Shyness doesn’t pay when doing odd jobs

That lesson helped organizer of city’s first crypto conference

At the Veterans Affairs hospital in Butler, Dan Neal wheeled patients around to have their Xrays taken, played pingpong with the vets in the rec room, and even helped them pick locks on their cars after they left their keys inside — which happened quite often.

“A lot of those guys were so grateful to have someone to talk to,” said Mr. Neal, 44, as he reflected on the weekends he spent at the VA as a teenager. “I learned very early on how to talk to people. I wasn’t shy.”

That wasn’t the first or the last gig that taught him how to make connections with people, to get past that initial moment of awkwardness.

Those odd jobs polished up Mr. Neal’s people skills, something he’s glad to have now that he’s in the midst of organizing a massive cryptocurrency conference at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for next year.

After returning from the Army when he was 22, for example, Mr. Neal worked at one of the now-defunct Ames department stores as a detector to catch shoplifters.

Sure, it was uncomfortable at times, he said.

Once, he caught a teenager stealing baseball cards. When the kid’s mother found out, “She went ballistic on him,” Mr. Neal said with a laugh.

Eventually, he went back to school to get a bachelor’s in information technology from Slippery Rock University and a master’s in information systems management from Robert Morris University.

Among other jobs — like his former post as webmaster at Slippery Rock and his current gig as a technology instructor at Penn State World Campus — Mr. Neal of Cranberry began his own consulting