>> Announcer: From Gillette Stadium, in Foxborough, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. Covering VTUG Winter Warmer, 2018. Presented by Silicon Angle. (upbeat music) >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman, and this is the VTUG Winter Warmer 2018. Happy to welcome to the program Tom Rasmussen, who's an IT director, and an instructor at JATC of Greater Boston. Tom, thanks for joining me. >> Thank you. >> OK, so you wear a couple of hats, like many people in IT. Tell us a little bit about your background and your organization. >> So my background, I come from the electrical engineering, that's my degree, so I used to like the chip-level stuff. And then as time went, I got into computers, networking, and so I kind of, my background is in the server side of it, you know, the Novell, the Microsoft days. And as I became an instructor, because I actually had a service call to the school, and they said, "Oh, you know something "about computers and networking, "would you like to teach here?" And of course, 20-something years later, I'm now the IT director, and part-time instructor. >> Yeah, so I want to dig into both of those. Why don't we start with your IT hat, there? Tell us a little bit about the organization, what kinds of things you deal with, some of kind of the biggest challenges on your plate. >> Yeah, so we're the trade school for the local IBEW in Boston, we've got about 12 to 1,500 apprentices in the school, both electrician and telecommunication. And it's a five-year program, and one of the biggest challenges that kind of brought me on board was just the management of the computer systems. They need someone, you know, they had these computer labs that, as the students did things to them, they no longer worked, and so that machine went off, and that machine, and, you know, they didn't have a full-time IT person, so it was like, OK, this weekend, we're going to re-do everything and so on and so on. Part of me coming on was we implemented a VDI environment, where you might think of it as a cost-type thing, but it was really just a management, where we could manage the desktop, manage the experience. And we're about two years into it, and it's been successful, but it's challenging. >> Yeah, you bring up a real good point, though. When people tend to go in from a cost-savings, a lot of times, they'll be disappointed. There really needs to be some kind of transformational, solving some real business problems, and it sounds like you had that well identified, and while there's always, oh, I've got to fine-tune the performance, oh, the network's got issues, you know, so many devices, and what do I deal with, and churn of what's going on there, it's, you know, changing the paradigm of management, you no longer have, probably, you, running around from all of these places, constantly fiddling with all of these boxes too, I think it would centralize your job a little bit more. >> It did, and one of the kind of benefits was, well, we can't use this lab, because the machines aren't working, or it's not up to date, or we don't have this software, or we don't have the ability to get it up and running, to fighting for the labs now. You know, if a contractor wants to come in, and display, you know, demo a new piece of software, we can put that software on that for the period of time they're there, and then take it away. So we're getting much more utilization out of our systems, which benefits us in production, and it kind of, you know, the students as a whole. >> Yeah, another challenge I hear a lot from education people is, you know, just the wireless infrastructure, how you deal with all the devices, what people get access. Is that running well? You know, challenges, what are you seeing with the abundance of technology that everybody walks in with? >> One of the the things that, we do have a challenge with wireless, we don't have enough, we're not quite sure where we're going with it yet, right now we have a policy that our students aren't allowed to bring wireless devices in, but as we're rolling out new types of products or applications, we're seeing, like, oh, we actually need that tablet, we need you to bring your work, we need that, and so I see this changing very quickly, which is really going to affect us from the wireless management. We had a code update just the past weekend, and they're, again, implementing some type of, you know, OK guys, let's take a quiz. And everyone brings out the phone. Well, they gave out the wireless, and they saturated it, so, we're like, OK, we're going to fix that one too, now. >> Alright, let's flip over and talk about the training that you're working on. What kind of classes are you doing, you know, what skill set, what's kind of the... I know there's never a typical, the typical student look like? >> So, a typical apprentice would be anywhere from someone coming right out of high school, coming out of the military, just deciding to retool. So we could have a 20-something, up to a 40-something. So from an educational standpoint, it is challenging. Some people know things about computers, you know, they know a little bit about network, and it's a range. They know a lot more now than they say, did, five or six years ago, so it's a little easier. From the telcom side, traditional telephone and networking, those apprentices get a full-blown of, you know, this is computers, this is basic networking, this is advanced networking. We're finding that even in the electrical industry, that we need to train our electricians to know about networking, because the lighting system is now in Endpoint, the HVEA system is in Endpoint, the management of the security system, everything is going to be on the internet. So as I say, there's not going to be a lighting switch. You're going to walk in the door, and say, "computer, turn on the lights, mood level five." >> Or even, you have things like Nest, that I don't even have to, a lot of my settings, it's going to learn what's going on. All those IOT devices, does that come into the training today, or is that still kind of a future? >> It's starting to come in, because it has to. Those devices are there. Our heating system in our building went down the other day, and it turned out it was an IP address information, so the joke was, don't let electricians near IP addresses. >> When you said you'd been there 20 years now? >> Tom: Part-time. >> Part-time, but we talk about the rate of change, and there's always change going on, but it definitely feels that things are changing faster. How do you, as a trainer, keep up with it? You want to make sure that when they finish their apprenticeship, they're ready for the new job, how do you manage that? >> The curriculum is constantly changing, it's evolving. We're trying to fit more in, in a shorter period of time. I came out of, I came full time just two years ago, so I was in the thick of things. I'm now focused on VDI and educational resources, which, again, is kind of new to me. What tools, what are all these tools, what are the applications that work in the educational environment, which is kind of above and beyond the traditional IT piece. It is challenging, I read as much as I can, and get involved with places like VTUG, and the other groups, and you can only know so much. I can't be an expert in hardware, or software, or services, or applications, I kind of have to get in the middle, and then hopefully get someone to come and give me a hand. >> Tom, very good point, I think all of us know that there's nobody that can be an expert at everything. You set me up for the last question I have for you. What brings you to an event like the VTUG, what do you get out of it, what would you share to people that didn't come this week? >> I like coming and talking to the vendors, and seeing what's available, but the biggest thing I get is just seeing the other mes out there. Just at lunch today, I met a person that comes from a K to 12 school, and it turns out that we have very similar systems. So, to me, that was probably the best part of the event, there. Because now I have a relationship, because I am the IT guy, I am the IT director, and an instructor, and to have those types of resources is really useful and important to me. Absolutely, which is why, Tom, we appreciate you coming, and sharing with your peers that couldn't come here, what's happening in your environment. We'll be back with lots more coverage here from the VTUG Winter Warmer, 2018. I'm Stu Miniman, you're watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)