Rock Star of the Quarter: JCA’s IT Team!
TIM FITZGERALD, HUGH VASCONCELLOS, AND ILYA VOLOVNIK ARE THE LATEST JCA ROCK STARS!
It is time to recognize our latest JCA Rock Star(s). For Q1 2020, we are recognizing the contributions of Tim Fitzgerald, Hugh Vasconcellos, and Ilya Volovnik—our incredible IT team!
In normal times, we could easily recognize the IT team for all the great things they typically do, and how they do them. They always go above and beyond what’s expected. They live JCA’s core values of taking their work seriously, being honest (no matter what), being fair and respectful, and always striving for excellence. They are great colleagues both individually and collectively. How many times have they jumped to help us with a problem we were having? How many times did they step in when we had a critical deadline, but just couldn’t get our computers to cooperate? Nights, days or weekends, they were always there for us.
Today, though, we wanted to show our special appreciation for how the IT team has responded during the coronavirus pandemic. In the face of a global crisis and amid growing calls to self-isolate and quarantine, the IT team seamlessly transitioned us to a fully remote workforce. Of course, JCA was not caught unprepared as the IT team had built and reinforced a rock solid remote computing platform over the years. In fact, they were able to transition our various “in-office” staff one-by-one, typically overnight, but in some cases even during a lunch break! This was only possible due to the long standing vision and groundwork of our IT department that cannot be taken for granted.
JCA began working remotely long before other organizations considered being distributed, but the IT team has never stood still, constantly building out and fortifying our environment. Email, phones, faxes (yes, we still have a fax number!), video conferencing, file storage, and more, are all accessible no matter where we work. Last year, we completed our migration out of the data facility and we now operate fully in AWS. Had we not taken these steps, we would be unable to fully support our network under the current forced isolation.
It is in moments like these when we fully appreciate the considerable value that our IT team provides. Tim, Hugh, and Ilya: Thank you for all you do! You guys rock!