IT Client Services and Support staff represent more than 500 years of experience combined, and are a team dedicated to being champions of excellence as they serve faculty and staff across campus.

“As champions, we work to empower the campus community and advance UAB’s mission through innovation and technology,” said Curtis A. Carver Jr., Ph.D., Vice President and CIO of UAB Information technology.

The Client Services team holds an overall customer satisfaction rating of 4.85 out of 5 and covers a multitude of areas including Desktop Services, Classroom Technology, and the AskIT Help desk. The team — and all of UAB IT — are growing under the Innovate Together project, which is uniting IT talent from across campus. Client Services has a unique relationship with IT customers, working with them daily not just to troubleshoot but to innovate.

“I’ve been part of the UAB IT ecosystem for 16 years,” said Scott Carson, manager of IT Client Services. “I started in Desktop, and then got the opportunity to move over to the ‘Windows Team,’ which is now Infrastructure. After about five years I got the opportunity to join and manage the newly created IT Client Services department. I have now worked in that role for six years.”

Recently Carson received recognition for a project in which he and his team helped implement VisioPharm software for the lab of Julienne Carstens, Ph.D. Visiopharm is a software used to analyze high-resolution medical images. Carson’s team and Research Computing partnered with Carstens to implement the software, which Carstens uses in her lab and is now able to lease to other departments who need it, expanding research capabilities across campus.

Carson wears many hats, and occasionally he has to find the balance of being a technical person and a customer service professional. IT Client Services handles a wide variety of systems and applications, including software and operating system installation and patching; mobile device support; and third-party application implementation and support services to campus.

 "I am glad that we are entrusted with the strange and unusual, there is never a typical day in our department," Carson said.

Like Carson, several employees began in the customer service realm and grew their skillset to move into new departments in UAB IT. Carrau Brewer started his UAB career in AskIT and helped provide support to students as they moved into dorms. Shortly after, he began a new role in Desktop Services, and then moved into a project management role.

“Not only was I able to expound on the soft skills, I was also able to provide insight to UAB students aspiring a career in the IT arena,” said Brewer, who works as a Project Manager II.

Last year, IT Client Services expanded to include help desk analysts for the telecommunications and networking department. Network analyst Shellie Henderson enjoys having direct contact with customers.

"This role is challenging, and I love that,” she said. “The field changes so frequently that you are always in learning mode, but I think the biggest challenge is understanding what the customers need.”

Henderson has been a part of UAB for 26 years, beginning her journey as a telecommunication training specialist and then moving into her current role as analyst. A typical day for her consists of Teams meetings with her group, phone calls and emails with potential clients, and working through the tickets they receive daily.

With a multitude of tickets coming in a day, sometimes it can be overwhelming to stay vigilant on meeting metric numbers. IT Client Services and Support has a goal of at least 4.75 out of 5 stars on their customer service surveys.

"It's a group effort to meet our goal number,” Henderson said. “We try to talk about it daily and have a morning meeting so we can understand what we need to do to reach our desired number.”

With the growth from Innovate Together and the addition of telecom teams, Jamie Witter, director of IT Client Services, greets these new cohorts with excitement and passion. So far, through Innovate Together, UAB IT has welcomed technology talent from the Collat School of Business, College of Arts and Sciences, and UAB Optometry.

“We are overjoyed with these new additions to our team,” Witter said. “This transition has brought a new, blended IT organization that is aimed to serve UAB’s post-pandemic needs. With our newest addition, we expand our ideas and learn more from those coming in from Innovate Together.”

While each person within the unit is responsible for certain tasks, it comes down to how the team can work together. Each month, Witter holds an informal town hall to check in with her teams. They celebrate birthdays, participate in a team building exercise, and review the previous month’s metrics. This gives everyone a chance to catch their breath and brainstorm ways to improve their processes.

“I love leading and serving my team. My goal is to help them reach their goals on a professional level,” Witter said. “Holding these monthly meetings is a way where I can connect with everyone and check on how they’re doing and if there is a way I or their manager can assist them.”

In a recent meeting, Witter broke the group into six different sections. Each section was tasked with creating a balloon tower with only 15 balloons and tape. Groups had four minutes to discuss a plan, and then ten minutes to create the tallest tower. Once the time was up, and the winner was announced, Witter asked her team what they learned from this exercise. While many answers were thrown around, there was a common theme.

The foundation you build your tower on must be strong, just like the team you work with. Everyone works hard and works together to make sure the job gets done.

“Nothing is beneath you,” Carson said. “There will be times when a person can feel like all they do is work within the ‘other duties as assigned’ category. We all go through it, but at the end of the day, it could help the team be one step closer to finishing a goal. That makes it worth it.”