Michelle Carlson
Michelle Carlson is a prime candidate to tell the history of Information Technology at the university. For 25 years, she has witnessed emerging technologies spread across our campus and Information Technology Services (ITS) evolve from several disparate groups to a focused, central organization. “It’s been fascinating being here to see the Web come alive, experience desktop publishing take the campus by storm, and watch us go from being a mainframe-centric environment to desktop-centric and now moving somewhat back to a centralized focus,” says Michelle. Currently, Michelle is working with several departments in preparation of the new Campus Printing Service (CPS).
Tell us something about your position.
On November 1, 2005, I started a new position as a Project Manager in ITS-Enterprise Information Systems (EIS). I am working on two projects—acting as Project Manager for the Campus Printing Service (CPS) and as Installation Coordinator for Building Access Control System (BACS). Right now, my days are mostly spent with the documentation and planning for CPS. I’m very happy and proud to work on a project that reaches so many of our constituents across campus, such as the Division of Housing and Food Service and the McCombs School of Business. This project has also gotten the attention of some potential new customers like the University of Texas Libraries and the Architecture School. Right now, we are looking at possible vendors for this project and taking care of the preliminary work like identifying stakeholders and creating project documentation. The goal is to have this project up and running for the fall 2006 semester. I know that is the goal of Randy Ebeling, who is the Executive Sponsor of this project, and Dennis Klenk and Ron Williams, the CPS Project Owners.
What can you tell us about the BACS project?
BACS is not one project, but about 100 small projects. Jim Nugent, the Project Manager, and I work with liaisons from the different buildings on campus being outfitted with security systems. We make sure that the BACS system is well-supported and that ITS delivers what we have promised to deliver to these customers. At any given time during this project, there are about 20 buildings in the process of acquiring BACS.
How would you describe a typical day?
Well, I don’t really have a “typical day.” I spend a lot of time talking to different departments, building documentation, and learning the ropes of project management. Much of this learning is by doing—getting my projects as organized as possible! The only thing that is typical in my day is my morning commute. I walk to work every morning. It’s only about a mile and it’s a great way for me to get centered and focused on the day ahead. I love my morning walk!
How long have you been with the university?
In August of this year, I will have been with the university for 25 years. I actually started as a Residence Advisor (RA) in Jester Hall. I did that for three semesters in 1978 and 1979 before graduating in 1979 with a BBA in Statistics. My first professional position with the university came in 1982, when I joined the Institutional Studies group, now called Institutional Research. In this job, I was also a COBOL and Natural programmer. I also coded in XICS and Easytrieve, two early, small data management programs. I don’t think either is still supported on campus. I worked in that job until the beginning of 1984, when I decided to launch a part-time calligraphy business. To do this, I took a part-time job with Texas Student Publications/Media. I was with that organization for 17 years. In that position, I managed two PDP 11/70 mainframe computers. It gave me a heightened appreciation of the media and the time pressures associated with news reporting and publishing. During my time there, desktop publishing moved in and seemed to change publishing overnight. It was a fascinating time. Soon after, the first Macintoshes appeared and you could do more with them than you could ever hope to do with the mainframe computers. During that time, William Green came in and taught me how to terminate Ethernet cables and, before I knew it, I had wired the entire “C” Building of the Jesse H. Jones Communication Center. Frank Abernathy helped with the archiving by setting up our MicroVAX system. Eventually, everyone had a Macintosh computer and I found myself managing a network, desktop machines, servers, and a host of peripherals. This was long before there was an ITS presence of any kind. Right around this time, The Daily Texan became the first online college newspaper. There were so many people, like Mic Kaczmarczik, David Cook, and Chris Cooley, who were supporting us and helping with these processes before coming to ITS. As the demands of the work grew, TSP contracted with ACITS to help me. ACITS stood for Academic Computing and Instructional Technology Services and was a primary IT group on campus before ITS. (ITS resulted from a merger of three previously separate IT groups on campus: Administrative Computing Services (ACS), Telecommunications and Networking Services (TNS), and ACITS.)
In 1999, I became an ACITS employee in User Services. I was a lab team manager before moving to on-site support with Roger Cotrofeld. In that role, I managed desktop and user support and acted as a departmental liaison for many of our contracts. In November of 2005, I moved over to where I am now, in EIS.
What about your calligraphy business?
My husband and I had two children, so it became too much work and too little time. I pulled in my shingle. I loved it though. My days having the business were wonderful: a half day in the office working on technical matters with the other half of the day in an artistic setting.
What do you like most about your job?
Helping other people’s work processes become more effective or more rewarding. One of my favorite things in desktop support was automating a tedious task for someone. They would be so appreciative and I would love that about my job.
What do you do when you are not at work?
My spare time is primarily spent with my husband, Paul Lupa, and our children Hannah Lupa, 12, and Micah Lupa, 10. We do scouts and volunteer work for our church and the children’s school. My husband Paul also works in IT, for SPEC. We were married in 1989. We actually met in the air on a Southwest flight from Chicago to Austin. We had both gone to Chicago to have Thanksgiving with our respective sisters. On the way back, we were sitting next to each other and making small talk when we discovered that we had two friends in common, one of whom was Clyde Hoover. Paul had lived with Clyde in a co-op, and I had known Clyde professionally because he and Wayne Wedemeyer assisted with interfacing the PDP 11/70 to the typesetting system at TSP. Well, Paul contacted me once we got back to Austin and we started dating. A year later we were both going back to Chicago to see our sisters again for Thanksgiving. We had planned our flights to travel together and on the flight back, Paul proposed. He waited until we were over Texas to do so since I’m proudly a native Texan.
What personal goals do you have?
My biggest goal, like most parents, is to see my children thrive as adults. Another goal is for after I retire from the university. I want to volunteer or work for a non-profit organization. I strongly believe in giving back to our community and to society. I think that’s why I work in academia. I truly believe that the university is a fabulous place to work. I believe any one person’s experience here can be as wonderful as they make it. The university is really hard to beat as a place to work. I mean, at the end of the day, we work in a beautiful park with brilliant people.
March 22, 2006
