Meet Anthony Pietramala: the 'boring' man who defies expectations, emerging as a vibrant force in digital innovation.

If Rita Ingram is the most interesting person in the world, then Anthony wants you to know he is the opposite. But our self-proclaimed "boring" man turned out to be much more fascinating than he thought! Anthony Pietramala, a seasoned senior UX designer, emerges as a vibrant and multifaceted individual within the realm of digital innovation. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for crafting immersive digital experiences, Anthony brings a wealth of expertise and creativity to the table. His journey in the design field is marked by a blend of technical proficiency and artistic flair, honed through years of dedicated practice and exploration. Beyond his professional endeavors, Anthony's zest for life is evident in his diverse interests, from savoring delectable ice cream creations to embarking on adventures across the globe. An advocate for collaboration and mindful consumption, Anthony's presence resonates as a beacon of creativity and authenticity, enriching both the design community and those fortunate enough to cross paths with him.

Join us in celebrating Anthony's achievements and in looking forward to many more successes together at Tranztec.

Tranztec:
Congratulations, you are the very first marketing department member to be highlighted in our Driving Success series. 

Anthony Pietramala:
Thank you, thank you. This a mistake because I was just thinking about what I was going to say and I was like "wow, I am actually like, incredibly boring".

Tranztec:
Yeah right, stop that. This is going to be great!

Anthony:
I mean I'm literally competing with Marie's Pirates of the Caribbean from last month. 

Tranztec:
*laughs* Let's jump in. Our first question is always official title and how long have you been with the Tranztec?

Anthony:
My official title is Senior UX Designer and I believe I've been with the company since August.

Tranztec:
Please tell us what a Senior UX Designer does. 

Anthony:
So, we have a lot of digital products and a lot of digital products that we are trying to produce new. I do some of the research, I do the UI design. I do the user journeys through those products. So, what that means is that I'll do the look and feel the products and I also am a component in deciding on how that works. That's usually led by someone else. So, like, I'm not the authority on how these things should work. I usually heavily rely on subject matter experts. So when I was doing the [redacted] project, that was David Tardich, so he really had a heavy hand in deciding how things would function. It was really just my job to listen and then follow best practices on how to make his ideas or his feedback into the best product I could make.

Mostly I try to view myself as not necessarily an authority on what the best thing is, from a solution standpoint, like I try to just take the information that my SME gives me and then help them navigate the best solution in a way through conversations and obviously I lean on other people in the company outside my SME, but yeah, it's a very collaborative process.

Tranztec:
It has to be collaborative, doesn't it? So, do you work with almost every department? It feels like it. 

Anthony:
Especially considering that I don't have a history in logistics, which is its own kind of language of itself. So it requires me to be relying on other people quite a lot.

Tranztec:
That brings us to a good topic. How did you end up in logistics?

Anthony:
Oh boy, do I do like the full journey or do I do like the five year journey?

Tranztec:
Whatever you want, this is your interview. 

Anthony:
So the way I describe how I even got into this field is when I was in like high school. I really enjoyed drawing and Photoshop. My sister's boyfriend at the time was like into, like web design. He bought himself a Wacom tablet and ended up not using it. So he just gave it to me. So I'd use a Wacom tablet to draw in Photoshop. And I was really, really good at it. And I was like, oh, I should just make a job out of this, which doesn't really make any sense because I was really, really good at math and science at the time, but whatever. I just like arbitrarily chose to design. My curriculum was like heavily focused on user experience and user research. However, when I got out the jobs I can initially get were more standard agency. So I started in environmental design. So I worked with a London based company, which is really cool, because it's the first time I got to travel by myself International. So they flew me out to London. I was actually their only American employee at the time, which is really awkward because like, I just went to an empty office. Worked by myself for like six months until they hired someone else, which is incredibly awkward. But um, I Yeah, so I'd work on environmental spaces. So for things like CES, which is like a big tech show, we worked with companies like Amazon and Hulu to like design with their spaces would look like so it's a little bit of interior design, which is not something I would even say I'm particularly good at, but it was interesting, like first experience in like the design world. But from there I had a more traditional agency experience where you're kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. So I was doing a lot of branding, web design, some product design, some print design, and I was doing that for maybe five or six years between a bunch of agencies and then at my last permanent job before this was at an agency called Moontide. I was really their digital specialist excelled quite a lot in figma, which is the industry standard for web design and UX design. I helped, you know, get them to doing some UX best practices and I knew this what I wanted to do but they were still pushing me to some other areas where most of my time wasn't really spent on it. I wanted to like learn more and really invest extra time into UX so when I was searching again for jobs that was a focus. So I should mention this me and my wife went on a supposed to be a month and change vacation to Italy for our honeymoon, one that we didn't necessarily ask for time off. So I just was like, it'll be a clean slate, I'll leave my job, like we'll travel for a while and then I'll look for a job. So when I was looking, I looked for UX centric jobs and my interview with John was soooooo positive. It was so fantastic. I wasn't too sure about like how things are gonna work out because I was also, this is going to sound like I'm always on vacation but I was like going on vacation right after talking to John, with my family in I believe it was North Carolina at the time and so I knew they're looking for somebody and I thought maybe that would make it not work out but yeah, it worked out really well. Like the reviews were really positive and like really good vibes coming in here. And I think so far things have been really paying off. I feel really good about the things I've been able to produce here since coming.

Tranztec:
That's very awesome. You kind of answered what was going to be my next question. You're talking about all the different types of design you've done. I was going to ask did you have a favorite, but like UX is where you are.

Anthony:
I love making digital experiences specifically. I really like when I have no experience, or I don't like have a preconception of what the product is like. When I was working on the [redacted] it was like incredibly fun and interesting to dive into because it is such a niche product. But it's so general purpose in a way too. So like there's you have some intuition on what it should be but also there's so much to figure out and learn about and don't get me wrong like even though I made the product there's still a lot that I am not a master of in the product, right? Like I can't do it. I personally can't write the regex code, which is, you know, a core function of part of it, but it does help me think about it from a new user perspective, which in its own way is extremely beneficial. But yeah, I really, really enjoy creating digital products.

Tranztec:
Very cool. So you said you kind of got into design in high school, because you're good at it. Was there like a dream job before design when you were younger?

Anthony:
Oh, that's interesting. Was it a dream? Well, you know, I think everyone likes to feel like they're really good at something. You know, when they're good at something that like really feeds your ego and I was, I couldn't really show you now, unfortunately, because you know, skills deteriorate. But I was really, really, really, I was really good at art when I was young and obviously like, how that translates into a job is pretty abstract when you're young. You know, it's like, I like music, I guess I'll be a musician. So, I guess like I thought about being an artist, although I will say when I got older into high school, and this is something I brought up before actually with you guys is I did think about becoming a psychologist or therapist. That was like a consideration for a minute. And then I found Photoshop and I was like oh well I guess I'll be designer instead.

Tranztec:
That's interesting. You draw a distinction between artist and designer.

Anthony:
Hmm. Especially now I think there's a big difference between them like when I was young I didn't think there was. But in design, there is a lot more rights and wrongs. And in art I don't believe there's such thing. I guess you'd say there's like rules for like, making things visually appealing to a degree and like harmonious that we follow in design. But, from my perspective, there's no such thing as like, doing art wrong, but there is such a thing as doing design wrong. Even if there's almost infinite solutions to the same problem in design; it still is possible to do it wrong.

Tranztec: 
That is very intriguing, My stick figures come out round. 

Anthony:
And yet you are still doing it right.

Tranztec:
Yeah, according to your definition there's no wrong way to do art. But let's let's say on the young Anthony path you mentioned a sister do you have any other siblings?

Anthony:
Yeah, I have a brother and you know two parents and I have four nieces and nephews, two nieces two nephews. Both my siblings have a son and daughter each. All I think under six now. Well, between two and six years old.

Tranztec:
 I'm assuming your family is going to see this because you're gonna send it to everyone. Do you have a favorite niece or nephew?

Anthony:
Absolutely not. Yeah, no, my nieces and nephews are really really great. They're all so different from each other, which is fun. And they can all talk now which is, this is maybe a controversial opinion, but like when kids start to talk it's like, like obviously have a personality before but now they like the ability show their personality more. Which that makes it really fun.

Tranztec:
You're married?

Anthony:
Yep, married to my wife Camille.

Tranztec:
How did you meet?

Anthony:
So digitally, we met on ol' Tinder. However, our first date was ice cream at a place called Morelli's. Which, as like general dating advice I always suggest people do ice cream as first dates is because well, A, I think most people love ice cream and B, it has like a nice expiration date. Like the ice creams is going to either melt or you're gonna eat it and then move on.

I love ice cream. And it's cheap by the way! I love that about ice cream first dates.

Tranztec:
What's your go to then? What's your go to ice cream order?

Anthony:
Um, so the cool thing about ice cream is you can do like a million samples. So, what I'll do is I'll always get half vanilla and half like a flavor that's gonna be like a high contrast. So usually like something either really fruity or like really like something with an intense flavor. So, like that when you mix an intense flavor with the vanilla, the vanilla will help chill the intense out, but allows you to still go back and forth. So vanilla is my first flavor, but the second flavor changes depending on the ice cream shop.

Tranztec: 
Are you doing sundaes like getting toppings or it's just straight ice cream?

Anthony:
Um, I have a thing with toppings on ice cream that I only really like nuts and I'll only do like one type of nuts on ice cream. I feel like when I do like too many things on it; It gets like I can't taste ice cream anymore. With that said though, like I'll crush a Ben and Jerry's. Which, if you ever had Ben and Jerry's it usually has like a million fillings on it. But like It's not ice cream to me. It's like a different kind of frozen dessert. It doesn't feel like that nice texture that ice cream has.

Tranztec:
John and I know you are a foodie. I mean, look at that description of ice cream.

Anthony:
*Laughs* Yeah, obviously.

Tranztec:
What is your favorite meal?

Anthony:
I think as a foodie that's very hard to answer. Even the way I order food when I go out to places is even based on my preferences because like my view on food is kind of my view on a bunch of things now. It's whatever you do well is the best thing for me to eat. And I guess what my favorite meal for me when if I'm the cook because that's the most consistent cook in my life. I got it always changes but I just made a paneer tikka masala That was unbelievable. It's one of the best tikka masala I've ever had. So I'd say that's my favorite meal at this current moment, but it's always changing. Although I could probably just say ice cream. And that's permanently my favorite real because like I've never had or I very rarely had any ice cream I didn't like.

I mean think about it this way, right? Like you go to a store and you buy like a meal right? Like a premade meal or prepackaged meal and like a lot of times it tastes disgusting but ice cream, which you can get at a grocery store premade; it almost always tastes amazing. Like there's something about ice cream I think that transcends like other goods in a lot of ways. Maybe because it's frozen, you know? But yeah, I think ice cream is my real answer.

Tranztec:
*Laughs* We got there. So, tell us where you're from because you have moved around a little bit.

Anthony:
I grew up on Long Island. That was where I spent most of my life. I moved out of Long Island right after I graduated college, I was 21. Technically, that was my first design job for really short time, it was like a design internship in Charleston, South Carolina. So my parents moved to Charleston my dad like surprise retired and I'm like, alright, sick like I'll see what Charleston is like with you because I don't have a "real" job yet. I just graduated college; I don't have like a job that like locks me in anywhere. So I went to Charleston, I got an internship at a real estate product company called Boomtown which is a confusing thing. But anyway, I was there for six months in Charleston and then I moved to Brooklyn for probably about a year, which is probably my favorite place ever lived. That really got me into urbanism to a degree like this idea of or especially this idea of being able to walk everywhere. Because it really, even though I hated the cost of living, being able to walk everywhere I think really gives you a quality of life that you can't put a number on. It's very, very positive. After I was put on remote or after I ended up with a remote job. I moved back to Charleston. I was able to get a house while I was there. Well I mean that's precisely why I moved there is because I could afford a home there and I definitely wasn't able to afford one in New York. And then from Charleston, the company I was working for unfortunately, ceased to exist. So Atlanta, Georgia is the closest big city so I ended up moving to Atlanta where I continued working at another agency.

Tranztec:
Very cool. So, New York to South Carolina back to New York back to South Carolina and then Georgia.

Anthony:
Yes, although I'll say my two New York's were completely different New York's. Like Long Island you can be there your whole life and never go to New York City. Even though there's a nice train that takes you in. It's like it's called Long Island because it's incredibly long. Yeah, so my next time I was in Brooklyn, it was a very, very different experience.

Tranztec:
In your travels up and down the North to the South, have you ever been to Ohio?

Anthony:
I've never been to Ohio. The furthest north I've been is Chicago last year. My wife and I have been traveling quite a lot over our relationship but that's closest I have ever been to Ohio. Or Indianapolis? I don't know what's closer actually. I, as a classic American, don't know geography.

Tranztec:
They're about equal. Both are about three and half hours away from our Perrysburg Headquarters. 

Anthony:
I am planning on making a trip up there to HQ when it gets a bit warmer. Originally, I said I was gonna come up this month but I was advised that was not the best decision.

Tranztec:
We can't wait to see you. On the topic of Tranztec, what is the thing you enjoy the most here?

Anthony:
It was realizing that John's thing wasn't an act. Right, like I was interviewing with John and he was paradise. So, I was like, he's gonna be a great guy to work for. And then he hit me up on Slack. I can't remember the exact message he said but it was like, unbelievably positive. Like so grateful. Which obviously he doesn't have to be, you know, they literally pay me to be here, but it was so kind so grateful. I was like, Alright, this is gonna be a good place to work for. And you know it is. I'm having a fantastic time here.

John Bolitho:
That was a great answer.

Anthony:
But that was a serious concern by the way cuz you guys neither of you guys been interviewing for a while but I will tell you places I have worked for before here, the people I interviewed were not the same people I worked with. I mean, they were literally the same people, but their attitudes were very different. Upon working with them and obviously it goes both ways. It's like it's scary to hire people for that same reason. But yeah, it's all a bit scary. Setting out to a place but attitudes and personalities could change quite a lot.

Tranztec:
Sounds like the proof is in the pudding. That's why Tranztec is a 2024 top workplace.

Over your career, is there a specific work product that makes you say like I'm really proud of this project or design? Something that you know, you worked really hard on and it came out fantastic.

Anthony:
Yeah, so the most proud I was from a project isn't necessarily because of how good it came because when I look back on it, I'm probably not very proud of it. But the first agency job that I've ever gotten. There was a lot of competition for it. And they like had a test project to get the job. And they got a lot of submissions on this test project, a lot. And I was like, Yeah, I'm really early in my career. I was really raw and I'm almost embarrassed to explain to you my solution was but despite having like very little experience in it really, I like beat out a lot of people. And it was an interior design to a degree because that first job that environmental design job and I'm incredibly proud of that because it's like you know, it's the first big hire of my career. Like it kind of secured me staying in this field. And B, it was like extremely competitive. And I think something about that really like feeds. Like I don't I don't think I have the ego but I'm very competitive. And when like stuff like that happens to you. I feel really proud. It does feel good to it. I tried to be like a very gracious winner. Yeah, but it does feel good.

Tranztec:
It feels good to win.

Anthony:
It does feel good to win. I try to be like a very gracious winner. Yeah, but it does feel good.

Tranztec:
So, what do you do in your free time? What does Anthony do when he clocks out? Because you know, you have much better work life balance than John or me. 

Anthony:
So I'll hit on that like that idea a little bit. But yeah, since being with my wife, my wife is very much about work life balance. So I used to have terrible work life balance before this. For I guess the last. Wow. Almost five years of my life.

Tranztec:
I meant to ask you how long you had been together? We just started talking about ice cream and I got distracted.

Anthony:
July 26, 2019, was our first date. Then we were official November 7. We got married in 2022, on September 19. But I have much better work life balance since being with my wife. And with that said though, what we end up doing is mostly a lot of nothing but I will say life is actually always busy like because my hobby a lot of times is cooking. Cooking actually does take forever if I do like a good meal prep. We play board games. I travel quite a bit with my life. But that's usually so we'll do like weekend trips sometimes but often we will have to take off some work for a couple of days. But yeah, so I'd say travel, board games you know, art less often, but yeah, date nights eating out. Yeah, they're all my hobbies right now.

Tranztec:
Where have you been? Do you have a favorite place you to have traveled together?

Anthony:
I'm gonna give a hot take right now and a take that will hurt my wife's heart. But the world is very nice, right like, the world is beautiful. There's so much to do, so much to eat, so much to see in the world. But like after seeing a bunch of places, they all get more and more similar. Yeah, the more places you see the more alike they are.

Oh, the one place I do suggest at least of the place that I've been internationally that's worthwhile for people to go to is I really, really love Lisbon, Portugal. I think it's a really good place for Americans to go. Because a lot of them speak English. So it's like low barrier of entry. The cost of living is much, much lower. So it's like affordable, like the more expensive part would be getting there. And the food is fantastic. The people are so friendly. The architecture of that city is beautiful. I will say not it's not very handicap friendly; because it's multi levels. Like the way the city is it's like very like there's alleyways that take you upstairs to random places. The city is very winding and like you'll get random views because of the elevation of the city like it just keeps on going up and down. It's a gorgeous city. Just getting lost in it was one of my favorite trips. I think we spent a week in Lisbon. Then we went to Spain and a couple other places but Lisbon was definitely my favorite place. I think I've been so far.

Tranztec:
How many countries have you been to?

Anthony:
I've only been to four or five. I've been to a handful cities and in each of those places, like when I went and did our Italy trip I went to five different cities. I'm not like the authority on it but like even now I'm like we have other trips coming up but I'm excited for them and I'm always excited for them when they're coming up but like they all start to like blend together is like what made them special, you know. Obviously there are differences between the places, difference in the architecture, but I do kind of relate it to food. Where like a good Tikka Masala isn't necessarily better than a good chicken parm or whatever. They are different and like they're worth experiencing, but like your life isn't so much better. Or necessarily if you just ate the chicken masala, you know. Oh then that's I guess that's more appropriately the hot take. Right now there's a big culture. There's like a big culture of traveling and like heavily valuing it. And I think with that value is the value of experiences but I don't think your life is so much richer in general for traveling. As people say, though, I do like to travel I think that's what I'm trying to say. It's like a bit overrated

Tranztec:
But you have a bunch of trips planned, just in case you got to keep going.

Anthony:
Yeah, you got the trips plan just in case but yeah, I even if it's not my primary value it is my wife's heavy value.

Tranztec:
Happy wife, happy life!

Anthony:
Exactly. Exactly. And it's, I still enjoy it just maybe not as much.

Tranztec:
Who usually wins the board games?

Anthony:
Oh, I hate to say it, my wife recently. So, we really like this game called Star Realms a lot. It's like a deck building game similar to Magic the Gathering. But this is like way simpler than that. We both like pick a bunch of cards that we have to like, kill each other. And I think she loves games where you have to kill each other at the board game. Which I don't know that says about us, but she tends to win that a lot. Oh, we also play Rummy, and she eats me alive in that game too. I think we might just play the games she crushes me the most at. Now that I think about it, because I feel like I always lose the games, I think the only games that have stayed around are the ones she crushes me at.

Tranztec:
Yeah, you have a very low internet presence for being a Digital Designer.

Anthony:
I always felt like there was a contradiction, it's also how I feel about like that my sense of fashion as a designer, because like I was always very like I hated graphics on anything, like any of my clothes I hated like, I liked everything flat. I love products. I don't really like to use them. Well, I do like to use them, but I don't trust them with my data to be anywhere. So, like I only use DuckDuckGo I try to like clear out my internet. I have like my browser set to like refresh everything every like five minutes. So, it's really annoying that the re-login everything thing all the time, but I'm very suspicious of products. Even though I enjoy making them.

Tranztec:
That's interesting. So I mean, legitimately the thing I found out was that your high school closed. Go Monarchs!

Anthony:
Let me talk to you about Monarchs. The environment was so much more conductive to like learning that I was able to succeed much, much further and I really credit that high school to like my success in life in a lot of ways. Just to get a snapshot of the culture there. I think the class I graduated with, which was the largest class ever graduated from that school, was 100 students. Like it was a very, very small school for Long Island standards. Very, very small. But yeah, everyone mostly knew each other. Like, I wouldn't say like everyone was friends, but everyone was like, friendly because you spent so much time together from seventh grade to graduations. So, a lot of people spent a lot of years together. So even if you didn't like them, you knew them well enough.

Tranztec:
So what do you think your interesting fact is or what do you want it to be?

Anthony:
Something I'm actually kind of proud of is when I was at high school, you have like the senior superlatives, I was voted most friendly.

Tranztec:
That's a good one. I mean, out of the superlatives, that's probably the one you want to win.

Anthony:
right? Yeah. I felt good about that.

Tranztec:
Do you collect anything?

Anthony:
I'm actually the opposite of a collector. I hate things that and I throw them away immediately. The only thing I collect is things I'm afraid to throw away that are like, you know, I have my Social Security on it or like my W twos. I truly try to collect nothing.

Tranztec:
You do have like that whole entire persona of minimalist; you know where you really researched things you buy to make sure they're gonna last a long time.

Anthony:
I buy only used items. I don't buy new clothes. I haven't bought new clothes in five or six years. 

*Anthony would clarify later that he DOES buy new socks and underwear and not used ones from Goodwill*

Tranztec:
So Anthony, our final question always is Is there anything we didn't ask you that you wanted to talk about? Or is there anything else you want to share? 

Anthony:
I think I'm good right now.

Tranztec has made a donation to - Propel ATL in Anthony's name. Advocacy nonprofit envisioning an Atlanta where everyone moves safely, easily, and sustainably throughout the city. Our mission is to reclaim Atlanta’s streets as safe, inclusive, and thriving spaces for people to ride, walk, and roll.