ASUMH Keystone Spring 2018 ASUMH Keystone Magazine Spring 2018 | Page 25

Yelcot Communications and ASUMH – Workforce Partners Photo:  (left to right) Shawn Lane, Yelcot Plant Manager; Yelcot employees Cody Partee, Erik Friedman, Kib Cochran, Mason Basford, Dave Altenbaumer; Shawn Dennis, instructor at ASUMH; Sara Zimmerman, Yelcot President When a local communications company expanded its offerings in the marketplace, a group of ASUMH students became the answer to their workforce need. Yelcot Communications reached out to Arkansas State University-Mountain Home (ASUMH) for recommendations of college students for part-time summer help.  This job consisted of pulling cable and installing equipment.  Shawn Lane, Yelcot Plant Manager stated, “These positions were just meant to be temporary summer jobs; however, Yelcot quickly realized this group of students was highly qualified for long- term employability with the company.” Sara Zimmerman, President, explained that Yelcot has recently expanded its business to include Managed IT Services.  This allows a business to offload its information technology operations to Yelcot.  Yelcot assumes an ongoing responsibility for 24-hour monitoring, managing, and backup and/ or problem resolution for the IT system within a business.  This environment was a natural fit for this group of graduates.  Yelcot capi- talized on each person’s strengths and placed them in positions where those strengths could be utilized.  Because they were classmates while attending ASUMH for the Networking Specialist degree, the students developed a pro- fessional rapport with each other.  Yelcot recognized this relationship and felt they would bring this cohesiveness and synergy to the workplace along with their various technical skill sets.” They had the ability to work independently but also to collaborate within a team environment,” remarked Lane.  Due to Yelcot’s prior success with the college’s graduates, Yelcot contacted ASUMH when additional employment opportunities became available. Kib Cochran, Account Manager/IT Solutions Expert, felt the knowledge he acquired in the Cisco Network Academy and CompTIA A+ courses gave him a jump-start in his job.  Dave Altenbaumer, Central Office Technician, stated his previous knowledge in telephony and the technology-related courses contributed to his abilities to perform his current job duties.  Other graduates commented that the network and computer security courses, IP subnetting, troubleshooting and cabling, added to their technolog ical capabilities as well as the personal/soft skills they learned from the Net- working Internship course.  The demand for skilled network and computer support professionals in the workforce continues to grow.  According to Zimmerman, not only do prospective employees need to possess the technical expertise in addition to problem-solving skills, initiative and effective time management, but soft skills as well, such as the ability to communicate with customers.  As Yelcot has found, the Computer Information Systems depart- ment at ASUMH combines education and technology to produce global thinkers that meet the needs and challenges of the new digital economy.  For more information, contact Shawn Dennis at 870-508-6174.  NETWORKING CISCO • COMPUTER SECURITY A+ COMPUTER TECH & ANALYSIS ASSOCIATE OF APPLIED SCIENCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY - NETWORKING CONTACT: SHAWN DENNIS, CIS Instructor 870-508-6174, [email protected] 25