Accomplishments by Sterlin Sanders

July 2013 – June 2014

July 2013:

  1. Sterlin named Interim Assistant Director of Technical Support Services.
  2. Recognized in personal email by VP of Academic Affairs/Provost for outstanding service and work ethic.

August 2013:

  1. Sterlin and his staff recognized by numerous faculty and department heads for outstanding pc and classroom support during the first few weeks of fall term.

October 2013:

  1. Sterlin unanimously selected by IT and university search committee as Assistant Director of Technical Support Services.

November/December 2013:

  1. Sterlin and his staff received over 10 emails from departments thanking them of their great support and willingness to remain onsite until the problem is resolved.
  2. 8 IT staff recognized Sterlin for his great leadership in merging Desktop and Classroom support teams.

February/March 2014:

  1. Sterlin and his staff of 8 employees setup the new 145,000 square-feet Health Science and Business Administration building in only 6 weeks. This setup involved almost 600 new computers, over 25 SMART classrooms, and office relocations for two colleges. Initial planning allowed 3 months for Sterlin’s team to setup this building but the two snow/ice storms delayed equipment arrivals. Sterlin worked 7 days a week for 2 months to ensure all equipment and classrooms were setup properly.
  2. Sterlin and his employees recognized by the President’s and Provost’s office for completing an enormous amount of work in a short period of time. They also received numerous compliments from faculty and department heads for their hard work and commitment. Many tasks accomplished were not IT related but Sterlin stepped in to get the job done so the building would be completed.

April/May 2014:

  1. Sterlin begin developing the new Technical Response Unit (TRU). This will be a rapid response, highly skilled team of staff to ensure all work orders and issues are resolved in less than 30 minutes. The implementation of the team will also centralize IT support across campus. The benefit of this restructure is it will save over $175,000 in part-time staff positions while improving response time by over 50%. The savings will be used to improve the technology in our classrooms.

Sterlin Sanders, Assistant Director of Technical Support Services at VSU, is an outstanding employee who always goes beyond what is required. He is responsible for over 225 SMART classrooms, over 2,000 computers in labs, and over 1,400 employee computers. He started working at VSU as a student assistant in 2005. Since that time he has earned numerous recognitions, employee of the semester nominations, and recently unanimously selected as Assistant Director. He has one of the best reputations on campus for hard work, dedication, and commitment to excellence. Both our university President and Provost frequently acknowledges Sterlin’s hard work and the impact he has on our campus.

Sterlin is a great leader who encourages his employees to reach their greatest potential. Each semester his team receives “I Caught You Caring” (VSU’s excellence in service program) cards from numerous departments. He always jumps in to assist even when the work is not related to IT. He does anything he can to ensure the university is successful.

Just within the past few months Sterlin has assisted with non-IT related tasks such as:

  1. Assist University President update a slide presentation that would not show properly.
  2. Help event services setup graduation ceremony and direct traffic.
  3. Step in as a DJ for an important event where the hired DJ failed to show. He has never been a DJ but wanted to ensure the event was successful so he figured it out and did the job.
  4. Assisted a retired President’s spouse in setting up PC on Christmas Eve during his personal time. Also provided her a 1 hour one-on-one training on the latest technologies.
  5. Assist Environmental Safety by removing batteries that no department claimed. Instead of saying they didn’t belong to his department, Sterlin took lead and removed the items.
  6. Setup an after work social basketball game between IT and Plant Operations. Over 60 people attended and the event was a great success and collaboration between our divisions. It showed Sterlin’s ability to bring people together and show support for other service-oriented departments.
  7. Assisted with putting together furniture and cleaning after hours in the new HSBAC building. All equipment and furniture was delayed due to winter storms. Instead of delaying the ribbon cutting, Sterlin and his team stepped in and got all furniture put together and installed.

Sterlin’s work ethic is absolutely amazing. He arrives early and stays late every day. To ensure he is a great leader he went back to school and received two Master’s degrees. The first was in Public Administration and a second in Information Technology. Both degrees helped him become great at leadership and technical ability. Sterlin is one of the few employees I can assign a task to and forget about it. He will always follow through on assignments and make sure the client is 100% satisfied.

There has only been one occasion where Sterlin failed to show up on-time for a job. Everyone thought he had an accident and may have been hurt and could not communicate. They begin calling around to check if he was ok. I was amazed at how his reputation was so great that people thought he was hurt when he was late this one instance. Instead of calling to see why he didn’t show they were calling to make sure he was ok. It ended up being he had a flat tire and his cell phone battery was dead.