Guilford College, meet Scott Adamson, the newest member of Information Technology and Services (IT&S).
Adamson has worked at the college for about a month and a half, dealing with networking and work station issues. One of his goals is to make the Guilford network more user-friendly.
“Technology shouldn’t be a hindrance, it should be a tool,” he said. A New Jersey native, Adamson comes to Guilford from Trinity School in New York, where he worked for, a private K-12 institution for 10 years. Before then, he worked in consulting and with graphic companies.
“I like (Guilford) a lot. It’s a good change of pace, but there are some huge changes coming from New York City, mainly in pace and demeanor,” he said. “We came here because of my wife’s family; it’s been really nice, having my sister-in-law here to tell me where the grocery store, the gas station is.”
Leah Kraus, Director of IT&S, said, “([Adamson]) has a wonderful personality that I thought would fit in really well with both the staff and the community.”
Tracy Bowers, administrative assistant for IT&S, agrees. “(Scott’s) very personable and hardworking …his first day, he dove right in during the middle of a busy week,” she said.
While Adamson occasionally handles calls from faculty, the three people that make up the Network and Systems division don’t usually deal with computer problems firsthand. Instead, they work on maintaining, upgrading, and, when necessary, fixing problems with the network.
“We’re all looking at the bigger picture – down the road,” Adamson said. One of those “bigger picture” items is the work Adamson is doing on Lotus Notes. By the time that students return next semester, he hopes to have installed the current version of Notes on the network, which should eliminate many commonly occurring problems.
Recently, when one of the systems in the network failed, IT staff replaced and repaired the system without any server downtime – which makes it a great improvement from the constant server problems of fall semester.
Adamson has also worked with the science departments to upgrade their computers to OS 10, the most recent version of the Mac operating system. Though he is working on a Windows-based network, Adamson’s specialty is Macintosh. “I worked for Apple retail in Soho, talking to their technicians,” he said. Before he introduces OS 10 onto the network, Adamson is testing it on an iMac he keeps in his office.
“He’s a great guy, and he’s already been a huge asset to our department in one month,” said Bowers.