About

About the Valparaiso University IT Systems Team

The Systems Team is a group of IT professionals at Valparaiso University that are responsible for and specialize in behind the scenes server/storage infrastructure technology, application development and integration projects.

There are two groups that make up our team – the systems administrators and the systems programmers. Both work towards the same goal of providing server resources, application management and integration services to the Valparaiso University campus.

Our unit has been in operation since the summer of 2010, but most of us have been here for at least 5 years.

Dave Sierkowski

  • Dave has been the director of this group since the summer of 2010. He graduated in 2003 from Purdue University with a BS in computer science where he learned most of his admin skills while working as a student at the Markey Center for Structural Biology. After a brief stint as a PHP programmer at a e-commerce place in Indianapolis, he returned to West Lafayette where he worked back at Markey Center for 2 years before heading up north to work here at Valpo in the fall of 2006.

    A Mac user since 2002, he still loves everything UNIX, especially the underlying philosophy of UNIX and the undeniable zen-like experience it can create.

    He’s a region native, a proud father of two sons, and he’s also uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person.

SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATORS

Matt Hernes

  • Matt attended school at Waldorf College and Luther College receiving a degree in Computer Science.

    Since School he has worked in Washington State at Holden Village in the Mountains as Computer support for two years where there was no phone service (land or cell phone) or internet. He also spent six years at Waldorf College as an IT Specialist and as a System Administrator.

    In Matt’s personal time he enjoys spending time with his family, biking, hiking, backpacking, camping, Snowshoeing, cross country Skiing and playing with technology. Also, he is still trying to find mountains in the Midwest.

Kevin Ledbetter

  • Kevin Ledbetter received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems from PurdueUniversity – Calumet in 2004. The majority of his working career was spent working for a small paint manufacturer in Gary, IN as the Warehouse/Distribution Manger. As his schooling progressed his position transitioned into the IT Administrator. After his company was sold and he was downsized out of a job, he found his way to Valparaiso University.

    Kevin assumed the role of Training Specialist for ILS providing classroom lessons for faculty, staff, and graduate students in topics such as Microsoft Office products, Datatel, and GroupWise. During this timeKevin also made himself available to administrative departments in a technology consulting role and served on the Administrative Computing Team (ACT).

    In October 2008 Kevin moved to the Systems Group where he serves today under the leadership of Dave Sierkowski. Some of the many varied responsibilities he performs include: server and systems administration, account provisioning, and customer support. Some of the more recent projects Kevin is working on are the migration from the GroupWise email to the GoogleMail platform and from the Novell file and print services to a Microsoft Active Directory environment.

    On the personal side, Kevin has been married to his wife Barb for 28 years, and has two sons and one grand-daughter. He enjoys travel, carpentry, gourmet cooking and gardening. His latest undertaking is growing hops which he hopes to begin using in home brewing.

Matt Sweet

  • Matt earned his Bachelors of Science degree in Network Engineering from Purdue West Lafayette. Previous to working at Valpo Matt worked for Duneland School Corporation doing a little bit of everything to keep the district running. His IT interests are open-source, homemade DIY projects, storage area networks and networking. In his free time he enjoys playing golf.

SYSTEMS PROGRAMMERS/ANALYSTS

Jim Crowley

  • Jim earned his BS in Computer Science from the University of Notre Dame and his MS in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida, where he studied the not-so-related fields of high performance computer architecture and interactive systems. He joined the systems team in the summer of 2011.

Richard Orelup

  • Richard has worked at the University since 2006 and helps create solutions to the many problems brought to our group. He is also currently working towards his MBA.

Rachel Rivera

  • Rachel has been a Programmer for over 10 years. She’s been in the computer industry for 15 years. She started as a student employee in the computer lab at Purdue Calumet. She has also worked at a couple of local companies (Ivy Tech and Golden Technologies). Just prior to joining the Valparaiso University staff (February 2007), she work in downtown Chicago for MSDS Online. She was part of a 4 programmer team redesigning and developing the web software.

    Rachel has a background in a multitude of programming languages. These include (not limited to) Java, C (C and C++), PERL and PHP. She prefers PHP. She is fluent in SQL and has written queries for MySQL as well as for Microsoft SQL. On top of all of this, she’s proficient in HTML, JavaScript and CSS.

    In her personal life, Rachel has enjoyed participating in Master’s swimming and triathlons. She also enjoys surfing (on Lake Michigan and elsewhere). Rachel regularly listens to the 404 and Buzz Out Loud podcasts from CNet and Wait Wait Don’t Tell me and This American Life podcasts from NPR. When she isn’t busy at work or raising her son, she can be found questing on DDO, playing on her Wii, tinkering with her Droid 3 or working on her personal website.

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