Matt Clark joined Comstar Supply eight years ago immediately
after graduating from La Salle University. He initially supported the company’s
web sales, then moved to an Inside Sale rep, and today, he leads the 9-person
inside sales team. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting or
talking with Matt, a third-degree black belt in karate, we recently sat down to learn more about him.
Q: How did you get into the broadband industry
or outside plant distribution?
MATT: I discovered the broadband
industry through networking with a customer of mine at my previous job. Honestly,
at the time I was 22 and I had no idea how large the telecom industry truly
was, especially the distribution side of the industry.
Q: How and when did you join Comstar?
MATT: I think I have a
unique story here with this one. Before working at Comstar, I was a full-time
college student/Karate Instructor.
Karate has always been a big part of my family’s life. At
one time, both my parents, my three sisters, and I, were all training. My father
opened a karate studio in 2005 (my freshman year of high school), and I worked
for him all the way up until my senior year of college. After eight years of
hard work, we built up a successful, small family business with nearly 300
students, but I wanted to branch out and put my college degree to use and pave
my own way.
In 2013, during my last year of college, I was looking for
an internship/job in either business or finance. After talking to a few different parents of
the students I taught, one parent in particular, Chad Punchard (the president
of Comstar!), told me I should come intern for him at Comstar Supply. I had no
idea what Comstar did, but if you know Chad – he’s a convincing guy!
There I was a month or so later interning 40 hours a week entering
web orders. A few months later my internship ended, and I joined the Comstar
family full time! So yeah, I was once teaching Chad’s kids karate and here I am
nearly eight years later still working for him!
Q: In your opinion, what’s the best thing
about working at Comstar?
MATT: Hands down the people
I work with! I enjoy coming to work each day because of the team we have here.
The family-like culture is something that means a lot to me.
Q: What would you say about your customers?
MATT: That I appreciate
them! I’ve been lucky enough to see many of our customer’s business grow and
without them Comstar wouldn’t be who we are today.
Q: What would your customers say about you?
MATT: Hmm that’s a tough
one! I would like to think they enjoy working with me and enjoy my sense of
humor! Most importantly, I would hope they would say that they value our
partnership and that I am more than just another vendor to them. I’m here to
offer them solutions and premium customer service.
Q: You're a big sports fan, do you have story or a memory of your favorite Philly sports moment?
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| Matt and his wife Krissy in London for an Eagles game |
Q: In addition to being a fan, you also play a
bunch of sports. Golf, karate, etc., can you tell me a story about any of these
or memory?
MATT: My most memorable
sports moment would be when I passed my 3rd degree black belt test. It was the
most physically demanding thing I’ve ever done.
In order to pass the test, you have to complete a 3-hour
workout boot camp followed by a 1-hour timed challenge. Within this last hour,
you’re already pretty exhausted, but you have to complete a 3-mile run, 300
sit-ups and 100 pushups without pausing (or else you fail), then perform all
the self-defense techniques on the other instructors as they attack, and
perform multiple advanced katas. Once you complete all of that there is one
last challenge – a 3-minute sparring match where you can’t tap out or stop for
any reason. Every 30 seconds a fresh new blackbelt instructor comes at you with
everything they have, one after another, then the last 2 minutes you must fight
2 vs 1.
I was doing very well with it all, but with 1.5 mins left
in the 2v1, I took an elbow to the nose and couldn’t see anything! I had to
fight through with a broken nose while defending off 2 other blackbelts still
coming at me. The only fun part of all that was I got to land a couple good
head kicks on my dad since he was one of the head instructors in the sparring
drill. After completing that your confidence is sky high and honestly one of
the most accomplished feelings in the world; it took me 16 years of training
starting at the age of 5 to get that 3rd red stripe on my black belt. Good
memories!
Q: I also know you are a relatively new
husband and a new dad. Anything you want to say about them?
MATT:
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| Matt, Krissy, and Matty |
We recently
just welcomed our first child, Matthew James, into our big Irish and Italian
families earlier this January. We call him “Matty” and because of Covid we
still have so many family members that cannot wait to meet him in person,
however not a day goes by where we do not have a family member facetime us to
see him. I keep telling him some people look better with their masks on so it’s
not entirely a bad thing! We’re beyond excited to be a family of 3 and we can’t
wait to spend many vacations together up the Pocono Mountains and down the New
Jersey shore!
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