This is the third post in my blog series in which I will feature people I know from the community: Salesforce employees, MVPs, User Group Leaders, Partners, and honestly, anyone who I’m connected with who is willing to share with me the answers to five simple questions. I hoping that this blog series will help everyone out in the community get better connected to others who are either like them, can help them, are nothing like them, can’t help them, or are simply people they haven’t met yet! After all, a stranger is simply a friend you don’t know yet.

For me, one of the greatest strengths of the Salesforce Ecosystem is its people and the connections that are shared.

So, if you are brave enough, even if you’ve never met me in person, fill out this form and I’ll feature you in an upcoming post. (In case I have confused anyone, the questions on the form about our relationship refers to you, the reader, and me, the author, Eric Dreshfield, and not the featured person in this post.)  Just beware, by completing the form, you are giving me permission to use that information in a future post, as well as allowing me to interject some of my own thoughts into your responses!

And now…I Introduce Mr. Dale Ziegler from Kansas City Southern Railway.

What’s your job title? Salesforce Administrator. OK….my REAL title is “Sales Application Specialist”, which was morphed from “Business Application Analyst”, but dedication to Salesforce has always been the intent. (EFD – Whoa, wait! What’s your real job title? I’m confused.)

What does that mean you do?  As the #soloadmin for The Kansas City Southern Railway, I am responsible for the infrastructure and requirements gathering for 2 Salesforce orgs (“the main org”: 209 users, and Freight Claims: 10 users), the declarative development of those orgs, facilitating conversations between IT and our programmatic development partner for web services and API’s to legacy systems, overall data integrity, analytics and executive reporting, consulting the admin for a 3rd org servicing our Environmental Response team (10 users)…plus HTML support for Marketing’s email communications, and all things Microsoft Access and SQL for my Sales Operations teammates…and I’m usually the one who brews the fresh pot of coffee in the break room because I don’t trust the age of what I find. (EFD – Solo Admin…three orgs…Coffee? Is there anything you don’t do, and with all that on your plate, how do you find time to be a husband, a dad & an active member of the Success Community?)

How long have you been involved with Salesforce.com (as a customer and/or an employee)? I’ve been in the Salesforce ecosystem for about 4.5 years now.

Bacon or sausage? Can’t I have both?  Don’t make me decide.

What’s more important: Who you know, or what you know?  What you know…self-reliance can sometimes be the most valuable tool! No matter the circumstance, one’s brain will always be with them while the “who’s” might not always be available at the drop of a hat.  (EFD – Ahem…and what am I, chopped liver? – and to clarify a little, when Dale reviewed my draft, he inidcated I was NOT chopped liver. Thanks Dale!)

How did our relationship start, and when? January 2014, you were in Kansas City for work and wanted to attend the KC User Group meeting. Some of us were getting together for dinner the night before the meeting, which resulted in the birth of #BBQForce. At the UG meeting, you got to see me fight through a 20-minute recap of #DF13 because I had completely lost my voice after KC experienced a 50-degree drop in temperatures just a few days before! (EFD – That was where I first met the awesomely, incredible Salesforce MVP Jennifer Wobser!)

And now the bonus question – What’s one fact about you that few people know, that will surprise me and my blog readers? I’ve been running for more than 10 years and have always tracked my mileage.  When I got to 3,000 miles in June 2010, my friends said they would put together a pub crawl if I ever got close to 5,000 miles.  On April 21, 2012, the “Get Dale to 5k 5k” was set up on a stretch of bars that I’d run between, “hydrating” at every bar, until we landed back at the original bar and I had finished the 5,000th mile.  The entire time, I had an engagement ring in my pocket and proposed to the lovely Amanda to close out the night! (EFD – Hmmm…interesting. My wife and I got married within 4 months of meeting online…getting close to 16.5 years together now)

You can find Dale on Twitter.