Priscilla Milam, associate vice-chancellor of IT operations for the North Harris Montgomery Community College District in The Woodlands, Texas, parlayed a part-time job in her college’s computer centre into a career.
Milam heads up VoIP, wireless and IT service management initiatives across the district’s five colleges and seven educational facilities with 45,000 users. Recently Milam spoke with Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie about how she maintained momentum throughout her varied career.
How did you land in your current position?
I had been at [the district’s] Kingwood College and had been accepting high-profile projects and lead positions for the district in its entirety. For instance, I brought the whole concept of the [Information Technology Infrastructure Library] to the district’s attention as a way to improve services. Also I did research on voice over IP for our phone system. It meant extra work on top of what I was already doing, but that helped me get more visibility in the district and get to know people.
Describe your current network, staff and responsibilities.
We have a WAN fibre ring that connects all five campuses and some of the centers. The application developers [and] network support and operations teams report to me. In all, about 60 people report to me. And I report to the CIO.
How did you get interested in networking and IT in general?
When I went to Texas A&M, I was undecided as to my long-term career goals. And I happened to get a job at the computer centre as a student worker. Then it became clear. I really just liked the environment and was interested in the new technology. It felt like it was the place for me. That’s when I changed my course of study to computer science.
From there, how calculated was your career progression?
I first started out as a programmer-analyst and then moved into the networking side. It interested me so I did it, plain and simple. It wasn’t until I was at Kingwood College in a leadership position that I got involved with districtwide projects that I thought, ‘Maybe I should do this more often because it might be a path for me.’ At that point, it was calculated. I knew that politics were important, and I became cognizant of the IT projects and people that could help advance my career.
Did you just happen upon networking?
I was a programmer-analyst for the Department of Defense, where I worked on the Apache helicopter project in Corpus Christi [Texas]. Then I moved to a top-secret security-level job working with the Trident Nuclear Submarine project in Newport, R.I. Then I made the move to Trans European Marketing in Frankfurt, Germany.
That’s where I realized there is this new thing called a network coming out. I thought I could make use of connecting all our PCs and sharing the reporting on this database. That’s when I truly got the flavour of the networking side, how everything connects. And now my advantage is that I have been fortunate to work on many sides of the house.
What are some of the differences working in IT for the government, education and enterprise companies?
I argue this a lot, because many people in education or in healthcare say “we’re different.” Really, on the IT side it’s the same. We have to look at the bottom line, we have to work within a budget, we have to show our value to the business. We are under very tight budget restraints, and we have to figure out how we can do things more effectively, more efficiently all the time.
How do you keep yourself up to speed on all the technology areas in your current position?
I am a member of a CIO Forum here in Houston. I’m a member of IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF), which is the ITIL user forum. Also, any time the server team, for instance, brings in a vendor to do a dog-and-pony show for, say, blade servers, then I make it a point to sit in to hear what they are hearing and trying to pick out what’s new from the vendor perspective.
How do you deal with the silos of technology across your reports?
I have done team development and also have sent all of my direct reports and many of their direct reports to ITIL foundation training. I also include the service desk on all the projects and get them intimately involved, to try to get the link going between the server side and network teams. I have used ITIL foundation training and the ITIL concept as a tool to help them see the big picture and communicate as a team.
What is the biggest change you have seen in IT over the past 20 years?
The biggest change I have seen is needing to know the business side of the house. I teach a graduate class once per year, and that’s the first thing I tell them. When I first got into computing and I worked in Corpus Christi, I wore my winter coat to work because we were down in the basement, and nobody ever saw us and it was freezing cold down there with all the air conditioning. I definitely didn’t know anything about the business and no one really cared as long as you spit out payroll and paid the bills.
How has the IT staff evolved within the business over the years?
As computers became more involved in day-to-day functions, we had to be more cognizant of what the business strategy was. How do we fit into that business model? And then how does our budget fit into the overall business strategy? And that continues to become more and more important.
What do you tell your students who are looking to get into technology today?
Graduate students often ask me what they can do with their MIS degree. I tell them to find a technology that really suits them and be really, really good at it.
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