Karen Bates, Kathy Bine, Christina Crockett, Toni Mehrman, and Mike Richardson

These party people have been amazing party planners for the upcoming ITS Holiday Extravaganza and I'm incredibly grateful! The team collectively came up with a name/theme and fun ideas that could be incorporated to help send ITS into the holiday with a bit of extra cheer. Some even showed up to planning meetings with festive attire and an inflight craft project that was showcased and admired. Another volunteered to learn and use an open-source photo booth tool to create a unique and personalized photo booth experience, even using their own equipment to test and troubleshoot, and make magic happen. The thoughtful ideas and teamwork, along with the respect shown in listening and supporting all the innovative ideas, made me proud to be part of the group. I am looking forward to celebrating the holiday season with them and all of ITS at what I know will be a joyful event due to their engagement and optimistic spirits!

- Whitney Sublett

Tia Saah

Tia has been a fantastic addition to the Communications & Marketing team, further enhancing the creative possibilities for design elements. She quickly adopted the new George Mason brand guide to ensure everything she creates is aligned with known requirements, and she always asks pertinent follow-up questions if there's any concern or clarification needed for a request. No matter the ask, Tia has delivered top-notch work and always with a smile. Every interaction I've had with her is pleasant and she's an excellent communicator, with a team-oriented mindset. Keep doing awesome things, Tia; you make it look easy!

- Whitney Sublett

Anna Stackhouse

Back when we needed communications more than ever, Anna worked to develop what would come to be known as "ITS Stay Connected," which was a publication to do just that - keep ITS connected through org updates, happenings around campus, recognition of colleagues, and eventually also regular musings by the CIO. It brought me a lot of joy personally, both to participate in and to read-through. Anna has an eye for layout and took it upon herself to become an expert at using Emma, with its quirkiness and all! When our new CIO came onboard, she was instrumental in developing the template for the new weekly CIO message, renamed "ITS in Community," and helped get me added as a user in Emma and also spent time training me on the tool. It's wonderful to have a teammate who so willingly shares their talents to help achieve the broader goals of the org and in-turn helps to enrich the culture.

- Whitney Sublett

Mark Craft

Mark continues to prove his reliability time in and time out. In the efforts to get things ready to decommission Citrix he dropped what he had been working on to stand up a new environment due to changing requirements. His efforts continue to make the difference in the project, and I cannot thank him enough.

- Mike Fletcher

Kate Orf

Every year we go into the process of renewing VPN SSL certificates, and Kate is always there to help out through the process. She is always supportive and ready on standby for any issues that might arise. Her support is always appreciated.
Thank you, Kate, and your team for helping us on this.

- Alex Saleh

Alex Galantis

I was struggling to update an important spreadsheet document. I asked Alex to take a look since I know he is a semi-pro with Excel. He did and had many questions as to what I was trying to accomplish. Through his questions, I realized I did not give out the right information in an organized manner. He assisted me in "revamping" the entire document to where it is easily readable and extremely informative, highlighting the emphasis needed for the project. Thanks to his insight, I felt much better passing on this polished document! Kudos to Alex!!

- Cherie Galantis

Richard Jackson

I could write much about how Richard embodies each of the ITS values: communication, integrity, innovation, respect, and teamwork; but I'll strive to be succinct. Richard has consistently gone above and beyond with regards to the MESA migration project over the past yest, but I'm submitting this VTTC nomination directly in relation to his most recent work in identifying a permission mis-configuration which allowed individuals to continue to use the Mason MyData (M:) shares after this data was migrated to OneDrive. Not only did Richard quickly identify the root cause, but he also had the foresight to decommission the MESA hardware in a tiered manner which could account for these edge cases. He's been leading the charge with getting orphaned data to end-users who are submitting tickets. Additionally, he's been courteous and timely in all communications with these users who otherwise would have lost this M: drive data. His teamwork and commitment to seeing the MESA migration project completed in a professional and secure manner is nothing short of exemplary. I'm fortunate to have worked with Richard on this project.

- J.D. Sayle

Mindy Stawarz

Innovation, Integrity and Teamwork: Mindy Stawarz has done a great job developing integrations for the highly complex multi-year RAMP project. She has worked tirelessly to integrate the Mason ERP system, Banner, with the RAMP modules. Thanks to Mindy’s efforts, Banner sources Human Resources and Organizational information for Personnel, Students, Departments and Sponsors. RAMP Grants sends Grants, Awards, and Award Budget information data to Banner. Banner provides feedback files to RAMP for the success or errors from the award integration. Award Budget Modification Information integration was particularly complex, and Mindy worked tirelessly with the Office of Sponsored Programs staff to analyze, develop, and test the interface. The results of Mindy’s efforts have provided significant efficiencies for the OSP staff and beyond. She is continuing to develop integrations from Banner for Person Effort Allocations to provide data for the Payroll Certification process. Throughout all of this effort, Mindy has worked diligently to ensure accuracy of the information, and she has worked collaboratively with the customers and the vendor to provide innovative solutions that are benefitting the entire research community at George Mason.

- Maribeth Luftglass

Kathy Bine

Teamwork: Kathy Bine has done a great job coordinating with multiple ITS offices, Human Resources, the Office of Research, the Office of Sponsored Programs, the Office of Risk, Safety, and Resilience, and the vendor Huron, to analyze and implement a new integration of training information from CITI and MasonLEAPS into RAMP. Researchers are subject to a variety of federally mandated research compliance training requirements. The RAMP system suite, with its multiple research compliance modules (COI, Safety, IRB, and IACUC), afforded a new opportunity to consolidate the tracking and reporting of training completion records. As such, RAMP now includes a multi-stage research training data integration that went live in September. MasonLEAPS, which is Mason’s Learning, Evaluation, and Performance System, receives a nightly data feed of completion records from CITIProgram.org online courses (Human Subjects, Animal Care & Use, Responsible Conduct of Research). These CITI course records are combined with local completion records from courses in MasonLEAPS (Lab Safety, Export Control) into a comprehensive nightly data feed from MasonLEAPS into RAMP. Once in RAMP, each module displays only those research records specific to its compliance area (e.g., human subjects trainings display in RAMP IRB). RAMP also supports system-wide reporting on training completion records across all research compliance areas.

Thanks to Kathy's efforts, this overall data integration facilitates timely, at-a-glance verification of compliance with training requirements, as well as greatly augments the capacity of several George Mason offices to track and monitor training completions.

- Maribeth Luftglass

Lori Polnow

Lori's experience and attention to detail are awesome. Several changes were made to resolve some of the issues seen during the first registration time slot for classes. The most meaningful change was most likely made by Lori, when she saw and responded to sessions that were not being cleared from the database. She proactively downgraded the software version used on the servers that were handling the course registration processes, resulting in a much better outcome for the registration time slots that followed. Kudos to Lori!!!!

- Sandy Winter

Matthew Berlejung

Some Costello College of Business (CCB) users lost access to files after unknowingly allowing a SharePoint site to expire. These were files that they needed for a leadership event two days later. Matt immediately prioritized helping us restore the site so we could access the files. Matt has an excellent sense of what customers need in the moment, which is much appreciated, especially during time-sensitive situations like this one. He is always exceedingly polite and professional in his communications. Thank you, Matt!

- Kathi Gelona

Stephen Tate

I Want to take the time out to "THANK (YOU)" Stephen for always assisting and teaching. We are always taking Telecom Coordinator requests to update and/or change department billing orgs. Recently, we needed to find and enter a long list of about 120 missing billing org accounting details. Stephen assisted me and helped to set up a super quick Excel import for Pinnacle. This import saved me so much time, and at the same time, I learned the steps of how to execute it. Stephen always makes time to help me out, and thoroughly explains the processes for everything we work on. I appreciate the valuable sessions we have working through Pinnacle issues.

Stephen is an asset to the Telecom team, and he always goes out of his way to help everyone. Communication and teamwork are a huge part of what makes our Telecom group so successful!

- Tamika Wilks

Ayo Ajiboye

Thank you so much for your great support with my IT issues! Your knowledgeable, very pleasant, and professional approach in resolving my issues went a long way. I am now able to access my GMU emails and Blackboard on my phone because of how you went above and beyond to make sure everything worked well before our call ended!

- Milly Saldana

Lauren Reese

Lauren is always super helpful, fast, and accurate (all with a smile!). Never have I been let down by Lauren or the team she leads. Thanks, Lauren!

- Matthew Berlejung

Ryan LeBreton, Jan Macario, Kate Orf

The Web Applications & Services team always helps resolve issues super-fast! In the process, I always learn something new. I can always depend on them to help me in a pinch. Thanks for all you do so well!

- Christina Crockett

Michael Kramer

I want to thank Michael Kramer for helping me with our migration to Windows 11. I had migrated all but one computer in the Communications department that didn't have sufficient space for the migration. Michael showed me where we could free up space on the computer.

All of the computers in Communications are shared computers. While dispatchers are the primary users, we often have other personnel logging on to our computers. We had users on the computers that resigned years ago! I placed the computers on an update schedule, but I didn't know we also had to delete users. I will now make sure to delete users along with the updates.

After deleting the users, emptying the recycling bin and cleaning the disks on each computer, I was able to get the messy computer that would not migrate to Windows 11 to accept the application. I also went to their other 6 computers and repeated the process of deleting users and cleaning disks.

Michael, thank you for your help!

- Beverley Jackson

Yu Kuo

Yu Kuo (Yuko) is an exceptional leader. She actively participates in available trainings, including the recent Gallup Engagement Survey training for which she then created a related meeting structure and templates to help track progress. Yuko gets into the trenches with her team, never leaving them to resolve challenges on their own, and fully understands the team’s workload to help strategize a plan forward. Yuko is an outstanding communicator, team player, and is always working to better herself and the ITS department!!

- Chris Nayeri

Alex Saleh

A TDX ticket had been submitted that required a new route get added to the ITSO scanner VLAN, which is a critical part of allowing ITSO to detect vulnerabilities. I messaged Alex to see if he could take a look at the ticket for me, and he didn't hesitate to look and created a solution for me, completing the ticket in no time.

- Brendan Nary

Jeff Kling

Events in Merten Hall tend to be high-profile and high-pressure - failure is not an option. On the occasions we have requested professional help from our colleagues in CaLT, without exception, Jeff responds quickly, resolves issues professionally and always with a smile on his face and a positive attitude. We don't say thank you enough, Jeff. We want you to know how appreciated you are. Thank you for all you do to make ITS shine!

- Susan Kehoe

Kate Astor

Kate did an outstanding job presenting MicroStrategy Employee and Vacancy Training to a large audience during two separate sessions. She covered a number of complex topics and presented the information in a clear and concise manner.

- Brian Gantt

Ayo Ajiboye

I am an adjunct professor and I had an emergency on Monday that Ayo was able to help resolve. He was friendly, professional, and very competent. I've been in the ITS Support Center several times this semester, and the staff have always been super helpful. What made Ayo's support very special is that I knocked on the door 5 minutes after closing - he let me in and resolved my issue so I could have a successful class session. He didn't rush through the process and he took extra time to make sure I had what I needed.

Thank you to Ayo - you are a superstar!

-Anthony Arciero

Matt Berlejung

Matt is always stepping up to help. I have seen it both in projects he is working on and day to day operations. In the MESA migration project, he has been an excellent partner to colleagues both inside and outside of the project team. He makes those reaching out for extra help feel comfortable and ensures they leave with the necessary knowledge to continue working successfully on their own – whether it's Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, or MyHub. Thank you, Matt, for constantly being a great team player!

-Lauren Hutt

Tia Saah

Tia is the ultimate teammate! I was tasked with creating a presentation under a tight deadline, and Tia jumped in immediately to help get content together and the ideas flowing with minimal direction from me. I couldn't have done it without her and am so grateful to have her on my team. Thank you, Tia, for being an ITS rockstar!

-Anna Stackhouse

Debbie Penny

Debbie worked with me to reestablish my account which was locked. We ran into many roadblocks in this process due to new security measures and policies. Debbie has the knowledge and familiarity of where to go and who to reach out to in order to acquire the necessary information within the ITS departments. She always takes on the responsibility of completing the task at hand with integrity and respect. ITS Support has been well represented by her tenacity and pleasant disposition in solving unconventional issues.

-Anthony Wilson

Nico Clemente

Nico has done a tremendous job with the rollout of Patriot Drive (P:Drive) as part of the MESA to M365 project. He is always so quick to respond to the needs of customers or teammates, and he does so in a thoughtful way. There was a lot to learn and a lot of work to coordinate migrations and setup to ensure that everything went smoothly. Nico has been up to every challenge. Thank you, Nico, for your commitment to this project!

-Lauren Hutt

Elizabeth Redwine

I am an adjunct faculty coming in after an absence of 1+ years.

Over the past few days, I have been calling the Helpdesk for all kinds of support to set me up for my course.

I am excited and happy to let you know that I received exceptional service from Elizabeth every time she happened to take my call. Although I am an IT faculty, I am challenged with Microsoft technology and Blackboard!! This is really a 5-star, or "white glove" experience that has been extremely pleasant and productive.

Cheers to Elizabeth for her patience, great attitude, and resourcefulness with a wide variety of topics - Zoom, Blackboard, Office 365 - you name it! Such employees are exemplary and so this is just a small notice of appreciation.

Thanks to Elizabeth as well as others who have made my experience memorable.

-Prof. Chandra Sekaran

Nico Clemente

We are dealing with aging hardware, and Nico has made himself available every week, for two months now, to swap out old hard disk drives. This effort is important to keep our storage running and his participation is critical. He often steps up within our team to take on new tasks and roles and he is very much appreciated for his willingness to do so.

-Sandy Winter

Toni Mehrman

"The Best Co-Worker!" Toni ALWAYS Goes out of her way to accommodate everyone, including me! I was waiting on three pending, new purchase orders and she was getting ready to go on vacation. She was able to contact purchasing to expedite the POs, working late the night before she had an early a.m. flight to get the Purchase Orders completed and back to me. She did not have to do this, but it was so appreciated. Toni is always dedicated to helping and assisting everyone in our ITS department family.

-Tamika Wilks

Tommy Dang, Emilio Goncalves, Stephanie Klare, Kate Orf, and Sean Wilder

A HUGE shout-out to this team for getting the VPN and Wi-Fi back up quickly on the first day of class! Their work is critical to Mason's infrastructure and is most appreciated!

Thank you to those involved in letting us know early so we could plan around the authentication issue, and to everyone involved, including the Support Center, for getting the message out so fast!

Again, everyone, thank you for all you do so well! We are ONE ITS!

-Christina Crockett

Brian Davidson and Elizabeth Redwine

Recently, Elizabeth noticed a pattern of people not having the option to sign up for 2FA. She identified that those impacted were all active in Banner and their full access NetID/accounts had been created the day before, so she connected with the 2FA team to investigate. Brian researched and identified the problem and swiftly remediated it. This quick action avoided other new users from having problems with activating their account. Great teamwork!!

-Teresa Gibbons

Devin Bist, Tommy Dang, Brian Davidson, Peter Duong, David Lutz, Adrise Nazir, Lori Polnow, Alex Saleh, Larry Song, Tian Wang, and Sandy Winter

I'm sitting on a call with everyone mentioned above, listening to them debug an issue where users in the Engineering Building are not consistently able to reach PatriotWeb. Everyone is engaged, respectful, thinking inside, outside, beside, under, and over the box to try to determine the issues. With every new idea, Larry is asking the team to confirm it's the correct next step and ensuring no one has concerns. When a concern was raised, the team assessed it before moving forward. Debugging sessions are long, sometimes boring, and always a little frustrating, but the actions of these team members and their professionalism to figure out the impossible was simply amazing. Larry's leadership throughout the call was on point. I applaud this team!!

-Erica McQuiston

Sabastian Kwantreng

Sabastian’s help and enthusiasm in helping us welcome new Patriots and their families to GMU at Orientation was much appreciated. He was great in communicating the offerings that Information Technology Services provides, as well as information on who to contact with any issues.

-Noor Aarohi

Alex Galantis

Working with Alex is a pleasure. He always takes the time to help or promptly answer any questions or will point me to the available resources.
Recently, during the decommissioning of MESA, I had to move a large volume of excel reconciliation folders and files away from MESA to Teams and needed to complete the task quickly. I had questions about navigation in the new storage location since it was uncharted territory. Alex was knowledgeable on the details and even offered to assist with the relocation of the files. He did it like a pro! I so appreciate it and would like to recognize his ready assistance. Thank you, Alex!

-Kate Rodrigues

Joung Huh

Joung always documents everything so well. Recently, there was an issue with a system/process that I had never had to correct before. Joung's documentation of a time when she had to correct a similar issue was so good that I didn't even need to reach out for her assistance. I very much appreciate that she always stays on top of documenting and makes such clear documentation. It helps our entire team run smoothly & efficiently.

-Amanda Kennedy

Jerry Peters and Jeff Kling

Many thanks to Jerry for confirming that "hope" will show up for maintenance this weekend and ensuring the maintenance message was on point. Thank you, Jeff, for being a good sport and playing along about "hope" when I confused you for Jerry. (By the way, "hope" is the parts and non-ITS people needed for maintenance this weekend.) Thanks again, Jerry and Jeff, for making work enjoyable.

-Christina Crockett

Brad Sullivan

Orientations have moved up the time for Green & Gold by 15 minutes, and for some reason, I couldn't edit the invites to all my awesome volunteers. I was panicked. Brad brought much-needed levity and helped me out. I appreciate his speedy help and reassurance that it wasn't me. From one "tab hoarder" to another, many thanks!

-Christina Crockett

Ayo Ajiboye

Today I received excellent IT support from Ayo, who helped me understand what Microsoft's upcoming changes will mean and how to protect my data. He was very patient, knowledgeable, and helpful. I can only imagine how challenging your jobs must be and can't tell you how much it means to have such a responsive and supportive GMU IT team to turn to. My experiences with IT have always been positive and Ayo went above and beyond today. Thank you!!

-Diane Wagner

Toni Mehrman

I wanted to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude for Toni's exceptional support throughout the process of ordering my computer and navigating through the intricacies of the invoice situation.

Toni's meticulous attention to detail and proactive approach truly made the entire experience seamless and efficient. Her willingness to go above and beyond to ensure that every aspect was taken care of is not only commendable but also invaluable. Knowing that I had someone as reliable and knowledgeable as her to guide me through each step was incredibly reassuring.

Her professionalism and unwavering dedication have left a lasting impression, and I am genuinely thankful for all that she has done. It's evident that her efforts have not gone unnoticed, and I feel fortunate to have had the privilege of working alongside her.

I want to extend my sincerest appreciation for Toni's outstanding assistance. I eagerly anticipate the opportunity to collaborate with her again in the future.
Please convey my heartfelt thanks to Toni and please acknowledge her exemplary work ethic.

-Friba Alizai

Matt Berlejung and Brad Sullivan

I am supremely grateful and impressed by the customer service I recently received from Matt and Brad. For about a month, I experienced ongoing issues with a Teams space I own, where the standard method for unarchiving private channels was not working correctly and resulted in a number of errors. Matt and Brad were quick to help troubleshoot, walk me through a number of technical steps, and finally involve Microsoft for further escalation. They remained steadfast through the multitude of requests for logs, ensuring communication between the vendor was timely and effective, and continued to offer additional troubleshooting suggestions as new information was learned and the problem still persisted. In addition to the troubleshooting on my end, Matt and Brad conducted a number of more advanced technical solutions on their end, and through their combined efforts my issue was resolved. The patience, technical expertise, and overall level of support I experienced from these two was exceptional and representative of what you would expect to see displayed as part of our ITS values. Thank you, Matt and Brad, for sticking by my side and saving the day!

-Whitney Sublett

Emmanuel Pajibo

Emmanuel has been an earnest learner, discussing Linux and other engineering topics with me over his time as an intern with ITSO. This past week, I was running into a particularly difficult installation problem with some of our RHEL servers. As I was setting up at our ping-pong table to continue working the problem, Emmanuel asked me if I could talk him through what I was up to at the moment (as he often does when time permits).

As I was talking about the problems I was having (failed media checks for USB drives, installation failures, etc.) and the steps I was taking to diagnose the problem, he asked for clarification on certain things. I didn't know that he was actually searching the internet for solutions to my issues. One of them, a flaw in how Windows handles auto-mounting USB drives, was actually a well-known defect when imaging Linux installer ISOs to a flash drive - once completed, a Windows machine with AutoPlay enabled will re-mount a newly imaged drive and write a file that causes the media check to fail.

I was at a loss as to how to resolve the problem I was having, and Emmanuel dutifully found the proper fix in about 10 minutes.

-Michael Richardson

Ubaidul Khan, Mary Lulis, and Khoi Nguyen

On the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, the Office of Admissions had a tool (Informatica) go down, which is critical to business functions. Given the unavailability of Admissions' standard support person being out on vacation and the urgency to resolve the outage, ITS was contacted to step in. Khoi Nguyen, Ubaidul Khan, and Mary Lulis were able to get the tool back up and running ahead of the holiday weekend.

This was not a planned task for the day, but these three folks jumped in and worked as a team to get this critical business process back online. A 3+ day outage over the holiday weekend would have been very challenging to recover from. We are thankful they are on the Mason Team!

-Kathy Zimmerman

Matt Berlejung, Tracy Holt, Lauren Hutt, Richard Jackson

There are far more names than I have included here, as the MESA Migration project has been extensive and involved multiple levels of support across ITS, from the immediate project team to subject matter experts stepping in to team members making the time to chip in where needed. This includes providing standing office hour and additional investigation and one-off support for IT directors and those with unique use-cases.

Thanks to the collective team for your exceptional management of this project, including answering repeat questions with calm and diving in to research those that may not have an immediate answer, and further coming up with creative solutions to meet the exhaustive list of needs. For anyone reading this submission, take a moment to learn more about the project here!

-Whitney Sublett

Judy Fortin and Karen Lalicker

Judy and Karen presented on MicroStrategy during multiple "How to Thrive at Mason" Boot Camp sessions. Their subject matter expertise
and presentation skills were on full display. Their presentations are vital to the Mason community as well as the success of the Boot Camp. I always come away from these sessions learning something new and I appreciate the time and effort they put into this work. Thank you both.

-Brian Gantt

Michael Kramer

Michael Kramer is one of the best IT staff I have ever dealt with. He has helped me change my Mason password in the system— more than once and he makes it so smooth for someone like me who is not great with IT. He is responsive, polite, patient, provides clear explanations, and is always VERY helpful!

-Linda Harber, Retiree

Francesca Brunner-Kennedy, Casey Campbell, Gary Casallas, Judy Fortin, Chris Gay, Ubaidul Khan, Karen Lalicker, Lakshmi Maruwada, Boniface Ntawutarama, Karen Savell, Ben Solorzano, and Lifang Vanderwill

Thank you all for the tireless effort and work over the weekend and evenings to complete the RHEL8 and MicroStrategy upgrade this past week. You not only completed the work with little to no interruption to daily work, but you did it a day and a half quicker than planned. Bringing up the production server and letting users back in on Monday night instead of Wednesday morning was amazing, and a testament to the thorough and diligent work you all do every day.

Your work is noticed and appreciated! THANK YOU!

-Erica McQuiston

Tom Deike and Lee Faber

Last week, a temporary office move had to be executed with little warning. Tom and Lee are both entrenched with the Telecom implementation project, but they worked the problem and found a solution within minutes. We moved staff in less than a day! Home Depot may claim to be 'How Doers Get More Done,' but they have nothing on Tom, Lee, and the rest of the team.

-Brian Gantt

Richard Jackson and Mike Rothgeb

I noticed a strange behavior on my laptop that popped up suddenly. The Windows Explorer windows where I had navigated to a MESA drive just randomly disappeared, went away, without me closing them. I was doing a lot of work on MESA at the time, and it was really interfering with my productivity. I filed a support ticket, but really had little expectation that anyone was going to be able to fix this. It could be so many different issues, and I never knew when the behavior was going to happen. I reached out to Richard to see if it was related to his MESA migration work. It wasn't, but he immediately dug into the problem and figured out that it was an end-point AD network drive related GPO. He reached out to Mike Rothgeb who fixed the problem.

-Francesca Brunner-Kennedy

Nikolai Majorin

Nikolai has gone above and beyond in support of Project 761 - Implementing the new Vonage Telecommunications System. He has shown exceptional communications in working with ITS staff across many different offices, and with customers across the university ensuring that the new system meets unique needs of different departments and staff. His integrity and innovation are incredible as evidenced by his recent support of the GMU Police Department. When an error occurred during a recent installation, the Police Department phones were inadvertently taken off-line without notice. Nikolai jumped in immediately to help determine the problem and to find a workaround solution. He stayed with the GMUPD staff, working long into the night to ensure that emergency calls could continue to be handled. His dedication to taking responsibility for ensuring the police department could continue to serve the emergency needs of the students, faculty and staff, and his innovation in finding a quick solution to keep the most important phone calls flowing were remarkable. The GMUPD were incredibly grateful for Nikolai's empathy, professionalism and collaboration in serving their important needs. We are very fortunate to have Nikolai's dedication, leadership, collaboration, and contributions on the project team.

-Maribeth Luftglass

Karen Bates, Christina Crockett, Lauren Reese, and Anna Stackhouse

After reading the latest ITS Stay Connected, I was reminded that I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for the often thankless job that Communications and Marketing performs for ITS. You are not project managers, but projects could not be successfully completed without your input, and contributions. You provide a cohesive voice to a very disparate group of individuals and departments. You are often one of the last to be recognized when you provide a service so crucial to the success of our department. Thank you all for the work and contributions you make to ITS.

-Brian Gantt

Cheng Cheu, Michael Kramer, and Neha Sharma

I want to express my deep appreciation for the wonderful IT support that Neha provided to me. They were thoughtful, patient, and handled my difficult IT issue with patience, sensitivity, and excellence. Also, Michael Kramer and Cheng Chu were very helpful and sensitive. I am pleased that ITS has this kind of support and that these employees are part of our GMU community.

-Hans Hoyer

Toni Mehrman

Toni's unwavering support and assistance during our staffing shortage has been invaluable. She consistently demonstrates the essence of respect and collaboration in every task she undertakes. Her assistance and cheerful demeanor have been greatly appreciated as she has supported us.
Thank you for your invaluable help, Toni!

-LeAnn Pittman

Francesca Brunner-Kennedy

Thank you, Francesca, for helping sort out the RFCs for MicroStrategy UAT and Prod so I could get the weekend maintenance email together and confirm website entries. You are always a pleasure to work with! 🙂

-Christina Crockett

Lee Faber

Lee has worked so diligently on the Vonage implementation project. Her attention to detail and incredible follow through defines her work ethic. She is responsible for our pre-building installs of the new Vonage phones. In doing so, Lee has been able to foresee issues that may occur and work through them with the teladmin and tech team. She has been invaluable by making sure our information is correct or corrected. This is no easy task as there have been some major mix-ups that she has been able to divert. We could not do this project without her and she has been solid gold. KUDOS!!

-Cherie Galantis

Nishad Kharkar and Brad Sullivan

I appreciated the time Nishad spent with me trying to resolve an issue I was experiencing with OneDrive/OneNote. My initial correspondence with Nashid and the follow-up with Brad Sullivan was clear and helpful, and everyone was nice to work with.

-Jacob Hooper

Nikolai Majorin and Anna Stackhouse

Anna and Nikolai have become quite the dynamic duo making sure no leaf is left unturned with the Telecom Replacement Project. They are both beyond dedicated to seeing this project through and doing whatever they can to ensure the impacts on our customers are as minimal as possible. They have built trust and good communication with each other, which is so important within a team on such a high-impact project. And all the extra hours they put in do not go unnoticed... and they seem to still manage to have some laughs along the way. Thanks for your contributions, commitment, and teamwork.

-Lauren Reese

Brad Sullivan

Brad was called upon to help with an MS Team that was experiencing a technical glitch. He provided exhaustive troubleshooting; however, the problem persisted. When time ran short, Brad offered to recreate the team, which was successful in addressing the issue. His technical knowledge and customer service are excellent! Thank you, Brad!

-Charlie Spann

Josh Grant

Our Vonage implementation had a major bump in the road in the SUB I building. There were ~60 lines that were not patched for the conversion to take place. Josh stepped up and worked diligently in the telecom closet patching these missing lines. It did delay our install as this was time-consuming, but we were able to complete 90% of the building that same day. Thanks, Josh, for taking the lead and initiative to keep us focused and on track.

-Cherie Galantis

Anna Stackhouse

Anna is a key player in the meetings she attends. She is always clear with the audience to which she is speaking, be it lay-users, or the technical experts. She listens, she thinks, she responds. Anna may be known for her friendly demeanor - but those that do not know her smile, know she is professional in everything she does. I am glad she is on the projects in which we cross paths.

-Matt Berlejung

Whitney Sublett

No matter how busy she is Whitney maintains a great attitude and participates in other campus initiatives outside of ITS. She sets the example, encourages others to participate, and is a great role model. Thanks for taking care of the faculty and staff from the Green Community!

-Johanna Lizardi

CJ Morgan

CJ was a life saver for me. I had been tasked to help the GMU Gaming Department get fitting for Vison Pro. Apple Reps had forwarded me the steps and process, but I needed help badly because the steps were not working. I knew I was missing something. I reached out for help from our Apple Reps and they could not provide me the help that was needed, so I reached out to our Logistics Department for help. At last, at last, at last - CJ was recommended for assistance since he is the wiz of all things Apple. I forwarded him all the proper instructions and he was able to figure out the process - batta bing batta boom - CJ and I connected and he walked me through the proper steps via Teams. He was great, understanding, and empathic with me. I cannot give him enough praise. I am just so grateful for him. I feel so much better. Thanks so much, CJ.

-Toni Mehrman

Mike Richardson

Mikey! Moke! Big Red! Thank you so much for helping out. Often times ITSO will be tasked with building a computer to a higher degree of security than the standard fare. The good news is these systems are locked down and super secure. The bad news is they are locked down and secure and can be challenging for customers to troubleshoot. One of these particular computers is on the SciTech Campus which is a long way from Fairfax. Mike was able to assist the department and troubleshoot their issues and get them back up and running in a jiffy! The assist from Mike being willing and able to show up and also troubleshoot to the Nth degree to resolve the issue is beyond appreciated. It saved me a trip and thereby also saved the customer an immense amount of down time in the process. Thank you so much for being a great teammate and helping out even when it isn't in your day-to-day duties, Mike. Kudos and much appreciated!

-Tony Houdek

Noor Aarohi, Mark Craft, Mike Fletcher, Mitchell Fletcher, Tim Flynn, Teresa Gibbons, Kyle Goodell, Richard Jackson, Kristen Jennette, Saima Khan, Alex Loper, John McShea, Bates Nunamaker, Bob Peraino, Lori Polnow, Lauren Reese, Ryan Sakai, Umer Shahzad

This group assisted with the process, documentation, and testing of TeamDynamix Change Management. Their assistance made it possible to move ITS from CMDB to TDX with minimal issues. Over several months, they reviewed documentation or entered test RFCs allowing us to tweak the processes that had to be put in place.

-David Robertson

Matt Berlejung

Despite my poor planning and last-minute request for help, Matt helped me get ready for a big meeting this week. He walked me through everything I needed to know and as a result, I was able to be present with the group I was meeting and not worry about logistics. Thanks, Matt!

-Joy Taylor

Lisa Carr, Brad Sullivan, Marcus Wilson

The O365 team got a message to assist with Mail Merge from another Mason department. While we do not support mail merge and do not have any interaction with this service, the request was time-sensitive and high-profile. This team of wonder-lings worked it through, got the solution, and they sent the client happily on their way. As always, this team finds a way to pull through, and drop what they are doing to meet any and all URGENT requests. KUDOS, team amazing!

- Cherie Galantis

Devin Bist, Chris Nayeri, Alex Saleh, Larry Song

I wanted to share some special appreciation for this group of ITS teammates. We ran into a scheduling conflict last week with ITS maintenance and a large-scale event for admitted students. Chris, Devin, Alex, and Larry were very responsive and cooperative in pivoting our plans quickly, and their willingness to help my team help an external partner was beyond top-notch customer service. I know last-minute changes like that are very frustrating, but their "we'll get it done" attitude and understanding are always appreciated and I really value getting the chance to work with them.

-Lauren Reese

Bates Nunamaker and David (Drob) Robertson

Thank you to Bates and Drob for being extremely accessible. They answered and clarified many questions for us in a speedy fashion. In addition, Bates quickly jumped in to assist me several times to get things moving forward. They are great team players!!

-Yuko Kuo

Mike Rothgeb

Mike is instrumental to the implementation of our HIPAA Zoom Secure account. He is always quick to assist and never complains. Thanks, Mike!

-Matt Berlejung and Mike Fuemmeler

Bates Nunamaker

A TDX Godsend, that should be Bates' title! I have a well-oiled team that is in the TDX system all the time. Me, not so much, and that is why I reached out to Bates to assist me with setting up some specific dashboard settings, reports, and to give me a quick guide/review of this beast of a system that I lacked knowledge in. Bates got me so well equipped that I can now do some actual damage, but in a good way. I cannot stress the gratefulness of his patience, as he led me through all sorts of avenues, got me settled and comfortable in reviewing and tracking. What a joy to work with our great talent here at Mason. Bates, you are a wonder, and thanks for all of those excellent ideas and for showcasing what I needed to know! KUDOS!!!

-Cherie Galantis

Toni Mehrman

There are a number of tasks that take a lot of time and energy and that don't necessarily fall neatly under one person's purview. Toni is an expert at purchasing and keeping ITS equipped with the tools they need to successfully do their jobs, but she also steps up to other tasks that the org needs help with, such as tracking down items for fixed assets, helping with surplus items and telecom coordination, and numerous other things that often happen behind the scenes. She always follows up and checks in with people personally as she's working with them, adding a personal touch to her work and making a mark on people she interacts with. Toni is accountable and determined and does everything with heartfelt intention. Thank you for your many efforts, Toni, both seen and unseen!

-Whitney Sublett

Brian Gantt

Brian Gantt is an incredible asset to Mason and ITS. He excels in his role overseeing IT Finance, both as a leader and steward of Mason's resources, while actively identifying ways to improve across the organization. He naturally addresses challenges with solutions and can whip up a presentation and pivot table quicker than anyone I've ever known. He takes the time to ask questions, listen, and then coordinate with everyone impacted, bringing a team mentality to every project or assignment he owns. He takes time to understand and work with people individually on their strengths and helps them overcome challenges to be more successful, while also asking for input with regard to his own areas of growth. He is an excellent communicator and thinks of every helpful detail to aid in avoiding confusion for what is often a quite complex topic/request/update. I'm grateful for his expertise and mentorship, and the integrity he has in overseeing the ITS budget.

-Whitney Sublett

Lisa Carr

I'm convinced Lisa Carr has a fix for almost any question thrown her way, and not only is she helpful and thorough, she is also kind in her approach. Whether it's a rogue certificate error, an email getting hung up from sending, or something more serious like a major meltdown (of a system and impacted parties) - Lisa remains calm and immediately jumps in to help find a solution. She is creative and highly knowledgeable and never backs down from a challenge. All of these attributes are consistent with the ITS values that Lisa so openly lives. Thanks as always, Lisa!

-Whitney Sublett

Carrie Stewart

Many probably know that central HR has implemented PageUp, a new enterprise talent acquisition software, to help automate PDs and the recruitment process, but you might not know that someone has to manually input every existing EWP/PD into the system. For ITS, there are close to 250 FT employees, all of which had to be manually copy/pasted into PageUp, and without Carrie Stewart this work never would have been done. With all of these PDs now online, future changes can be more easily tracked and reviewed, and the number of steps required by supervisors for recruitment, significantly decreased. Thank you to Carrie for her persistence in overcoming this daunting task and ultimately saving the department a lot of time and headache in the future!

-Whitney Sublett

Tony Houdek

It's impossible to just chose one story about Tony's consistent and strong leadership and guidance so I'll share some general thoughts on why I believe he deserves to be recognized for VTTC.

I've been at Mason 6 years and the past 1.5 with the excellent team in the IT Security office. During my time in ITSO I've seen Tony clearly articulate his expectations while never forgetting to pause and listen to all of us (from the new hires to the old guard) and offering actionable insight for even the most mundane questions we have. Tony consistently acts with integrity and happily engages in all work tasks be they guiding our interns on a new problem they're facing or preparing findings for Curtis to present to senior leadership on a security incident.

Two of the greatest things about working with Tony though are his commitment to providing a respectful workspace where everyone feels comfortable voicing their opinions and his commitment to teamwork - be that diving into the weeds on a large scale complex IT security issue or simply joining us analysts for a quick pick-up ping-pong game at the end of the day. Our team wouldn't be where we are or as good as we are without him.

-J.D. Sayle

Ryan LeBreton

Ryan always takes the time to help me out no matter how wild the ask might be. He takes his time to teach me how to do things and point me to resources. When we work together, it's so seamless because we can communicate so effortlessly. I have learned so much from him, and enjoy working with him. Thank you Ryan!

-Christina Crockett

Lisa Carr

Thank you to Lisa for helping out with an urgent user-account issue today. She was immediately accessible, checked on the issue herself, and gave us the information we needed to develop a plan. With Lisa, I could probably submit one of these every week, but today's assistance was especially appreciated!

-Kathi Gelona

Brad Sullivan

Thank you to Brad with assistance in an urgent user-account issue today. We were in uncharted territory, and he gave us the information we needed plus some important background for going forward. The conversation was very collaborative, which is always appreciated.

-Kathi Gelona

Noor Aarohi

We had a contractor who had difficulty completing the required security training and was going to lose access. Rather than sending us into a frustrating loop of trying to get access and have the security training completed (which we understand is our own responsibility), Noor offered assistance to both our department, and to the contractor to make sure the training was able to be accessed and completed.
Noor understood that the goal of the mandatory security training is helping people be compliant with security processes and procedures and that we needed this contractor to be compliant with our security. She worked persistently with us through all of the issues until the training was finally successfully completed. Even after all of the back and forth, she took seriously the contractor's feedback about the training, and offered to look into his questions. She demonstrated that she cares about the security compliance and the individuals involved in our work.

-Aileen Miller

Michael Kramer

Thank you to Michael Kramer for his assistance with an urgent user-account issue today. Michael immediately contacted the appropriate administrators, submitted a ticket on my behalf, and then followed up with me twice. We were able to solve our problem hours before we’d expected to. Thank you to Michael for being so proactive, in this situation and with previous tickets.

-Kathi Gelona

Nico Clemente, Richard Jackson, Brandon Capes, Mark Craft & Michael Rothgeb

I would like to recognize the effort this excellent team has been putting in for the MESA migration project. They put on their engineering hats, diligently and proactively work ahead of what's asked of them to move the migration project forward. In addition, they have been resolving issues, some of which the vendor/consultants have not encountered before, and sharing their observations with others. It is a great collaboration they are performing!!

-Yuko Kuo

Jennifer Newsome & Benita James

On nights and weekends the Data Center team monitors the [email protected] email box for outages, and on weekdays members of the ITS Support Center monitor it. Over the past several months, there have been multiple occasions when we were short staffed at the ITS Support Center, and didn’t have anyone to monitor the mailbox during the day. I would call the Data Center and ask if they could take over the monitoring early or watch it for a few hours when we didn’t have anyone. Every time I called, Jennifer or Benita would cheerfully agree. I really appreciate their willingness to help out, it truly shows their commitment to One ITS!

-Teresa Gibbons

Elizabeth Redwine

I just received outstanding service and I am compelled to let you know. Teams on my iPhone stopped working with a password reset over winter break. I tried to fix it then and I was unable, and latter forgetting its broken state. Last Friday a serious production server issue occurred and because Teams was broken on the phone, my colleagues experienced delays in contacting me. Fast forward to today, and the pressing task of getting back in the communications loop was corrected by Liz with calm, her great knowledgebase, her persistence, and, ultimately, success. I am so very grateful!

Keep up the great work and thanks again,

-Peter Rea