Q: Can you tell us a little about yourself?
A: I am a Desktop Support Specialist. I have been working at the university for a little over a year. I went to college at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan, where I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Computer & Information Systems. I am engaged and will be married on October 8 of this year.
Q: What is your background and how does it influence your work here?
A: I am from a small town half an hour north of Lansing, Michigan. While I was in college at Siena Heights, I was a member of the football team for five years, and I was elected captain my final two years on the team. This influences my work here at the university because I am team oriented and I work well with my team members to accomplish the task at hand. I can be a leader when I need to.
Q: What does a typical day look like for you in your position?
A: A typical day in my position is spent working on my assigned tickets and working with users to solve the incidents they reported. Some tickets that are submitted to us are for purchasing new computer equipment and peripherals. Another routine task in my job is submitting purchase requests through our procurement system. When we receive new computers I will build the computers and get them set up for use. I also help with printer support when printers are not working correctly.
Q: What current project are you most excited about?
A: Currently, I am working on getting the grad students from the Statistics and Astronomy departments set up with a laptop that is provided to them by their departments. The departments provide MacBook laptops to their grad students to use throughout their time in their graduate programs. This year, I am in charge of the purchasing and procurement of these laptops. Once the laptops have been delivered to us, we get them set up in the Izzy system and put the LSA Izzy build on the laptops and then distribute them to the grad students. At this moment, we have the laptops deployed to the Astronomy grad students, but we are still working on getting the Statistics grad students set up with their laptops.
Q: What do you like to do outside the office?
A: Outside of the office, some of my hobbies include hunting, fishing, and sports activities. I haven't been able to do as much hunting as I would like to, but I'm hoping I can start hunting more often in the near future. Fishing is something that I have been doing a lot more of in recent years. I love to fish year-round, I even enjoy ice fishing in the winter. I enjoy most of the different sports out there, but football is by far my favorite sport.
Q: What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you?
A: When I was in high school, I wanted nothing to do with IT and it wasn't until I was in college where I decided to choose IT as my career path.
