Today, I complete ten years as the school’s IT Director. What a wild ride it has been! To start this new school year, I thought I’d share a few reflections on this decade of change in this and upcoming blog posts. First things first: let me start by thanking those who’ve blessed me with their support and encouragement over the years. I could not have survived the growing pains we’ve seen without it. I’m grateful to you all. Thanks to:
- Peter and Shandor, both now at the Latin School, for encouraging me to apply for the job and advocating for my hire
- Lucinda, our former Director, for having the courage to hire a teacher untested in the IT world
- Tony, our Facilities chief, Scott, his #2, and the firemen for always going the extra mile to help my team and I get what we need out of our aging buildings and infrastructure
- The administrative team, for supporting new initiatives, being patient with the bumps in the road, and challenging me to do better when we need it
- The faculty and staff, for their cooperation and patience—and especially those with a vision for how technology can create new learning opportunities and the willingness to step outside their comfort zone to try them
- Our Business Office staff, for their generous, cheerful help with the increasing amount of paperwork a growing IT operation generates
- Sandy and Brent in the Registrar’s Office, for their hard work, expertise, and willingness to share it when it comes to managing the increasingly complex task of managing school data
- Our parents, for their ongoing support of our technology programs
- The University’s Networking Services Group, for helping me make Lab a visible, active member of the University technology community
- Jack, our account exec from Apple, for being a stand-up guy
- My Information Systems team, for putting up with everything I don’t know and helping me climb the ever-steeper learning curve each day (I would match this team with ANY school IT team in the country–I’ve seen a lot of them in my travels, and I hope our school community appreciates what a collection of all-stars we have right now)
- Dr. Magill, our current Director, for recognizing publicly and privately the value of technology to our school community and stepping up with the resources to walk the talk
- And, most of all, Dave, my boss, who has been a tireless mentor and advocate, both personally and professionally, showing boundless understanding, kindness, and active, purposeful support in moving our tech operation from a small collection of old hardware and a hand wired network to the robust, enterprise level computing operation we are today
I don’t know if I’ll do this another ten years or not. The learning curve gets steeper ever year, and every success sets the bar higher still–that’s just the nature of the game. But for however long I stick with it, I’ll keep thinking about all the fine people around me here at Lab and what a privilege it is to work in such august company. Have a great start to this new school year!
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by Curt Lieneck
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »