Jeromy Delgado credits the Marine Corps with saving his life. It was his commitment to joining the military that got him through high school.
“The Marine Corps pretty much saved my life, essentially,” Delgado said. “I was not a good kid and it straightened me out.”
At the time, he was a two-time high school dropout and was told he had to graduate high school or go to boot camp. He was inspired by his cousin who was a Marine and deployed during Operation Desert Storm.
Today, he is the co-founder and chief technology officer for ERH Technology Solutions. He credits much of his success in business and in life to his time in the Corps.
He jokes that the first lesson he learned at boot camp was “to keep (his) mouth shut,” and that his time in the Corps made him grow up fast.
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In reality, he has carried lessons of integrity and punctuality from the Marines into his business and is passing them on to his kids.
“Always have integrity, that’s the biggest thing, that’s what I teach my kids is integrity — you say you’re going to do something, do it,” Delgado said.
He also references common mantras used in the armed forces like, “If you’re on time you’re late, and if you’re early, you’re on time,” according to Delgado.
He lives by those words as the signs on the door at ERH Technology Solutions say the business opens at 7 a.m., Delgado is always early and is often in the office as early as 6:15 a.m.
He also got his start in IT through the Marines. While he started as a field radio operator, he attended small computer school through the Marines. He described the education as a rigorous course load that taught two years of material in three months.
This elevated his position to a small computer systems specialist and built the foundation for the skills he uses every day in the office with ERH Technology Solutions.
“They tell you that when you graduate from your computer school that you have enough knowledge to get a two-year degree, so that really piqued my interest in IT and gave me a stepping stone for when I got out.”
He started in IT with NTC Logistics in Gering as an information technology manager before branching off with the Holliday Family of Companies and helping to found ERH.
They started ERH while the country experienced quarantine restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, trying to capitalize on people being sent to work from home. From there, the business grew and is doing well. Delgado recently moved into a new office on Broadway.
ERH offers a wide variety of IT services to businesses, everything from hardware repairs on devices like PCs and laptops to network management and cybersecurity.
While serving, Delgado was first stationed in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and deployed to the Mediterranean Sea with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit in 2003 at the beginning of the Iraq War.
Delgado described the MEU as the “first responders” of the Marines. He said they are often deployed around the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf to maintain preparedness.
His deployment would take him around the world with stops off the coast of countries like Turkey and Djibouti on the Gulf Coast in eastern Africa. During this time, he monitored secure messages and radio traffic and said his messages were sent and received “all over the world.”
He still carries the lessons he learned in the Marines with him every day.
“Act how you would if somebody was watching, even if nobody’s watching,” Delgado said.
Contact Jack Underwood: jack.underwood@starherald.com, 308-632-9044.