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A day at the office (circa 2002)

Replacing a video card in a PC (circa 2002).

I began working for the county as the "Computer Analyst" for the Public Health Department in 1998. Before that time, the tech support for the department had been provided by the County's Information Services Department. But because Public Health had grown to more than 60 computers and there was enough work to justify having a person assigned to the department, my position was created.

I found out quickly that the department had many diverse needs. In addition to the normal variety of PC help-desk calls, there was a lot of activity that I didn't expect. There were the meetings that I was leading (Data and Computer Committees), database application development, web development, server administration, user training, networking, answering many questions and a lot of other stuff.

The Public Health Department has five divisions: Administration, Alcohol and Other Drug Programs (AOD), Animal Care and Control, Environmental Health (EH) and Nursing. Thankfully, EH has a tech support person to meet their needs as the remaining divisions made for more than enough work. Also, office locations are varied, with staff sprinkled throughout the Ukiah Valley, including Ukiah High School, Low Gap Admin Center, South State Street, Calpella Elementary School and Kings Court, just to name a few.

At first, the department only needed my services for 32 hours per week. But the addition of more staff and more computers required more time. Meanwhile, out in the county, the Sheriff's Office and the Mental Health Department both hired Computer Analysts to meet their expanding needs.

In 1999, a company called Slavin was hired to conduct a salary and classification study for the county. With their recommendation, the Computer Analyst designation was discontinued and three "Department Information Technology" classifications were created: Specialist, Coordinator and Supervisor. My new class after the study was Department Information Technology Coordinator.

PCs continued to sprout up across the department. By 2002, we had over 150 PCs in Ukiah, Willits and Ft Bragg and I was finding that I couldn't keep up. To maintain the balance and address the need, the Department hired a part-time IT Specialist and I was promoted to IT Supervisor. As the growth continued, we even planned to hire another IT Specialist to provide more coverage for staff. However, a big change was coming.

At Information Services, the director hired in 2003 led a push for the centralization county-wide provision of technical support services. The timing was pretty bad for me and for Public Health. The IT Specialist working with me had just accepted a position as IT Supervisor with another department. It was a promotion and I had encouraged him to go for it. But the change in direction meant that my open IT Specialist position would go unfilled and I no longer had staff to supervise. Furthermore, with tech support moving to IS, I was no longer working on PCs, receiving training, supporting users or interacting directly with technology.

In response, my supervisor at Public Health sent me to several seminars, classes and training sessions. The focus of my job shifted to technology projects, group facilitation and other duties as required. I still received calls from staff and tried to help where I could. But IS led tech support and I was not really involved. The web design (HTML and CSS) was replaced by an application, which is both good and bad. I led the Nursing Division through the process of selecting and implementing a new software program to handle clinic and billing needs. There were the IT and Personnel committees that I facilitated and the department's disaster preparedness program, where I helped create the connectivity plan and develop the technical infrastructure of the Department Operations Center.

In 2006, the Public Health Department, Mental Health Department and Department of Social Services were integrated as branches of a new Health and Human Services Agency. The process was not instantaneous and may take a long time to complete. At the same time, a new round of compensation and classification studies kicked off, this time by Cooperative Personnel Services (CPS), not Slavin. My position did not fare well early in the process. Because of the non-technical work and the fact that I was not supervising staff, CPS recommeded that I be downgraded to IT Coordinator. However, once again, a big change was coming.

In the fall of 2007, the HHSA Director shifted my position back to a more "directly involved" style and she reinstated my supervisory status. In addition to taking on four staff, my duties are expanding with the addition of supervising the Mental Health Branch to my current duties at the Public Health Branch.

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