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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 22, 2018)
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2018 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 LOCAL Data center tech program attracting more students upstreaming so there’s no down time, so customers aren’t losing access to their stuff, or credit card informa- tion to hackers.” By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN STAFF WRITER When students complete Blue Mountain Community College’s nine-month data center technician program, many won’t have to leave their hometown to find a job. “I’d love to stay local,” said Noah Davis, a Hermis- ton resident currently study- ing in the program. “They’re expanding so much, there’s not a reason to leave.” “They,” as many students and professors are hesitant to say, are Amazon Web Ser- vices, which has several data centers at the ports of Mor- row and Umatilla, and is constructing more in both counties. As Amazon expands, so does the number of people wanting to get into the data center tech program. For the 2018-19 school year, instructor Pete Hern- berg said 54 people applied for the 20 available spots. “The first year I was deathly afraid we wouldn’t have any students at all,” he said adding that they had to look for applicants. “Since then, we’ve had more inter- ested than we’re able to accommodate.” Ready to work The program is tailored toward students who want to go directly into the work- force. Unlike many college programs, where students are required to take human- ities courses or other core classes, the three-term pro- gram focuses squarely on IT — or information technol- ogy — and equips students to quickly get a technician job. Hernberg said a com- pany approached him about developing the program four Student backgrounds STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS Joan Cardenas, left, and Christian Weyland, right, work on setting up a wired computer network with their lab partner Mandy Tobin, back, on Wednesday at BMCC Early Learning Center in Boardman. years ago. “Prior to my working here, in Prineville I was involved in a somewhat sim- ilar program at Central Ore- gon Community College,” he said. While that program was unsuccessful, Hernberg said it left him with some ideas. In November 2014, Her- nberg said BMCC was approached by a local employer, whom he said he couldn’t name due to a non-disclosure agreement with the company. “They indicated to the college that they were expecting a lot of growth in the coming years, and they needed to have a large number of qualified techni- cians in the next three to five years,” he said. “I worked with them to develop a cur- riculum, specifically tar- geted to prepare students for employment.” The majority of students, he said, come from east Morrow and west Umatilla counties. “Most of our grads are employed at data centers, and most are employed locally,” he said. Though he said he didn’t have exact numbers for how many stu- dents go on to get jobs at local data centers, he said 42 or 43 students of the 60 that have completed the program so far have gotten data cen- ter jobs — both locally and elsewhere. He said many students’ first jobs out of the program can include intern- ships or temporary con- tracts, not necessarily full- time jobs. Amazon financial support On Aug. 15, BMCC announced that Amazon Web Services was putting $50,000 toward scholar- ships for students currently in the data center technician program. Thirteen students applied for and will receive scholarships. Hernberg said he was pleased with the funds. “I know some specific situations where it’s really made the difference between students being able to go to school or not go to school,” he said. Last Wednesday after- noon in the data center tech- nician lab, students tried to figure out a problem: how Fire brings dangerous air into Umatilla County By KATHY ANEY STAFF WRITER Umatilla County’s air quality deteriorated Sun- day evening as smoke from multiple fires drifted into the area. On Monday, smoke still shrouded Umatilla County like an unwanted houseguest that wouldn’t leave. The Hermiston Family Aquatic Center was closed all day to prevent families and staff from spending time in the smoke. The Oregon Department of Environmental Qual- ity measures the tiny par- ticles and gases in smoke that can irritate lungs, eyes and heart. The toxic mix- ture includes carbon mon- oxide, organic carbon and an array of 5,000-to-10,000 different gases. By midnight on Sunday, DEQ readings for Pendleton topped out at 404 micrograms per cubic meter, which is considered hazardous, while in Hermis- ton the air was merely “very unhealthy.” The measure- ment refers to fine particu- late matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, which is 3 percent the diam- eter of a human hair. The tiny particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs of those who breathe them. As fires dot the state, smoke would have rolled DIVORCE $155 NO NO Court Appearances into the area no matter which way the wind blew. Most flowed from British Columbia, where around 600 fires burned. A NASA satellite captured images of the smoke from space. A National Weather Service simulation shows smoke flowing southwest into the Pacific Northwest from Brit- ish Columbia and northeast from California and Oregon in two swirling masses of hazardous air. Other fires, including one in Gilliam County, added to smogginess around the state. do they make two comput- ers talk to each other? They worked on a simple static routing exercise, setting up two subnetworks and one router that connects them. One group of students ran into a problem when they found out one of the switches wasn’t communicating with one of the computers. Her- nberg encouraged them to troubleshoot by connecting different cables to different ports, and trying to isolate where the problem was. Solving those types of problem is one of the road- blocks students will have to deal with in a job as a data center technician. “It’s dealing with cus- tomer data, repairing servers and switches,” Davis said. “Making sure everything is Students in the pro- gram have a variety of backgrounds. “I’ve always been inter- ested in computers,” said Jonathan Macias, a Herm- iston resident. “When I got older, I started building them.” When he heard Amazon was opening data centers, he thought it was a good fit for him, and an opportunity to do IT work. “Even if you don’t want to start working with the company, what you learn here can be applied to any company,” he said. But most of the people in the program are interested in staying nearby. “With Amazon build- ing, and all the opportuni- ties here, there’s no reason to move that far away,” said Shayla Preston. Preston works 30 hours a week as a medical assis- tant at Good Shepherd Med- ical Center and had no back- ground in computers when she started the program. She said she was drawn to the profession because of the pay and the independent nature of the work. Mandy Tobin, a Board- man resident, said the pro- gram has been a good ser- vice for the region. “I feel it’s really helped the community learn more advanced skills,” she said. “The program is very hands-on, and caters to (people) whether they’re advanced in IT or have no IT background whatsoever.” Your Family Deserves The BEST Technology... Value... TV!... Upgrade to the Hopper® 3 Smart HD DVR • Watch and record 16 shows at once • Get built-in Netflix and YouTube • Watch TV on your mobile devices Hopper upgrade fee $5/mo. Add High Speed Internet 14 . 95 $ /mo. Subject to availability. Restrictions apply. Internet not provided by DISH and will be billed separately. 190 Channels CALL TODAY Save 20%! 1-866-373-9175 Offer ends 11/14/18. 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