Kendra works as an IT tech at a community college in Asheville, NC. Kendra wanted a change and enrolled in a community college program in web and graphic design. This led to her current role as an IT technician. Hear Kendra’s story and how her work involves more than computers and tech.
The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.
Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.
Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.
Links from the show:
The Micro Nano Technology Education Center (MNT-EC): https://micronanoeducation.org/
A-B Tech: https://abtech.edu/
Episode Web Page: https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/
Kendra works as an IT tech at a community college in Asheville, NC. Kendra wanted a change and enrolled in a community college program in web and graphic design. This led to her current role as an IT technician. Hear Kendra’s story and how her work involves more than computers and tech.
The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.
Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.
Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.
Links from the show:
The Micro Nano Technology Education Center (MNT-EC): https://micronanoeducation.org/
A-B Tech: https://abtech.edu/
Episode Web Page: https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/
Peter Kazarinoff 0:02
From MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, this is Talking Technicians. The podcast about technicians: who they are, what they do, and where they come from. I'm your host, Peter Kazarinoff. I teach technicians and engineers that Portland Community College. In each episode, you'll meet a working technician and hear their story. That means real interviews, with real technicians, about real jobs. At the end of each episode, you'll hear actions you can take if you want to be a technician too.
In this episode, you'll meet Kendra. Kendra works at Asheville Buncombe Technical Community College in it, Kendra, welcome to Talking technicians.
Kendra 0:52
Thanks, Peter. I'm glad to be here.
Peter Kazarinoff 0:55
So Kendra, tell me about yourself. Where do you live? And how long have you been there for?
Kendra 1:00
So I live in Asheville, North Carolina. And I've been here about I guess, eight or nine years.
Peter Kazarinoff 1:08
And what originally brought you to Asheville. Where were you before that?
Kendra 1:12
I actually was in Greenville, North Carolina. I went to school there at East Carolina University. And then, you know, I got married kids, and I just kind of huh, needed a life change.
Peter Kazarinoff 1:34
And for folks who've never been to Asheville, what are some neat things about Asheville, North Carolina?
Kendra 1:40
Oh, some neat stuff. Well, there's a lot of breweries here. The mountains, they really do look black. Because of the way the trees are. The breed of trees, I guess, or whatever they're called. And let's see, there's been a lot of number one movies filmed here. Stuff like Forrest Gump and last mohicans and Patch Adams. Even the fugitive was filmed here. Pretty cool. Um, I don't know. There's just a lot of stuff to do. Obviously, there's the Biltmore. Most people know about the Biltmore, so I don't know it's just really pretty the walls beautiful, though the color changing of the trees and stuff like that.
Peter Kazarinoff 2:35
Real quick for folks. What's the Biltmore?
Kendra 2:37
What is it? The biggest privately owned house in I think the world. It's the Biltmore Estate, it's beautiful in like, all the time. But they have tours, and you can even go there. There's a lot of books and things that are written about the Biltmore. Think there's a couple of movies. I know that there's some children's while there's a local author, who's done a bunch of books Serafina in the black cloak, and a bunch of Willa in the wood. It's all about Biltmore in the history. They, they owned, like, so much land here, and then they don't, it's just a rich history. It's, it's just beautiful. It's a beautiful, huge mansion. And they have beautiful gardens that you can see and the matter of fact, Kiska National Forest used to be part of Biltmore.
Peter Kazarinoff 3:46
So Kendra, that was a great introduction to Asheville, where you live, but where do you work and what's your job title? What do you do day to day at work?
Kendra 3:55
So I work at Asheville Buncombe Technical Community College, but we call it AB Tech for short because it's a mouthful. My job title is print and digital forms analyst I'm kind of a mush job. I call it that because it's kind of two jobs in one I deal with the the printers on campus. So I'm kind of like a print technician but I'm also a digital forms analyst. So I designed forms and for the college to use so we're you know, trying to move forward in life and not print so much and you know, save trees. So, but day to day basically, I troubleshoot about 200 Plus printers. Add Remove printers set up new employees manage our papercut system, which basically says, This is how much people print in a day. And along with students, and then obviously, I designed the forms for the college to use. There's also a lot of other things I do, you know, add remove employees from our system. It just depends on the day, things break, I have to fix them. Kind of like today. Sometimes you open the side of the printer and a piece jumped out at them. And they were like, I don't know what I broke. But can you come fix it? So I can print? was kind of funny because I walked in, and it literally was like a large piece of the printer. Like, how did you break this? You know, it just depends. It could be something as easy as a paper jam or as large as a printer falling apart.
Peter Kazarinoff 6:04
Kendra, you mentioned that there are 200 printers on campus.
Kendra 6:07
It's about 263 actually.
Peter Kazarinoff 6:10
Okay, so 263 printers about how much printing how many pages get printed at AB Tech?
Kendra 6:18
Oh, a lot. Um, it's, you know, honestly, I can probably tell you pretty quickly right now, if you'd like to know, ah, let me pull it up for you. Currently, our total printing pages are 10 million.
Peter Kazarinoff 6:46
So AB Tech has, has printed 10 million pages.
Kendra 6:50
And today is a a day where there are like no students on campus, and we have printed almost 5000 pages. If that tells you anything, we print a lot. And it's a little bit up. But we have days where we we don't print much. But you know, we're we're trying to save trees.
Peter Kazarinoff 7:20
So it seems like you work with a bunch of equipment, like printers, and then you work with a bunch of software tools to make these forms. What kind of forms have you made, that a student might be familiar with?
Kendra 7:34
That's more the forms are more employee based. Some of the students would understand like a name change form, where they would do a preferred name, or literally like they got married and they've changed their name. The employees would know something like a travel reimbursements.
Peter Kazarinoff 7:57
So at AB Tech, is there any opportunity for professional growth?
Kendra 8:03
In the next five years, I think there will be plenty of opportunity for growth. My position because it was two positions put together. It it wasn't we're trying to move more towards digital than paper, obviously, in that 10 million, you know, printing pieces of paper, we want to obviously get that a lot lower. So, you know, I think in moving more towards digital, like, you know how you can go to Lowe's, and it says do you want to have your, your receipt emailed to you. We want to move more in that aspect. So say the bookstore wants to do that kind of thing. And we want to have students move more towards that direction when they fill out their financial aid. And when they fill out all of their, you know, enrollment and all of their other forms that they do. We want to move them in that direction. So I think yes, there's plenty of opportunity for growth, because we can we can get some of these printers down. Maybe I can move to 70 printers instead of 260. And then, yeah, sure. People want physical things in their hands. And so sure, I don't think printing will ever go away. At this point in time, maybe not in my life, but we can sure move towards something different. And I think there's plenty of opportunity to to do that. And plenty of opportunity for growth in that aspect. And I think the first step was to put me in this position and move. Hey, she's a printer tech To pay she's a print and digital forms analyst. So I think that was a good a great move.
Peter Kazarinoff 10:07
What's the average salary for a printer tech or someone that works in your area of it as a technician?
Kendra 10:13
So, a printer tech is, I think around anywhere between 40 and 52,000. For a digital forms analyst is about 61. So it's about 61, for my position, that doesn't include like, the benefits and everything else. So it kind of pushes it upwards.
Peter Kazarinoff 10:45
What type of benefits do you get with your work?
Kendra 10:49
So you get medical, dental, vision, 4 - what was it? a 401K, retirement, all of that kind of stuff, which is nice to have. Especially within Eclipse. It's fantastic. I don't have to worry about all the other otherness.
Peter Kazarinoff 11:16
Working as a tech in IT, do you have a regular schedule? Do you work in shifts? What's your work schedule, like?
Kendra 11:24
So my work schedule is crazy, especially at this time of year, when students are getting ready to come back and you have to get everything updated and ready to go, then no, I do not really have a set schedule I am. Most days I get in at 630. And I might leave at six or 630 at night. Or I may leave it for it just depends on who has a critical need. Or who thinks that might be critical. And it's really not. Some days, it might just depend on the weather. Like today because I ride a moped. And so therefore, I am not going to get struck by lightning. So a lot of it just depends on, on really what is happening in the day. I tried to like some of my it colleagues, I tried to be personal with the people I'm working with, because I do have to be everywhere on campus. And so I need to make connections and, you know, talk with people and understand what's happening. And what happened, as opposed to having to do everything remotely? Because sure I could no really I can't because I have to put my hands on a machine. And so that doesn't, it doesn't always happen the way I want it to, you know, the first thing I do in the morning is get on on a server and say, Okay, which of these machines is low on toner? And which ones is saying that it needs a demand overwrite, and which one, you know, needs this and which one is totally offline, and I need to go look at it. So that kind of starts my day. And then from there is like, Oh, here's a work order. And here's a work order. And here's the work order. And here Oh, I broke something, which is one you don't want to hear. That's just kind of how, how goes.
Peter Kazarinoff 13:42
So I've got a good sense of what you do day to day at work. But how did you get there? What was your work experience be for working in it as a tech?
Kendra 13:53
Well, um, so I started working at AB Tech as a student in the computer lab. Um, I was I was going to school for digital media to design websites and because that's what I wanted to do websites and print media, and I just didn't have at the time and just didn't have all the hardware and software I needed. So just kind of had to spend my time in the computer lab. That's how I got that job. And then when I graduated in digital media, I was hired and, you know, as a part time employee, and I just kind of I started picking up through you know, the IT people a little bit more of just stuff and stuff and things so terrible. Because that's where we say all the time Stuff and Things Um, yeah, I was, I was lucky enough to kind of be able to split my time from the computer lab to go around with one of the desktop technicians and learn a little bit more about, you know, installing software and hooking up all of, you know, the computers and everything. So I was able to do that for about a year and a half. And because I did that, you know, kind of kind of fell into, you know, a little bit more knowledge, um, I and I got a internship at the city with it, but it wasn't like, you know, installing software or anything, it was designing a website for the city, which was great. But then I found out, oh, I need this other knowledge. So I went back to school, again, still at AB Tech. And in doing so, I still was working there. And there, I got more like, people dependent on me a little bit more. And my supervisor depended on me more and was like, Oh, well, can you do this? And can you do that? Can you do this? And, you know, one of the, one of the other desktop people was like, Oh, well, I'd like you to start helping me and do this. And then the printer guy was like, hey, you know more about this? Can you do this? So I kind of, you know, just hung out, and, you know, learn these things. Not because people asked me to, but because I was like, Well, this is kind of a little interesting. And I'm here and I might as well, and COVID happened. And then I was there all the time. And I had to learn everything. Like because people didn't come to work. That was me and like two other people. That so I mean, I just had to learn everything. So because that happened, and because everybody basically relied on me and the other people. It was, well Canva knows this, and Canva can do that. And if I didn't know how to do it, I learned how to do it. And because that happened, they were like, well, let's give her this shot. And the burning guy was retiring. And he was like, well, she's here. And she knows how to do this stuff. Me she doesn't know all of this stuff. But she learned. Sure. And so that's kind of how I got into that position. And I was like, Well, hey, I mean, I, I'm willing to learn it. And I mean, I know how to do stuff. And then somebody else said, Well, she can code too. And because she can code, she can design these forms, and she can do this other stuff. And we can make this position what we want it to be. So that kind of helps everything. And it put me to where I am now. I mean, sure, I still had to learn more things. But it was it was a great opportunity. That kind of just kind of happened. I don't know. I mean, it was kind of amazing, actually. And something that I didn't expect to happen, but it did. So I think I think working hard learning all of the things I did and just putting myself into that position helped out a lot.
Peter Kazarinoff 18:51
You mentioned that you were a student at AB Tech as well. What degrees and programs did you go through? And what do you feel like you ended up learning from that experience?
Kendra 19:03
So the degrees I got from AB Tech were software and web development and digital media, which are are both in the web development categories and shit but I am which I wouldn't have thought would have helped me in my, my printer, you know, software stuff, but it really it's amazing that what I did know because I have to deal with servers and an understanding how to, you know, deal with with coding, and what these things are saying to me. So I do understand it. I didn't realize I would understand it, but I do. And, and also getting the knowledge from when I was going around for the year and a half with the desktop team, you know, and they helped a lot. They didn't have to didn't have didn't have to say, go back to the computer lab and do your thing. But they were helpful.
Peter Kazarinoff 20:27
What did it feel like your first day at your new role? What did it feel like going into work and assuming that new role at AB Tech?
Kendra 20:36
Oh, well, so as a little lucky in the fact that I was, I was able to kind of transition into the world. So I didn't really get hit too hard, like, Hey, here's your first day go. I'm given a little bit of a transition period. Before you know the person retired. However, the my actual first day, I did get hit with a lot. Um, I got like, 90 work orders. And it was, it was like, whoa, what am I supposed to do with all of this? Like, I'm, that's shocking. Um, it was it, it was also kind of like, now you're on your own. And, you know, you got to do this. And you just, I had hit the ground running late. You know, Kendra, you, you're grown now. And this is a big girl job. And you have to do this. And you can't let these You can't let these people boss you around. Like, that's, you have to like, put your foot down and say no, or I'm making this this is this is what I say, you know, like, before, you know, I've, I've had you know, well, that's your supervisor, and they tell you what to do, and blah, blah, blah, but now you're making this these decisions and you have to really, like, make those decisions. So you know how to, like really add to like, this is what I'm doing. Because I know it's hard for my first day because I mean, I had a lot of people ask me, Well, can I have a printer? Can I have a printer? Can I have a printer? Like they were taken away from me and now you're in the role and, and can I have my back? was like, Oh, and there's there's 200 and something of these already? know. I don't have much hair now.
Peter Kazarinoff 22:49
What's something unexpected about working as an IT technician that you only learned after you started?
Kendra 22:57
I guess, maybe I just I wasn't sure I was gonna like my job as much as I do. Um, I guess a lot of it is because I'm a people person. And it's, it's really as a misconception with it is because people think it people are solitary. And I definitely am not. I think I rile them up a lot. Because I am not solitary. But I I interact with people all the time. And I think it's I think that was something that after I started working as a tech, people were like, hi, Kendra. Hi, Kendra. Hi, Kendra. I didn't think people were going to really remember who I was. And they do. Like, I turn the corner. And so it's always a lot of fun to, to know that people know who I am. And then, you know, they smile when they see me. And that's, that's always nice to know, like, you know, it's always a good feeling.
Peter Kazarinoff 24:11
And how did your life change when you became a tech? What was different when you were a tech compared to before?
Kendra 24:18
Well, before I sat at a desk all the time, like, sure I helped people, I help students. But now I'm up and I'm moving. And I'm here in there and everywhere else and I don't just help students, but I help faculty and staff and help everybody and but I enjoy the fact that I can get up and move I don't have to be solitary. And I think that's one thing I really like is that and I can learn something new every day. I I like that's amazing to me and because I like to learn so that's that's something great
Peter Kazarinoff 25:08
Kendra What advice would you give to current students or people who want to transition careers and work as an IT tech like you?
Kendra 25:17
Um I would say make goals for yourself and try to achieve those goals ask your instructors or professors to help you talk to other students join clubs aye aye joined a women in tech group and that was that group was because of an NSF grants and I was able to connect with others and just make amazing connections and I still have those connections. And because of that, I there was just I was able to open up and in be able to just do stuff. You know,
Peter Kazarinoff 26:06
Kendra, how does your work support and help others? Or put another way? What would be lost if you weren't doing your work?
Kendra 26:17
I don't think people would laugh as much as they do. I really don't. Well, and people couldn't print
Peter Kazarinoff 26:32
Kendra, do you have a final call to action for students or people who want to transition their career and work as an IT technician like you?
Kendra 26:42
Um, I would say and try to always learn something new. And don't let that pass you by because you don't know when you'll ever need that knowledge.
Peter Kazarinoff 26:55
Well, Kendra, thank you so much for being on talking technicians and sharing your story with me. Well,
Kendra 27:00
Thank you for having me.
Peter Kazarinoff 27:01
Please keep in touch,
Kendra 27:03
I will.
Peter Kazarinoff 27:10
Talking Technicians is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program. Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation. Join the conversation. If you are a working technician, or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org We're always looking out for great guests to share more stories with you.