Ep 176 | CyberCoast: Want an IT job? (OR IT in Pensacola: What’s possible?)

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We shouldn't be the last resort. We should be your first option because of all of the opportunities you brought up. The time frame is shorter. Financial aid is there for over 90% of students, the hands-on component, industry certifications, the soft skills. You bundle that up, save a ton of money, if not spend any money at all, and have what industries recognize as you are a great candidate for the position.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week, we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every child in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support your child's success. As future jobs become increasingly technical, many worry that Escambia County will be left behind when skilled young people move away in search of better opportunities. My next guest is working to train up high-quality students and connect them with high-paying jobs right here in our county. He is the instructor of computer systems and information technology at Georgetown Technical College, where his program covers everything from taking computers apart to cybersecurity. Today he's going to share the potential and the practical of Pensacola IT opportunities, tech mentor, industry connector, three-time UWF graduate, Mr. Joe Snyder. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Oh, thank you so much. It's my absolute pleasure to be here and talk about all the good things we're doing out at Georgetown.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Well, it's a big misconception that there are no IT jobs in this area. So can you give some examples of why that isn't true? Who is hiring?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Quite a few local businesses are hiring here in the Scambe County. Yes, that is a very common misconception because when you hear of IT jobs, you hear of the Cybercoast, the Big Bend of Florida. There are 800,000 unfilled cyber jobs in the country. You have to go move to a big city if you want to work in IT, but that's not accurate. We have law firms hiring. We have local IT companies that hire our students. For instance, Digital Boardwalk has hired some of our students. We have Bakersfield Donovan, who's hired some of our students, Escambia County, not the school district, but the Escambia County. And pretty much Antler hires from our students. And it's not just IT firms. If you own a business, you run a business, typically if it has more than a few employees, you're going to have some kind of IT set up in your business. And not to say most business owners don't have IT experience, but when something goes down, their internet is not connecting, their internet's slow, they're having issues, even printing, there are companies in Escambia County that will come out and repair, troubleshoot, and solve those problems. So Escambia County is rich with IT positions. It is, again, that common misconception that there aren't jobs out there, which is not true. Now, do we have thousands and thousands of jobs like Atlanta or the larger cities? Absolutely not, because their population is not like that. But technology is technology wherever you go. Things still break, they need to be fixed. And the skill set of fixing certain aspects of IT, common person doesn't have those skills. So it's kind of like the Ghostbusters who you're going to call.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

It totally is. What about salary scope? What does that typically look like for students who have freshly graduated from Georgetown?

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Well, that's a great question. When you leave Georgetone, I don't want people to think you're going to be making six figures in Iskambie County. But like any job, it's getting your foot in the door. It's getting not only through that first interview, but getting that first interview, getting through that interview and then getting hired by that company. Once you get your foot in the door, you will probably in Iskambie County start anywhere from 35, maybe even upwards to 50, which might not sound like a lot, but that's an entry-level position. Now, as long as I always tell my students, if you're nice to people and you work hard, all the opportunities are there in front of you. So in this local area, I feel like that is a fantastic starting salary because if you do well in the IT field, they're going to want to give you more responsibilities, which most of the time, more responsibility means more income. But like any career profession, it's just getting your foot in the door. But I'd feel safe in saying 35 to 45,000, 50,000 fresh out of Georgetown.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

And I heard that there is some sort of student co-op arrangement with local employers. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Georgetone is very unique and they offer a cooperative agreement with local businesses. Once you get at least 50% of the way through the program, you have the opportunity to co-op with the local business. We have a co-op coordinator at Georgetone who can help with that. The co-op coordinator, the instructor, and the student find a business that is open for a cooperative education student. So, in a nutshell, that employer gets to kind of give that employer opportunity to see what they have, to show them, hey, this might be someone who I do want to hire when they get out of George Stone. But with that agreement, they're just not kicked to that company and George Stone wipes their hands and says, good luck. That instructor still has that relationship and has to go out and meet with that employer to be sure that they are not only still getting the education they're supposed to, which we still interact with those students and still ensure that they're getting those gaps closed of what they might not be getting on the job, because filling the entire curriculum at George Stone on a job in any field, I mean, that's just not going to happen. But the instructor and the employer talk together, they have to meet and go over what's going on in the company. But also, that's a way for George Stone to ensure that someone isn't going to that business and they're supposed to be doing IT stuff and all they're doing is taking notes and getting coffee. So that kind of a triangle of discussions and oversight and double checking things are going what they're supposed to be. Students thrive in that. And I don't have statistics, but a decent amount of our students who complete a cooperative agreement with George Stone and the organization do get hired on. So the employer does get to kind of test drive the employee to see, hey, is this something that I feel like they can come on board full time once they're finished with George Stone? And what's great about it is their financial aid still continues. They can still graduate and get that certificate of completion through George Stone. So they still get all of the tangibles and untangibles of George Stone at that infield employer where they are working and it can be full-time. So it is an amazing opportunity. And honestly, everyone benefits. There's it's a window.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Part of the pushback for this type of program could be like, oh, well, yeah, but who's gonna want to hire fresh graduates? But this answers that problem both for the graduate and for the employer, because an employer could just as likely just say, I don't want fresh graduates. And so instead they, like you said, get to test drive to see if it's a good fit, which I think it creates a whole nother level of employment stability.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Right. Yeah. And it's it's a win-win-win. Everyone benefits. If the employer, the student, or the teacher, one of those three feel like it's not a good fit for a multitude of reasons, then they just come back to Georgetown and continue their education.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

And your students are interesting because they're aged like 16 to 70, potentially, which are huge age gaps. But when you layer in technology with that, those age gaps have a an even wider range of meaning, right? So how does that play out in the classroom?

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Well, like you said, I could have 16-year-olds because we offer dual enrollment for high school students. So I've had quite a few high school students, and there are people at Georgetown, like you said, that are more seasoned and have more life experiences for programs. But even, I mean, obviously in the IT field, the 16-year-olds up to probably the 30-something year olds grew up with technology. I mean, it's just second nature. My first computer was in the mid-90s, the old Macintosh Performa. So I started taking it apart. My parents got really mad about that. But my first cell phone was in a box or bag. So we adapted to learn technology. So the younger generations, I mean, they always had cell phones. They always had tablets and internet. But then you get to the more seasoned individuals that could be in the IT program. A lot of this is new to them. They know how to go online and check email and do a few things, but operating systems, hard drive, cybersecurity is just a buzzword. They might hear on TV, artificial intelligence might, as it maybe should, kind of potentially bother people. But that gap, I feel like, is closing, even between, like you said, the 16 and 70-year-olds, because so many things are coming on board that are able to assist in someone from older generation learn those skills. But that's one of the great things about my program. I've had, I can't tell you how many times I've been asked, what do I need to know to be successful in your program? I'll just say, do you know what a computer is? Yes, that's all you need to know.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

So do you really consider that the base level of knowledge for a candidate for the program?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Absolutely. Definitely for my program. If they know what a computer is, come on board and I'll show you what you need to do to be successful, not in just my program, but in the networking program Mr. Beard does next door or the cybersecurity Mr. Gibbon does across the hall. So really, there are no prerequisites for my program.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

So when we think about that being the entry level of knowledge, I can identify a computer among a set of other items. When you fast forward to that person graduating from the program, what's the difference between start and finish? What industry certifications are they getting? What skills do they have by the end?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

That's a great question. So many certifications. That's our main emphasis in the Georgetown IT program. I tell my students that when you go look for a job, I want your resume to be your name, your contact information, and all your list of certifications. One pager because potential employers know that an industry certification means you know something. It's verified by an industry, accrediting company that are recognized worldwide. For instance, CompTIA, those are the big ones that we focus on. Those are worldwide recognized tech certifications that you can't just go and pass. If you can just identify that's a computer, zero chance you're going to pass a CompTIA. In my program, I focus on the CompTIA A, which is pretty much the baseline industry certification CompTIA offers. It's two exams. I'd say it's about half a football field long and only maybe a few feet deep. It covers, like you said, everything from computer hardware to a little bit of cybersecurity and everything in between. I like to think that my program helps students figure out what direction in IT they want to go. Next door, Mr. Beard, his students focus on NetPlus and Comp TIA, Server Plus and Comp TIA. And Mr. Given Across the Hall, he focuses on SEC Plus or Security Plus. So we have students that'll leave just with Comp TIAs with five or six of those industry certifications. And potential employers will look at that and say Comp TA plus, Comp TIA, Net Plus, SEC Plus, Server Plus. Almost always will that person get an interview. I mean, that is unheard of for someone coming right out of a school.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

So what's the student experience like, especially compared to like a four-year university where a student would also be pursuing a career in technology? And I asked that because I was recently at a four-year university with honor students and I met cybersecurity honor students. They were super bright. And because of my age, probably I didn't really put two and two together that there's these two paths with maybe similar outcomes, or the people who would graduate from these individual paths could work together. So, what is the experience of a four-year university compared to George Stone? And how would a prospective student figure out which one is a better fit for themselves?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

That's a great question. That four-year cybersecurity honor student and a graduate of George Stone, they will be applying and interviewing for the same position. Oh. So they'll have the same, more than likely, industry certifications. Now, George Stone being a technical school, especially in the IT program, which is all the programs at George Stone, focus on the skills to get employed. Now, we do have a big emphasis on soft skills in our program and really in George Stone altogether. We put all of our students through a soft skills training, but it's embedded in all of our curriculum. Because I tell a lot of our students, you can get hired because of your technical expertise. But what will keep you employed are those soft skills, showing up to work on time, talking appropriately, not only to your supervisor, but to your colleagues. But back to your question, we focus in the IT program a lot on hands-on learning. My program starts with I'll hand my students an empty computer tower and I'll say, build this. They have all the parts, they have to research it, and then when they finish, I'll go in there and kind of break it, or then they have to troubleshoot the hardware issues. And then when they're finished, they get it up running, then they'll take it back apart. Mr. Beard next door in networking, students will physically build servers. They will program the servers, set up VLANs or virtual networks. So it is applicable to the real world when you get your IT jobs. It's the same with Mr. Given across the hall in cybersecurity. We teach the hands-on skills that you can walk into a job day one and be beneficial and helpful to that company. Now, like you said, I graduated UWF three times, spent nine years there. I'm no doctor, but you know, we all learn at our own pace. But it did have nothing but good thing to say about UWF. It is one of the reasons I'm here where I am now. But we don't have the included humanities and history classes. And do I think those are important? Absolutely, yes. But we focus all on IT at Georgetown. It is not just our primary focus, it is our 100% focus, is getting students not only those skills, but those industry certifications, because you could talk all day long about computers and I know how to do this, I know how to do that. But if you don't have those stamps and seals from those industry certifying agencies, there's really no proof in the pudding there. But George Stone, you can leave two years and go get the same job. Someone who left a four-year university. Obviously, I'm not going to get into the money situation, but I will segue to all the financial opportunities there are George Stone, if that's also something you'd want us to discuss.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, absolutely. You're talking about tuition costs. Tuition costs, yes. Yes, unpack that for us.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Well, we have a full-time financial guru. I call him Mr. Tyndall at George Stone. We have multitudes of different financial aid opportunities for students. He told me that over 90% of our students are receiving financial aid in one way, shape, or form. The majority of them are getting their tuitions and fees and any kind of equipment or books covered. Now we have opportunities for Pell Grants, we take VA benefits there, last dollar grants, a multitude of different financial aid opportunities that, like I said, over 90% of our students take advantage of. And I was in his office yesterday and I said, I won't hold you to the exact number, but give me a ballpark. How much money would you say year in, year out, do we cover for financial aid based on these different opportunities? He said, I'd say a safe ballpark would be two and a half million.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Whoa. Wow. Okay. So just kind of summarize if a student cares about the timeframe with which they need to graduate, money is a consideration, and they're a hands-on learner, more of a kinesthetic learner, maybe, who could use some extra support with some of the softer skills, then would that be a fair checklist of what might make a student a good fit for George Stone?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Absolutely. And just to kind of maybe dive in just a smidge deeper on that, if you have a family, and I know a lot of schools, you'll have assignments to do outside of school, research papers. And I remember a lot of my life going into that in my teens and 20s. I can tell you, at least for the IT programs, if you want homework and want to do homework or work at home, because we don't give homework, that's up to you. We don't assign extra stuff outside because the three of us realize everyone has lives outside of school. I have a life, Mr. Beer, Mr. Given. Family comes first. I always say that. So I think that is another good benefit is you could have kids, a spouse, you could have activities outside, and you know that these five hours a day, Monday through Friday, are going to be what you need to focus on. You get out at 1:30, the rest of the day is yours. You can still have a part-time job, a full-time job, be with your family. So I think that's also something that is an added bonus to Georgetone, besides just the monetary, the hands-on, the industry certifications. I could honestly go on and on about not only Georgetone, but the IT program. And it is such a misconception, not just of the potential jobs locally, but you might hear someone say, well, if you can't get into UWF or PSC or Florida State or UF or wherever these universities are, then I guess you can go to Georgetone. That's a fallacy. We shouldn't be the last resort. We should be your first option because of all the opportunities you brought up. The time frame is shorter. Financial aid is there for over 90% of students, the hands-on component, industry certifications, the soft skills. You bundle that up, save a ton of money, if not spend any money at all, and have what industries recognize as you are a great candidate for the position. So I don't see any negatives about tech schools. I know technical schools get the, oh, you're not a four-year university. We focus on technical skills, and that's what employees look for. They want someone who can walk in day one, who can help that business, because we all know the reason everyone owns a business, the reason everyone wants to hire good people, at the end of the day, is to make money. Can that person make my organization money? Well, they came in and they're already working on servers and helping computers connect because there is something in IT called the five nines, which IT specialist organizations are supposed to be at 99.999% of the time they are operational. I do go on Amazon a little bit too much, but I was looking at purchasing something. And early in the week, you couldn't search for something in Amazon. The amount of money that Amazon was losing every second is just astronomical. And if you get hit those five nines in a 365, 24-7, that's five minutes a year, that you are kind of allowed in quotes to be down. So a company looks at a good IT person and says, I know little Johnny or Sally is going to keep our network up 100% of the time because any organization's down, it doesn't matter if they don't sell things. They can't get emails, they can't make phone calls because most phones now are VoIP, they're IP phones now.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

And that's local phones. Like where my husband works, he's worked at a couple different places in the same industry, and none of them have had an A50 phone number.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

No.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

So yeah, that is long gone. And Amazon's servers affected eight large large corporations, including Zoom. Did it? Yes. So it was not just you couldn't get your toilet paper primed to you.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

I don't want toilet paper.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

It was a large So it wasn't just me. It was not just you.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

I was afraid I was breaking their server, like, oh my God, this is done.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

No, it was interesting. I mean, I think what you're doing is painting the picture of how important these roles are. They are not leftover roles. They're not last resort roles. These are positions that affect all of us daily. And when something goes wrong, it's something that everyone notices. So I'm so happy that you pointed that out. You brought some. Student emails with you.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

I did. I brought some success stories that I would love to share. I'll keep them brief and then I'll segue into mine if you don't mind. I'd love that. Well, I spoke to Mr. Given and Mr. Beard about student success stories, and it didn't take them long to come up with some. I think the main issue was which one to come up with. So I spoke to Mr. Given and he told me about a student, and I remember the student. Unfortunately, he got laid off from a cybersecurity job. So he wanted to sharpen his skills and close that skill gap so that getting laid off is not in his future again. So he came to George Stone, he worked on Cisco, which is part of Mr. Givens' program because Cisco is big into the cybersecurity field. He ended up getting his A, his Net Plus, his SEC Plus, his CYSA, and two AWS certifications. He did all of that in one year. Wow. Those six certifications, you were almost guaranteed an interview, especially in Escambia County, because very few potential employees are going to have those certifications. And Mr. Gibbon told me he is currently working as a cybersecurity analyst at Navy Federal Credit Union.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

So we are really working on that relationship with Navy Federal. But just think of in this situation, how many IT positions there are at just that one company. And obviously it's a huge employer in Scambie County, but think of all the hospitals we have, technology everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Well, I think that kind of is full circle of where we started at the beginning of our conversation, which is the misconception that there's no IT jobs in this area, because we think of that very in an obvious way. There's no large tech corp headquartered here. Because when we think of large tech, let's be real, we think of Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Exactly. And so the way that we look for opportunities just looks different in a town like ours. We look at individual employers who have the same high priority for tech, like their business isn't tech. Their business is they're a hospital or they are a credit union.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Well, everything from being a smaller town, everything from mom and pop shops to, like you said, Navy Federal, all the large hospitals we have. The military has a lot of IT positions. The military likes to hire students. Obviously, they have to pass security clearance, but that's just an opportunity to be employed with the military. But that's a valid point. Every company that gets online needs someone to help their network out if it goes down, if they don't have those skills. So very valid point. People think of the Silicon Valley companies. Well, we don't have the 40-story Amazon, all those fancy buildings. But every company relies on that network connectivity with the outside world to be productive. And when that goes down, where do they go? Who do they call? And they have to know those companies.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Do you want to close us out with another success story?

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Sure. I started at Georgetone about four years ago. I've been in the district 22 plus years at this point. I have been everything from a tech teacher to a middle school principal. And my first class at Georgetone was, I think, 2022. And I had two students that came to they actually came to my class like a week early and wanted to meet me and for me to show around the program. And they looked so familiar. I couldn't put a finger on who they were. I knew for a fact I'd seen their faces before. And so a couple weeks later, my program started. And in conversation, they said, You were the principal at Brown Barge when I was a student there. I'm like, that's where I know you two from. So I just thought the full circle was great. They came to school every day, they worked five hours a day, worked super hard, completed my program less than the required hours. And then they went next door to Mr. Beer's program, knocked it out of the park in his program. And now one of them is working at Escambia County, again, not the school district, but working at Escambia County. The other one is working at a local law firm. And I reached out to them a couple days ago on LinkedIn and said, hey, let me know what are you working on right now? And I'm not going to lie, the technical stuff they are working on, I had to copy and paste that into AI and be like, tell this to me like I am an entry-level IT student because it's no joke. The responsibilities these students have in less than a year and a half of leaving George Stone or less than three years of walking into my program, it is so rewarding to hear those success stories because one of the main goals and not just George Stone, but in the school district, is we need to retain our own talent. And so those two stories are very rewarding to me because not only did I know them as, you know, very hyper seventh and eighth grade students at Brown Barge, but to know that we 100% changed their lives. We changed their trajectory of not just their lives, but their families' lives. And to me, that's why we're in it in education. We're in it to change the lives to produce productive members of society. I've always thought that George Stone is the most well-kept secret in Escambie County. And I don't think it gets a lot of times the credit it deserves. The ready-to-work day one employees that come from George Stone is astronomical. We are retaining the talent that the school district pumps out. And not to get too deep, but they are stimulating local economy with their education they got from Escambia County. Hopefully they'll have families and they'll still stay in Escambia County. So it's that generational cyclical help and growth that I know is the reason we come to work every day. I'm not being hyperbolic here. I truly love my job and look forward to going to it every day.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Well, like you said, the butterfly effect from all of these, from your influence to the classroom, in that case, middle school, to the classroom at George Stone and then beyond, that effect is exponential. And that's really special. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Scambe County Public Schools.