the CSI, and honestly, any group that you can remember the name of, I think you’re ahead of the curve, right?
Doug: Yeah, and I appreciate that, Eric. I mean, I’ll take some credit for being the one to prompt AI with the list of names that we came up with, and some input, right? But you’re right, it was that AUG LT Meeting, and we were batting around names, and so I threw a bunch of names into AI and said, these are the names; this is what we’re looking to do. Give me some more ideas, and it spit out a list. And I think between Eric and maybe Megan Carr, the former AUG President. That CSI, man, once the acronym hit, it was a click, and we knew it was a fit. So I think there is that aspect of it’s catchy, as Eric pointed out, right? And then help attract people to the group and raise awareness for us, but I think also maybe a little deeper meaning than that, right? Hopefully there are no bodies or no legal crimes being committed, but Core Systems and Integrations can lead to things that sometimes seem like a little bit of voodoo black magic to non-technical users. And so, yeah, maybe, maybe there’s a little double entendre there, but mostly I think we just like the catchy name, and it was easy to pick a theme song.
Eric: Yeah, that’s right, because anybody that was at BTC hopefully attended the User Group Meeting when I came on stage to talk about my committee. The theme song was playing as I was getting on stage. And again, you know, I mean, yes, as Doug said, this is the, you know, there’s definitely a lot of serious content, things that we can talk about, you know, SmartConnect, the core systems, and that can go in lots of different directions, but we’re also here to have fun, so this is the overall personality, if you will, of this group. First and foremost, we’re here to have a good time. Yeah, we’re going to learn stuff, but we’re going to have a good time doing it.
Brian: Well, I want to dive a little bit into that voodoo black magic you brought up, Doug, because I’d like to learn more about the cross-section of AUG members you’re hoping to attract for this committee, because the name might suggest that some topics are going to be highly technical in nature, but maybe not all. So, is the committee open to ADD users of varying technical expertise and specialties?
Doug: Absolutely. We welcome all participants, right? Anybody that’s willing to come and participate, wants to learn, wants to share and be part of the committee, and they can do that, obviously, at a level that they’re comfortable with. I think, Brian, naturally, yes, there are going to be parts of the topics and parts of the discussion that may get highly technical, and there are going to be other parts that are going to be very strategic and business-oriented, and so that’s a balancing act. I think that is one of the things, previously, I know in the SmartConnect Committee I struggled with a little bit, as I kind of alluded to, and so I’m hoping co-chairing here with Eric, he’s going to help bring some fresh energy with me about how we can help to address that and make sure that not only do we welcome everyone but that they are able to participate and get something out of it without being totally bored or mind meld, and it is a little bit of a challenge.
Eric: Yeah, let me just jump in there as well, because it’s going to be on you and me, Doug, right, to advertise the monthly meetings and its content. So, Brian, yes, you ask a fantastic question: what’s the membership base look like, and we want to keep it available for everybody. However, there are going to be some meetings that will likely, and this will roll out, and we’re going to learn as we go. We’ve only had one meeting so far, right, but we’re going to learn as we go, and if there are going to be more technical things, we’ll be sure to advertise that to the group. So, you know, if you have an end user that doesn’t know anything or doesn’t really care to know about the particular topic, then we’re not requiring users to show up to every single meeting, right? But on the other hand, wouldn’t it be neat if we had a bunch of SmartConnect users that we spent a meeting just doing some demos, doing some SOAP calls, let’s see how this returns data, let’s see how it updates data, and all that. I think that would be valuable for not only technical folks, but maybe non-technical folks that might want just to get a little more flavor of how does this actually work behind the scenes.
Brian: And I know you’re touching on some of the topics that you’re going to be focusing on. Do you have any nailed down that you’re looking to hit throughout the rest of 2026 here at these monthly meetings?
Doug: Yes, so we actually have a set agenda for our July meeting coming up on July 9. We’ll be talking about server architecture and test environments versus test databases. That was actually a suggested topic that came out of our first meeting and was discussed a little bit in there as well. So we are trying both, yes, to respond to the interest of the group, so we will be flexible in topics, but we know the server architecture. We’re also planning for the August Best Practices AUG call is going to be in coordination with the CSI Committee, and there, we’re going to be looking at acquisitions and SmartConnect and best practices around SmartConnect and acquisitions. So that’s one of those maybe a little less technical conversations, more business-focused kind of conversations, and let people know about some of the content. But then we have a whole litany of other potential topics that we’ve thrown out there. Eric, would you like to maybe share a couple more?
Eric: Yeah, sure, I’d be happy to. Before I talk about future things to get people excited, I also want people to get excited about this next meeting in this month, in July. This server architecture, and Doug, I don’t think I even reached out to you. I’ve been busy with other things. But there’s another piece that we will be touching on at the meeting, and that’s on-prem or hosted within the company versus hosted in the cloud service that ADD Systems also supplies. So when we talk about server architecture, I hope we’re going to have users from both camps, you know, camps that are hosting their own servers on-prem and others that are hosting it in the cloud through ADD Systems, and because I’d be really interested in how that conversation develops. I can certainly share how on-prem hosting works, and hopefully we can have others that will share how the cloud hosting works. And who knows, you may have some customers that were interested in maybe moving from cloud to on-prem or vice versa, on-prem to cloud, and we can sort of have those conversations as well. So I’m really interested to see how, and this may obviously launch into other meetings as well. So on top of that, also moving forward, I think we’re going to be talking about more specifics in server architecture. Maybe we can talk about SQL Server in particular, maybe architecture. And again, we’re going to take some leads from our members. You know, right now there’s what, three SQL servers that you can, depending on what you have for products, you can have up to three SQL servers, and you know, conversations about, do you need to keep three SQL servers on three different hosts or servers? AI is another very big topic. It was a big topic at BTC, and hopefully we’ll be able to continue talking. AI can be applied in so many different ways that it’s almost too big of a concept to think about, but one thing that I got really excited about was helping make use of AI for the help files, so maybe we could just kind of explore what that might look like during one of our monthly meetings. So that’s just kind of a tease or an intro into the different areas we may be going in, but as you can tell, this is more of a technical committee. Yes, it can have some end-user impacts, but server architecture and end users – you may have, again, some end users that are interested in how things work behind the scenes, and I hope we attract some of those.
Brian: So, can you walk us through the frequency and general format of these meetings that you’re going to have as we move forward?
Doug: Yeah, absolutely. So the meetings are held monthly, like most of the other AUG committees. We’re meeting monthly from April through September. We’re hosting those on the second Thursday of each month, from 2 to 3 pm, available via Zoom, and you can get all of the meeting recordings, as well as the upcoming meeting calendar and information, all available through the ADD portal. So put the plug in for that, as well. As far as general format, typically, we like to start with kind of a little reminder about the goals and intent of the group; typically provide a little bit of room for folks to make introductions, so if we have any new callers that want to introduce themselves or their companies into the group, we like to do that, and then review and talk about any enhancements or submissions during the enhancement submission process. And then finally, whatever the specific topics of the meeting are going to be, as we mentioned, server architecture: test database versus test system are coming up in July. And then at the end of that, obviously we welcome Q and A throughout the presentations, but then at the end, we typically like to do a little wrap-up kind of open floor and allow people to ask any questions that they want about the content that we’ve covered, and we typically try to gather input for topics for future discussions and see where people are most interested in. So certainly Eric and I have the topics that we’re interested in – we’re interested in for Dysart’s or for Crystal Flash – but this is about the membership, and we want folks to feel that they can participate and influence, and they absolutely can help us drive what that content is going to look like, and what the particular topics are that they want to see.
Eric: And to add to that, Doug, is anybody listening to this and is interested in this committee, the other important piece is we respect your time, and we will keep it to an hour, and so if there’s opportunity for spillover into more conversations, we’ll make sure that we schedule another meeting for that.
Brian: Fantastic. And you mentioned the members. How has the response been from the ADD user community thus far?
Doug: The response so far has been fairly good, I think. After BTC, we added another four or five users, I believe, to the committee, so I think right now the total list that I’m communicating with is somewhere around 70 individuals, so we’ve got a fairly good spectrum there, and a number of companies. At the first meeting, as Eric mentioned, we’ve only had one since launching the group. But at our first meeting, I think we had about 30 participants, 25 to 30 participants total. Yeah, so the response has been pretty good, but we’re always looking for more. And in fact, I’ve actually recently, after reviewing some of the enhancement submissions through the portal again, there are a couple of items that fell under the guise of CSI because they were integration-related or other items that would fall within our department. So I actually reached out to the individuals that submitted those issues and asked if they wanted to join the group. Come on in. So, yeah, absolutely. We’ve had a good response, and we’re looking to hopefully grow that even more.
Brian: And if anybody was listening to this and happened to be on the fence about joining, what would you say to encourage them to get involved?
Doug: It’s free; there’s a very low list of entry. Again, we do welcome everybody to come; you can kind of choose your participation level. Okay, so yes, it’s going to take some of your time to come in and have a listen, but maybe join us for the July meeting. Just listen in. You don’t have to speak up if you’re not comfortable doing that, but give it a try and see what you can find out. I’ve picked up a lot of tidbits and learnings through different AUG meetings, and definitely found it a valuable use of my time. So, hopefully they will, too.
Eric: Yeah, and I think, you know, if you’re on the fence, give it a try. Tune in. While we enjoy people participating during the meetings, if you’re new at it and you just want to listen, that’s fine as well. We’re not going to force you to talk; we’re not going to force you to participate. We would love you to, but we’re not going to force it. So, as a new committee member, if you’re on the fence, try us out and just listen, and you’ll see how much fun we are. I mean, just listen to this podcast, right? I mean, we’re just having fun.
Brian: Of course. So, if anybody listening wants to get in touch with either of you to learn more, what would be the best way for them to do so?
Eric: Yeah, for me it’s going to be my email address, and it’s very simple: eric@dysarts.com.
Doug: And likewise for me, it’s going to be email also, and my email is dougb@crystalflash.com.
Brian: Eric and Doug, thank you both for taking the time to speak with me today.
Eric: Hey, thanks so much. That was a lot of fun.
Doug: Yeah, thanks for having us, Brian.
Brian: To keep up with the latest happenings at ADD Systems, visit addsys.com/blog, or connect with us on social media by following ADD Systems on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or X. If you have any questions about ADDcast, feel free to reach out to us at addcast@addsys.com. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.
Leave a Reply