February 14, 2017

Meet the Staff: Tom Marker

Note: Meet the Staff is a new feature that ASCTech will be publishing over the next few months to introduce staff members to the College of Arts and Sciences. We welcome your thoughts on it.

What's your background? My degree is in psychology, which sometimes feels more useful in support than a computer science degree!

What's something about you that other people find interesting or surprising? I practice martial arts and teach classes 3 times a week at the local Y. I met my wife through martial arts. I’m also an avid photographer: portraits, landscape, cats, anything that will sit still

What's something that surprised you about your job at ASCTech? I was pleasantly surprised by how generous people are with their time and their expertise.

"I have one of those quirky support jobs where I do a little bit of everything," says Tom Marker, an ASCTech systems developer/engineer embedded with the Ohio State Department of Statistics. "I provide user support, administer computer labs, serve as the department Carmen Affiliate, and do creative projects: website graphic design, t-shirts and logos, and photography."

The creative projects, in particular, resonate with Marker, who says "I think folks in statistics really like the results of my creative projects and appreciate that I can lend that expertise. I created t-shirts for the department, and it was kinda neat to see someone I didn’t know on campus wearing a t-shirt I designed."

Marker comes from a computer family: "My grandmother worked for the Department of Defense coding mainframes and taught programming classes at the community college and really allowed me to explore computers, understand how they work and how to fix them."

All of this experience pays off for Marker when he's working with his clients, "I have very rewarding days when I feel like I’ve made someone’s job easier or given them a tool that really enhances what they are doing. Putting out fires is a big part of the job, but being able to chip away at some long term projects is much more gratifying." This all stems from the kind of personality that Marker thinks is draw to computer support: "a lot of people who work in support have that 'I want to fix it' sort of mentality."

If you need someone with the "I want to fix it" mentality, request help from ASCTech and maybe you'll email or talk to Tom Marker.