If you spend even a brief bit of time with these three members of the ITS On Site Support team, you’re quickly struck by their tremendous camaraderie and mutual admiration.
Tech Support Analysts Leslie Kreizman and Mark Wampole have worked together in On Site Support for more than 16 years. Tech Support Analyst Jim Moravansky joined the team in 2014. Kreizman and Moravansky serve from the South Building while Wampole works from both the South Building and the Office of University Counsel in Bynum Hall.
Proud, like family
The co-workers are reticent to trumpet their individual skills and accomplishments in supporting the IT needs of their campus customers. But like proud family members, they’re eager to showcase one another’s professional and personal talents and abilities.
Kreizman offers that Wampole does amazing woodwork and points to the wall where the sleek black platform frames the conference room flat-screen TV. Wampole created that, Kreizman notes, to camouflage the wires and outlets.
Like members of any good sports team, the three On Site Support team members are well synchronized, respectfully knowing when to drive the conversation and when to pass to their colleagues as they describe and explain their roles within ITS.
Being embedded strengthens customer relationship
When describing what they like most about their work, Kreizman and Wampole echo one another. “The people we work with and for,” Kreizman said. “Because we’re embedded, I guess we have a different kind of relationship with our customers.”
“We pride ourselves on excellent customer service,” Kreizman said.
“Our customers make us feel like we are part of their offices,” Wampole said.
“We do whatever we can in order to keep the customer’s technology running so that they’re happy and can do their job,” Moravansky said.
Customers situated all around campus
Kreizman, Wampole and Moravansky collectively serve 364 campus customers at 20 buildings and in 29 offices.
Their customers include the Chancellor’s office, the Board of Trustees, the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor Provost and the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences.
Kreizman supports of the Board of Trustees in part by assisting people who are going to present to the Board. She helps presenters get their presentations ready and more readable on PowerPoint, for example. She also coordinates with MCNC for the recording and streaming of the Board of Trustees meetings.
In addition to backing up Kreizman and Moravansky, Wampole spends half of his time serving the Office of University Counsel. He supports a document-management system, Worldox, along with his regular IT duties. In one recent effort, Wampole was working with Lori Mahaney, OUC’s litigation software specialist, to get the newest Ediscovery system, Relativitiy, on line. Wampole previously set up Access Data’s ediscovery litigation software and Thompson Reuters’s Case Logistics ediscovery software.
Ready to “jump and go”
Often the work entails a lot of walking. “As soon as you get a call, you jump and go,” Moravansky said.
In one project that necessitated being on the move, Moravansky helped provide hundreds of laptops – and then training — to workers to get them ready for the implementation of ConnectCarolina in 2014. Tony DeLuca from OSS Internal Support, who was coordinating the ConnectCarolina training effort, enlisted Moravansky, Kreizman and others from ITS. They packed up five big tubs each with 20 to 30 laptops, delivered them around campus and then set up them up for employees. During training, they tweaked settings and otherwise supported the users and the equipment. Every three or four days, they disassembled the setup, carted the equipment to another site and started over again for another group of users. This continued for a month and a half.
“ConnectCarolina training was a true team effort,” said Ken Yow, On Site Support Manager.
For this trio as with other tech support specialists within ITS, there’s also plenty of the routine kind of assistance: training and educating customers to avoid clicking on suspicious online links, informing them of security issues related to using Dropbox, upgrading and replacing equipment, and lots of troubleshooting.
Leader is retiring
A big change is ahead for this group and for On Site Support overall. Yow is retiring in January after 39 years with the University.
“He has been one of the best bosses we have worked for,” Wampole said. “We are very happy that he has the opportunity to begin the next phase in his life. We wish him well.”
Throughout December and January, we are highlighting the work and the people of the ITS On Site Support group, led by Manager Ken Yow. Check back often at ITS News to learn more about this interesting group’s mission, expertise, camaraderie, collaborations, projects and innovations.