It’s not where you start; it’s where you finish.
That motorsports phrase is commonly used by race car drivers after a sub-par qualifying effort, but it also aptly describes the path Wally Hall has taken from growing up in rural upstate New York to a vital role in Ford Racing’s IT department.
In between, he served a four-year tour of active duty in the United States Marine Corps as an information systems coordinator. While there, he was charged with ensuring troops and accompanying support groups could seamlessly communicate with each other regardless of the environment.
For Hall, that included a deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
“I was 19 years old, and suddenly, I’m the coordinator for the unit of all the IT stuff. That carried the responsibility of the tactical operations command support, which includes a forward command element where you’re constantly setting up, tearing down, and then moving forward to do the same thing,” recalled Hall, who compared that to what he does now as he travels from racetrack to racetrack.
“I knew how to configure the server, the computer, and some basic troubleshooting, and eventually, I got to a point where I was good at integrating things and showing people the different steps in how it should work,” he said.
Hall put that knowledge to use after getting the call shortly after Christmas in 2002 that he and his unit were going to Iraq as part of what became The Iraq War. One month after arriving in Kuwait, Hall became part of a large convoy that departed on March 20, 2003.
“That night was pretty cool and terrifying at the same time because you see the scud missiles come in, and even though we’re blowing them up and it’s a nice little fireworks show, you understand that this is real,” said Hall about the shock and awe campaign that began the war.
“You start moving in the day, and when you get to your spots at night, you dig a shallow sleeping spot,” he said. “The reason why you do that is if a bomb hit next to you, the shrapnel goes up and you’re protected.”
As the convoy progressed through the Arabian Desert, Hall and his unit heard that a maintenance convoy had been ambushed and some Americans were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
Hall’s unit moved forward to the city capturing and holding bridges that were needed to advance the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force’s drive to Baghdad and support a rescue effort. When intelligence was gathered and Lynch’s location identified as being inside Saddam Hospital, a U.S. special operations joint task force descended on the facility to successfully get her out alive.
When Hall was honorably discharged in January 2005, he moved back home to Plattsburg, NY, working for a small company installing communications systems.
With an eye toward finishing his college degree, he eventually moved back to North Carolina and saw that Pyrix, Inc. was looking for a systems administrator to work with Ford Racing. He applied for the job in 2014 and has been there ever since, overseeing the program’s growth to what is now a global motorsports entity that competes in 41 series, 28 countries, and six continents.
Hall can regularly be seen at the racetrack, laying cable and hoisting antennas from the roof of the Ford Racing technical trailer that serves as a communications hub. He ensures that Ford Racing engineers can communicate with team personnel in real time and provide data throughout the weekend to maximize results.
“I laugh now because we started out and it was only NASCAR. I had a laptop. I had a small little file server that we shared pictures on and a handful of radios. That was it,” recalled Hall. “Today, I’ve worked with folks in World Rallycross, Australian V8 Supercars, World Endurance Championship, and the EV demonstrator program that won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb.”
He continued: “It’s really kind of staggering for me to think I had a hand in building this communications program from the ground up, where we now have the full cloud infrastructure in place as well as the necessary tools at Ford Racing Concord to support all of these racing series around the world.”
As we look to Veteran’s Day, please join us in supporting those who make sacrifices for us. Learn more about the Proud to Honor Veteran’s Day Classic and support the Proud to Honor Fund.
Dan Zacharias writes for the Ford Racing communications team.
