Who's Who at the Computing Center Randall Klein | Georgia Scott | Dave Crowe |

Meet some of the people who work behind the scenes to facilitate your computing experience on campus...

By Joyce Winslow
jwins@oregon.uoregon.edu

Randall Klein [back to top]
Analyst Programmer, Administrative Services

Becoming a computer programmer was the last thing on Randall Klein's mind when he left Manhattan in 1986 and headed west.

Raised in a family of actors, Randall gravitated to music and the performing arts early in life. He majored first in jazz, then musical composition, while attending the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, and after college he did a stint as a street musician in New York City.

But Randall has a practical streak, and he realized early on that the life of "starving artist" was not for him. He had fond memories of Oregon dating back to a camping trip in the Three Sisters Wilderness Area when he was in his teens, so he decided to head west and try his hand at cabinetmaking--a trade he assumed would be both creative and profitable.

After a brief disillusioning turn in a local woodshop, Randall turned to computer programming on the advice of a friend. To his surprise, he found that writing computer programs could be quite creative, and he also enjoyed the logical, problem-solving aspects of the profession. He learned his new trade at Lane Community College, and a program he wrote while doing a student internship at Lane County Regional Information Systems is being used there to this day. After LCC, Randall worked for ten years as a client/server programmer in the Eugene area. For the five years preceding his arrival at the Computing Center last May, he was writing database programs for Versalogic, a manufacturer of industrial computers. Here, Randall works primarily with BANNER software, maintaining and monitoring UO Human Resources databases and administrating NT and Novell servers to keep everything running smoothly.

Randall met his wife Kimberly in a ballroom dance class, and they married in June 1999. Kimberly is currently enrolled in the nursing program at LCC. Despite their busy schedules, they still find time to dance. Randall is also a rock climbing and chess enthusiast, and keeps up with his guitar.

Georgia Scott [back to top]
Assistant Director for Business Services

Marrying her high school sweetheart seemed to guarantee that Georgia Scott would stay in her hometown of Cordova, Tennessee, a small rural community outside of Memphis, and raise a family there. Instead, marriage and family ties drew her to Corvallis, where for several years she and husband Rickey juggled jobs and cared for their three children while completing advanced degrees.

Georgia admits the Northwest was pure culture shock at first, but now she and her family are very much at home here. Rickey is the minister at Riviera Baptist Church in Eugene, while Georgia, who is musically inclined and once flirted briefly with the idea of being a music major while an undergraduate at Memphis State, plays keyboard at church services and is choir director for both the adult and children's choirs.

Before joining the Computing Center staff in July, Georgia worked as an accountant in the UO Geology and Physics departments for several years. At the Computing Center she's responsible for managing the budget, contracts, and numerous grant-funded projects. She is currently working on a grant for using high-speed networking in education, a project involving the Computing Center and seven other UO departments.

An outdoor enthusiast, Georgia enjoys the many hiking opportunities in the Eugene area. Each year, she and her large extended family--her dad, four brothers and sisters, six nephews and nieces, three grown children, and four grandchildren--gather for a traditional hike in the Cascades.

David Crowe [back to top]
Director, NERO Network Engineering

David Crowe was lucky enough to find his niche early in life.

David was born in Salem, but spent much of his childhood on the island of Kodiak, Alaska. The Alaskans' famous independence and self-reliance was not lost on David, who worked on commercial fishing boats between school terms from the time he was a sophomore in high school, and he financed much of his college education by hard work on the high seas.

In 1982, David returned to Oregon to attend OSU, where he completed a B.S. in Civil Engineering and began working on a master's. While doing research for his advanced degree, he became increasingly interested in network engineering and designed and installed the network for OSU's College of Engineering. This achievement gave rise to a job in the Chancellor's Office, where David worked to connect all of Oregon's higher education institutions via network.

For the past four years, David has been the network engineer for NERO, the Network for Education and Research in Oregon. NERO's mission is the development of high speed wide-area network connectivity to further education and research in Oregon, and the organization provides network service for the Oregon University System, the State Department of Administrative Services, and the Oregon Public Education Network via the Oregon Wide-Area Network (OWEN).

OWEN/NERO now operates out of the UO, and on July 1, David moved his main office to the Computing Center, where he will soon be joined by another OWEN/NERO engineer. The move means a longer commute to work from his home in Corvallis, where he lives with his two cats Momcat and Charcoal, but David is no stranger to commuting. His network consulting and troubleshooting duties necessitate frequent travel, so he also maintains offices in Portland, at home, and at OSU.

Current pressing OWEN/NERO projects include a major upgrade of most router installations, an upgrade of the network's backbone and ISP circuits to meet traffic demands, and installing new circuits to increase the network capacity of Western Oregon University and Southern Oregon University. In addition, he is working to complete the connection of a new high-speed circuit between OWEN/NERO and Washington's K-12 network.

When not immersing himself in network issues, David takes to the trails around Corvallis on his mountain bike. He is also an avid downhill skier and heads for Mt. Hood or Mt. Bachelor whenever he can. Another consuming hobby is woodworking. A few examples of David's finely crafted furniture and cabinets grace his home, and even more are given as as gifts to lucky members of his family and friends.