I am so grateful for you listening to us.........

It is very much appreciated. We have not had that experience for many years now.

I started at CVTC back in 1993 as a computer operator/programmer. I have always worked the line between the mainframe and the individual employees or students whom needed reports or service. When the mainframe went out and we went to a Unix system I devoted my time to Access database uses, primarily for the web applications but some for other administrative uses. Some were to house data needed for my seven or eight state reports that were not supported within Banner.

In 2001 when Collegis came they used my databases as the reason for coming. Those databases surely must be "side systems". A side system is one where you take data out of the main application and update the side system without updating the main application. Out of over 100 databases, only one database met that criteria and they have had to wait until this past year to make our "Banner" work with that system. Instead now we have hundreds of Excel "side systems".

The week after Collegis came about 7 of us were singled out for an individual interrogation with Bruce Barker and our supervisor that lasted about 1 1/2 hours each. I was not allowed to speak for myself or others. I was just accused of being anti-Collegis. When I explained that we needed the expertise that this company brought and we should be better for the experience. However, I was never believed by anyone but my immediate supervisor. I felt violated. I then became what they were trying to prevent. I soon became the president of our local union. I became active in the union as I could not see any other way out of what was becoming a living nightmare.

At first we documented what we had done for the college. Then they sent our expertise to Florida or somewhere else. At that time we became expendable. I worked with those who were laid off such as the network administrator who had built the network from the ground up and knew each piece of it. But they had a warning device in Florida that would tell us if there was an issue with the network. So what if we did not have anyone to actually fix the problem if one arose.

That first year while Collegis was working with us to upgrade our main system, Banner, they let most of their own expertise go. The experts that were here working on our system were devastated when their friends back in Florida were laid off.

For the past four years Collegis' "experts" have been anything but. We tried to hire locally, but they needed more than we were willing to pay for. When they needed someone anyway, they often hired whoever walked in the door regardless of their abilities or training. The only thing that seems to matter is where they used to work. If they worked for Cray, no matter in what capacity, they must be able to do something for us. The people who have done the work before and have been trained are of no value in comparison. So, to this day we do not hire really qualified people.

They speak repeatedly of our new hires needing special certifications. We must hire someone who has them. However, we don't want to pay them more than starting wages.

They hired a network tech who had Novell certification. Within 6 months we bacame a Windows shop. All of her certification was at that point obsolete. Whenever they asked for further people I brought that up and the requirements seemed to go away.

They created the dismissal of our telephony expert. He managed to transfer to maintenance to avoid losing his retirement. Whenever they talked about replacing him they said that we teach Cisco so we could get a student to do what he did. I reminded them that voice was the equivalent of Cisco 7 and 8. We only taught 1 - 4. Anyone with the highest levels of Cisco could begin work at about $80,000. We only wanted to hire them at $35,000. We have never gotten someone to do that work competently. We have paid many, many thousand dollars to various companies and still have a questionable system to show for it.

There were hardware techs who worked with student and employees hardware as well as software. We were told repeatedly that the users were expecting too much. The users must do everything themselves. We had been simply coddling them. Everything that we had done over the years was very wrong. All of these good and talented people were simply not needed.

When we did good work, Collegis took the credit. When things went a bit differently, it was obviously that our people were just "stupid". Every meeting was abusive. We were screamed at and threatened on a daily basis. It was common for people to be on medication just to be able to come to work.

Four years ago, I was laid off myself. I then chose to bump into the help desk. I was threatened by my new supervisor. She was sure that I could not do the work as her "favorite" had been in that capacity before. She told many people that she was going to "get me". I worked in that job very well for nearly a year. The only person who was not happy with my performance was my "supervisor". She created a well crafted dismissal and I was finally "terminated" from my position just 2 months before the help desk was outsourced to Florida. It was well known that this function would go to Collegis so HR and Bruce Barker crafted a transfer to Neillsville as they knew that a terminated sitting President was going to cause trouble.

Most of my time was spent supporting the many people who relied on me to stand between SunGard Collegis and administration. Whenever I met with Bruce Barker and Tom Huffcutt we were told that we "always" were obstructionists, we "never" produced reports that Bill wanted, and so on. I finally told Bruce to just listen to himself, he was doing what he said that we were doing. I told him that he knew that those statements were simply not true. From his demeanor, I believe that he realized that that was the truth. Unfortunately it didn't last long.

Time moves on.

Again, thanks for listening.