-: My name is Aaron Stolp, I am a communications support
specialist at Minnesota Power, here in Duluth Minnesota.
The communications portion of that title
actually has to do with network
communications infrastructure.
So it has to do with a lot of routers, switches,
things like that that make the internet
work across the company, basically.
As well as telephone systems and things like that.
So that's where communication comes into the title.
However, there is a lot of communicating involved
with my role, because there's coordination
of projects and equipment installs
between different departments and various sites of ours.
As well as working with the vendors that we purchase from.
An interesting project would be
coordinating the work to create wifi
in an outdoor environment at one of our sites.
So all of the workers outside have wifi access
for all of the equipment and gear that they use.
Now, when I do these projects, I'm not tech savvy,
technology's not my background.
But, I'm in that department not for the tech side of it,
but for the coordination piece and to be able
work with vendors, manage the contracts that we have
with them, there's a lot of that that I'm involved with.
And I work closely with purchasing as well.
There are a lot of software maintenance
contracts that we have, a lot, more than you could imagine,
daily there are renewals that have to be done,
on annual commitments and those usual go across my desk
before they get back to the vendor to be paid.
It's not linear at all, juggling is
a better description of it, because there are software
renewal requests that might come in at 7:30
in the morning and then before I get through those,
by 8:15 one of our remote sites that expecting a new
internet install had a vendor not show up,
so I'm calling that vendor.
It's all about prioritizing, if something by my
judgment needs attention more than
something else that's what I am working on.