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Seizing the Opportunity
A Profile of Sylvia Baldwin
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Seizing the Opportunity
A Profile of Sylvia Baldwin
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Note: This is the second in a series of profiles of UC Davis women who provide technical assistance and expertise to the campus. Fueled by her fascination with computers and aided by supportive colleagues, Sylvia Baldwin embarked on a career in technology. "I'm pretty much entirely self-taught," she says. Now, as a server administrator at the UC Davis Medical Center (UCDMC), her hard-won expertise helps support thousands of doctors, nurses, and patients. 
From Secretary to Programmer
Baldwin joined UC Davis in 1984, as a secretary with Early Outreach in Sacramento, a unit with the mission of helping underrepresented and at-risk youth make it to college. It wasn't until two years later that the unit got its first computer (an IBM AT, with an actual hard drive!). "No one else in the office really wanted anything to do with the computer, so I started working with it and teaching myself how to use it," Baldwin recalls. So began her first tentative uses of database and word processing software -- and her long journey toward a new career. Throughout the following decade, Baldwin continued working, first as secretary, then administrative assistant, but always honing and adding to her computer skills. By 1990, she was working for the Vice Chancellor of Facilities, building and maintaining a database of affirmative action information related to construction projects on campus. In this position, her duties included generating reports for the Physical Plant, Architects and Engineers, and the UC Office of the President. After moving to UCDMC in 1992, Baldwin moved from Administrative Assistant to Computer Resource Specialist to her current position of Programmer in UCDMC's Information Services. "I'm not really a 'programmer,' in the sense that I don't write code," she says. "Mostly I work with server administration and software support." Baldwin has participated in some memorable projects in the last several years. "I got to write training manuals for the big conversion to Lotus Notes that UCDMC carried out a few years ago," she recalls. "But the biggest single project was setting up all the computers -- over 500 -- in the new Ambulatory Care Center building in 1998. For a full year after that, I served as the main support person for the whole building -- software, hardware, and networking. It was a great opportunity for me." Seizing Opportunities and Meeting Challenges
From her initial involvement with computers in 1986 through her current job supporting thousands of users and their computers, Baldwin has mostly learned on her own. "I learned so much about software from just studying books."And Baldwin's explorations were not limited to software. She also cultivated an expertise in computer hardware repair. "It was strictly trial and error," she says. "I'd open up the older machines whenever I could, so I wouldn't be experimenting with people's work machines." Baldwin remembers the special challenges she faced early in her career. "It wasn't easy being a woman in a field dominated by men," she says. "I never had any formal training in technology, and I would go into a meeting with four or five men who did have formal training, and their unspoken attitude would be 'What do you know about any of this?'. But I found that I had no trouble gaining acceptance once I was able to demonstrate that I knew my stuff -- even if I didn't know all of the terminology." Baldwin credits her coworkers for their support over the years. "I've been lucky to have such supportive colleagues, who have never been afraid to share their resources and knowledge. Without them, I never would have gotten as far as I have." Another source of support has been family -- both past and present. "I credit a lot of my success to my upbringing," says Baldwin. "All the time when I was growing up, my parents told me that I could do anything, and this gave me a lot of self-confidence." And her current family -- her husband and two daughters -- have been unfailingly supportive of her occasional long hours at work and weekends spent buried in computer books, adding to her store of knowledge. Support From a Distance
Computer support for UCDMC holds special challenges, says Baldwin. "The 20 staff members in our unit support 5,000 users -- 6,000 if you count the primary clinics in Roseville, Auburn, Carmichael, and Davis. These users are scattered all over Sacramento and beyond, and there is a single vehicle available for us to use," she says. Baldwin and her coworkers have responded to this seemingly dire situation with creativity and by exploiting technological advances that facilitate remote computer support. A large number of users at UCDMC are running Novell's operating system. System administrators like Baldwin, using Novell's Network Administrator, are able to remotely view and access the contents of a user's workstation. When a user calls in to report a problem, Baldwin sends a message to the user's computer, "Can Sylvia take control?" The user must then answer yes, and then their screen will appear on Baldwin's machine, allowing her to perform software troubleshooting and installation. Another Novell application that saves a lot of work is "Snapshot." "Snapshot is basically a smart installer," Baldwin says. "We install it on users' machines, and then they can use it to install any applications they need from a server." A key feature of Snapshot is that it requires users to demonstrate that they've purchased the required software licenses before any installations are performed. Keeping track of these licenses is yet another function performed by Baldwin and her coworkers. UCDMC is a unique environment for computer support personnel to work in. For Baldwin, one of the important rewards of her job is the knowledge that she is helping to save lives. "There is definitely a lot of pressure to keep all the machines up and running," she says, "because any down time can literally be life-threatening." What the Future Holds
So what does Baldwin see down the road? "There's definitely going to be a lot more remote support and management," she says. Computing environments will continue to diversify, creating additional challenges for support personnel. One developing technology that will find extensive use at UCDMC is "thin clients" for nurses to use. Thin clients are computers that have no hard drive or software on them; they are basically just a CPU and monitor with a connection to a server. "Since all the software resides on a central server, our support for all these clients is greatly simplified," Baldwin says. And what about the upcoming generation of young women who may have an interest in technology careers? Baldwin has no fears on this score. "Several years ago I volunteered to underprivileged kids for an outreach program," she says. "I was surprised, and gratified, to see that the girls in my group were already very computer-savvy. They weren't intimidated by the technology at all, and because of this I don't think they would have any trouble breaking into to the technology field." As for Baldwin herself, she continues to enjoy the daily opportunities and challenges that working in the world of technology provide. |
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