Today marked the end of an era at the North Shore Country Day School. After 12 years of faithful service, our help desk manager, Lori Brennan spent her last day at North Shore.

A help desk manager is the first person that a user in crisis first contacts, whether it is a kindergartener trying to print their first masterpiece or seasoned faculty member whose hard drive crashed during the middle of writing report cards. To the user in crisis, their problem is always the most important issue that needs to be dealt with right away.

One of Lori’s strengths that we will miss is her ability to respond to these users with a calm, measured response. Lori not only troubleshoots the issues and is able to resolve it, but she does so in such a way that she not only reassures each individual, but empowers them to have the confidence to begin to resolve the problem in the future by themselves.

Lori is a help desk manager who “gets” schools. She understands that the most important activity in a school is teaching and learning.  Lori knows how important it is for her to make sure that the technologies that we now depend on to help do that teaching and learning works when we need it, that any downtime means lost opportunities for instruction. She also knows that that successful implementation of technology begins with establishing personal relationships that go beyond the technologies themselves.

Our loss is the Mandell Schools gain. I want to wish Lori the best of luck in the future, both professionally and personally. And I know that this is not good-bye, but rather the start of a new chapter.

See you on the network, Lori. You will remain to be a valued member of my personal learning network. It has been my pleasure to work along-side of you.