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August HeartBeat
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CMA Information Technology Department Manager, Clint Davis, began working with computers and software in 1980. Pursuing that interest led to an Electrical Engineering education at Auburn University, graduating with highest honors from the General Motors Advanced Automotive Electronics program at Bessemer State Technical College in 1990; and, finally, completing an Electronics Technology Associate ' s program at Columbus Technical College in 1993.
Clint was working for the largest Credit Card Processor in the world as Associate Director of Revenue-Generating Distributed Computing Platform, managing over 1,200 servers in multiple data centers, when God put it on his heart to fill out a job application for an I. T. resource at the CMA Support Center in the summer of 2010. He started working here in October of that year.
Through the witness of a CMA member, Clint joined CMA in 1996, and as the journey progressed, God took him from unsaved biker to CMA member, to Chartering Chapter President, and finally Area Rep.
The I. T. Department provides
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end-user support to on-site Support Center staff, Regional Evangelists, and Goodie Reps. They maintain and manage a local network for file and print sharing, as well as cloud-based Softwareas-a-Service applications, and work closely with the vendor of CMA’ s hosted phone system. CMA uses a large database-prolific solution to manage and track key metrics. Sixty active laptops, servers, and monthly software subscriptions are a major part of daily database administration and maintenance. Underlying all of this is a necessary focus on data security to protect the personal and financial data of members, staff, and the ministry.
Goals for the department include Fortify Cybersecurity, Drive Digital Transformation, Optimize Technology Costs, Improve IT Reliability, Align with CMA Business Strategy, and Enhance Data Analytics.
Clint wants to empower those who report to him to feel free to use their God-given talents and skills to complete the work in a way that brings them a sense of accomplishment, and says,“ We are all located at CMA and have someone who we report to as a supervisor but, when you boil it all
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down, we are all sent here to accomplish work that God has delegated to us.”
One of the greatest projects of the last six years for the I. T. Department has been the construction of the new website. The old website, aging and running on obsolete technology, was barely meeting the needs of God’ s faithful growth of this ministry. Over the course of three years, a team of dedicated volunteers with Godgiven skills and knowledge lived at the Support Center and hammered out the design aspects for financial, security, database, and process modeling. The foundation was laid, and during the next three years, the design and development continued.
Suddenly, the hosting provider decided to shut down and gave CMA three months to find someplace else for cmausa to live. I. T. had no choice but to roll out the new, still-in-development website. It was not where they wanted it to be and didn’ t have all the bells and whistles they wanted, so the initial focus was on getting it functional and stable, and on validating security.
Work continues on bug fixes and minor enhancements, and Clint claims there is still a lot more
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