It’s almost May, but I have to write about my changes in 2014.

In March I was hired at a four year old tech startup in Providence, RI as an IT Specialist. The company wanted to create a full-time position dedicated to internal IT. So far I’ve spent my time setting up a help desk ticket system, seeing to daily support tickets, developing an employee on-boarding and workflow, deploying JAMF Casper Suite (100% wireless Apple environment) and learning as much as I can about wireless networking.

This job has been a big shift for me, not only am I moving away from a Windows/VMware career track, I’m also in a much different office environment. It’s fast paced and very collaborative. We have a large focus on cloud services because of how fast services can get up and running and expand as needed.

The job is bringing on new challenges and a new career outlook. I’ve updated my 2014 goals (see sidebar) to cover the new technology in my daily IT life; Apple computers, Google Apps for Business and wireless networking. I’ve also been very grateful for my employer’s support in launching LOPSA RI, the Rhode Island chapter of the League Of Professional System Administrators. My employer has a great event space with A/V and they even provide the beer and pizza.

This week I’m attending LOPSA East, again thanks to my employer support, where I’ll be participating on the LOPSA Mentors panel talking about IT careers. (Along with soaking up as many great classes, talks, and hallway conversations as I can.) I serve as a LOPSA mentor for proteges looking to enter the IT industry or move up from an entry-level position. If you work in IT check out the mentor program, almost anyone can be a mentor and it’s incredibly rewarding to help a peer in the IT field. (and prevent another BOFH from forming..)

So, 2014 is definitely looking up. I hope to have more content to blog about through my day to day work plus the work I’m doing with LOPSA RI.