Kudos & Congratulations

Congratulations to Caprice Post (Product Management, CTO Office) and Jason Lawes (Network and Communications Infrastructure) for winning the previous prize drawing!

UIT staff recognized for their excellent work

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Congratulations and many thanks to Cody Hudson, who completed 25 years of dedicated service to the university and is moving on to the next phase of his life. Cody is a caring, helpful person who has helped far too many people to try to count. His personal touch on the phone and on dealing with problems is exemplary, and we'll truly miss him around here. Kudos to Cody, and enjoy your hobbies, your spare time, and your new life.

~ Chris Stucker, Information Security Office

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We'd like to thank John Wood for dropping everything to help us with the Spok project. We were working under an extremely tight deadline that the vendor sprung on us and we couldn’t have done it without him. John's help meant that this project was completed on time instead of needing to be rescheduled out to the spring of next year. The impact of rescheduling would have been felt by almost every single clinical person in the hospital. John deserves to be recognized!

~ Justin Rhodehouse and Mark Johns, Information Technology Services

John Wood is a great engineer who is appreciated by all. He brings a calm demeanor to the team, which is critical, especially when working an emergency. Many thanks to John for his service to the university community and his own team.

~ Trevor Long, Network and Communications Infrastructure

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Kudos to Jason Moeller and the Student Team for the successful rollout of the PeopleSoft 9.2 student upgrade. It was our smoothest update ever. We ran ahead of schedule, and no significant problems arose from the upgrade.

~ Ken Pink, Deputy CIO

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I would like to give a huge shout out to the PeopleSoft HE upgrade team for their tireless and dedicated efforts. Special thanks to Jeramy Berry and Camille Wintch, who spent the majority of their weekend performing the upgrade and resolving issues that were reported during user validation. Garth Devries did a tremendous job leading the upgrade team, and Jason Moeller was instrumental in collaborating and communicating with all the teams involved in making this upgrade a success. Thanks also to Cindy Devine, Kelsey Loizos, Suzanne Wayment, Aimee Morgan, Shon Harper, Daniel (Niel) Mejia, Kariann Hibbard, Allan Hill, Brad Grow, Matt Leatham, Rob Birkinshaw, Robert Jans, Rob Lake, Scott Wilgar, Rhay Natividad, Arnie Carter, Will Gleich, Zach Zitterkopf, Thanh Nguyen, and everyone else who was involved and spent time during the upgrade weekend to ensure the system was solid by Monday morning. Piotr Pawlikowski did a great job keeping the project on track and managing the numerous communications. Finally, I would like to thank Andrea Ronér, Veronica Christensen, Steffany Forrest, Tammy Mabey, and Brandon Ritter for their efforts to test and validate their processes, and for their patience with us as we worked through their issues. I am so impressed with the talent, dedication, and persistence demonstrated by the student team, and appreciate their hard work!

~ Rachael Sheedy, University Support Services

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Austin Fullmer, of Data Cabling, went out to patch a network connection for a user that had been disconnected for a couple of days. He went out of his way to do this for me, and I am so grateful. He’s a new employee in the group, and I am happy to have him with UIT. Tim Goodale’s Cable Team members are amazing and are always willing to go the extra mile. Thank you so much, Austin and TIm!

Thank you, Jasmine Haywood on the Campus Help Desk. I was working nearby and her group was slammed with DUO calls. She remained polite and professional the entire hour I was there. One caller wanted a supervisor and there was no problem even though I could tell the user was irate. I can’t believe how busy it was and how calming she was to every person she talked to.

~ Beth Sallay, Network and Communications Infrastructure

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I've been working as a project manager for [ConvergeOne] for the university for many years, and I wanted to take a minute to let you know how much I appreciated Corky Richardson this evening.  We gave him short notice on a critical change, and he moved his schedule around to accommodate our needs. He was very patient as we worked through some issues. Corky's attitude was awesome and professional throughout the whole process. At the end of the call, even though we pulled him in at the last minute, he still said, "If you need me reach out ...” I just wanted to let you all know what a pleasure team members like that are to work with.

~ Kitty Donahue, senior project manager, ConvergeOne

Corky Richardson has been a real help in a stressful and complicated project. We're in the process of upgrading the university telephone system. We moved some of our systems to the VM infrastructure, so the VM staff have become critical to the success of the upgrade. Due to scheduling difficulties, I've been forced to make last-minute meetings. Corky was willing to move his schedule around on little or no notice, as in, "Hey Corky, do you mind working all night on my upgrade with two hours’ notice?"

~ Tony Jess, Network and Communications Infrastructure

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I would like to recognize Samantha Lankford for going the extra mile to ensure that an issue was taken care of. Samantha works hard to make sure there is a resolution to any issues she's assigned. Thank you!

~ Brent Ridgeway, Network and Communications Infrastructure

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Kudos to Cassandra Van Buren for organizing the All-Hands Meeting and putting together the feedback — a very professional job and handled with her usual efficiency.

~ Ken Pink, Deputy CIO

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There were about 1,000 people at this year's SAINTCON. A large percentage participated in a security hack-a-thon — essentially a number of security/network scenarios where IT people compete to see who discovers the root causes fastest. Of all the attendees, two of our Network staff — Danial Ebling and Ryan Millward — ranked sixth and 12th, respectively, in the competition. For comparison, I have talked to others and their teams came in more around 300th.

We are very proud of the strength of our great team members!

~ Mike Ekstrom, Network and Communications Infrastructure

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Thank you to Cassandra Van Buren, Jesse Drake, and Emily Rushton for helping me transition into my position in UIT and making me feel so welcome. Jesse, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for answering all my questions, training me, and creating documentation to help guide me and future employees. I'm thrilled and honored to work with such incredible people.

~ Larrisa Turner, Strategic Communications

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Kudos to Alijana Kahriman for pulling together an awesome pumpkin-carving contest for the USS team. She did a great job.

~ Ken Pink, Deputy CIO

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Kudos to Jacob Norgaard for the way he's excelling in his IAM role. He quickly takes everything we throw at him, learns it, and applies it. Jacob is bright, motivated, and fun to have in the group. Thank you, Jacob, and keep up the great work!

~ Chris Stucker, Information Security Office

 

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