About Ron Poteat
Family: Wife of 23 years and their five children: Jackson, 21; Karli, 19; Layni, 16; Mia, 10; and Tobin, 7
Area of residence: Lifelong resident of Mebane
Pastimes: Coaching his kids in sports and playing golf with his dad and children
Education: Degree in electronics technology from Alamance Community College
Factoid: Growing up as a Carolina sports fan, he always wanted to work for UNC
Veteran ITS staffer Ron Poteat is the new Asset Manager within ITS Managed Desktop Services.
Poteat, who has worked for ITS for more than 15 years, started his new role on February 20. Before becoming Asset Manager, he provided technical support to ITS employees and MDS’ campus clients. He has worked for MDS (and the Internal Support group that became MDS) since 2014. Poteat’s first job at ITS was in 2007 with the Computer Repair Center.
Enticed by system administration
Poteat was attracted to the new job of organizing assets and disposing of out-of-warranty equipment for ITS and the other campus departments MDS supports.
He also was enticed by getting “to handle items on the back end like system administration,” he said. “This has been something I wanted to get back into after MDS was created” in 2016.
As Asset Manager, Poteat is responsible for full lifecycle asset strategy and management. He also provides expertise in the endpoint infrastructure and workstation engineering functions of MDS.
Managing assets is crucial
MDS has offered asset management as a service to clients since 2019. Asset management benefits ITS and ITS’ campus customers through improved security and audit reporting for covered devices, asset forecasting, financial benefits with waste reduction and informed purchasing.
“I want to keep the standards and procedures that were put in place to help with managing spending for the departments MDS supports,” Poteat said.
His many years serving ITS and Carolina prepared him for this new role. During those 15 years, Poteat learned “the ways of the University and how to work with different departments and people who work here,” he said.
Impressive skillset
Poteat is “a great fit for this position on the MDS team,” said MDS Manager Dave Scott. “Ron’s impressive skillset of technical knowledge, attention to detail, and customer focus (among many others) lends itself perfectly to the responsibilities of this role. And his institutional and MDS-specific experience have enabled him to step in and seamlessly execute our asset management and lifecycle services without interruption.”
The selection process for this position was extremely competitive. “We had several excellent internal and external candidates,” Scott said. “We are thrilled that Ron was selected and has taken on this new challenge.”