Listing out PSCer’s who are on the team because of Deb Nigra quickly calls for webs and flow charts to get it all straight.
Six Degrees of Deb Nigra
PSC Interns – Where Are They Now?
WORKING WITH STUDENT CONSULTANTS
Chris
Deb, you’ve worked here for a while, one could even say you’ve been here since PSC’s start. You’ve also hired some folks as interns who still work at PSC. Can you talk about that?
Deb
That’s right, I hired Bryan Webb and Ken Hackworth. Before I came to PSC, I worked on campus at what was then called academic computing, part of the central computing component on campus. That involved working the help desk for people who came into the cluster. I wrote documentation and taught little classes and things like that.
We had student consultants there, too, and one of the students that we hired was Bryan Webb. In the spring of 1986, when the center was being founded, I applied for a job down here. I had worked with Mike Levine [one of the founders of PSC] on campus. Mike was a physics professor, and we had worked well together. So when Mike came down here, I applied for a job and kind of followed him here.
We needed student consultants to help in user services, which was run by Joel Welling at the time, and help with documentation. Bryan applied for a job, so I hired Bryan again. Bryan always says, “You hired me twice that summer.”
According to Bryan Webb: While working that summer in various PC clusters on campus, he saw the posting for student consultant help via phone lines at this new department involving VMS systems and a Cray X-MP supercomputer. The job description intrigued him, but he didn’t realize that Deb was doing the hiring. Bryan applied and got to be part of the first student consultant team at PSC. That team included Chuck Maiden and Steve Mittereder, Pitt students, and Marty Shulman, a graduate student in Physics at CMU who had graduated from the same high school as Bryan. Bryan is still here and contributing at PSC, after all these years.
Deb
So, later, maybe in ‘87 or ‘88? I hired Ken Hackworth as a student consultant. And Ken was obviously another great success (The Mayor of PEARC) and also still here at PSC. I also have a tangential hiring connection with another staff member, Tom Maiden.
Chris
Really?
Deb
Yes, I hired Tom Maiden’s uncle, Chuck, as a student consultant. I have to think that Tom heard about PSC from him. Now, I didn’t hire Tom, Ken hired Tom, but I hired Tom’s uncle, so…
According to Tom Maiden, Deb did hire his uncle Chuck and indeed that is where Tom heard about the PSC student position. Chuck is now semi-retired and frequently asks about the PSC team. He fondly remembers his days at PSC, even though Tom’s days at PSC now outnumber Chuck’s. Ken Hackworth hired Tom into the student position and Bob Stock later hired Tom into his full time job. All of those folks had a large hand in Tom being at PSC after all of these years.
While Chuck is a relative of Tom’s, Tom says he also thinks of many of his current and past PSC colleagues as family. Tom also says that Chuck, Deb, Ken, and Bob Stock each had a large hand in forming the person that he is today. Chuck also considers Deb to be one of just a handful of people who shaped his career.
DEB’S ROLE OVER THE YEARS
Chris
Deb, you talked a little about Bryan Webb and Chuck Maiden. What did you hire Ken Hackworth to do?
Deb
Same thing, student consultant. At the time, we had a phone line that people could call in to get help and those students sat and answered the user phone calls. It was a 9-to-5 service where you could call someone on the phone and ask questions.
Chris
What was your first position here when you started?
Deb
It was as a user consultant. Joel was answering the phones and then they hired me, and I answered the phone and I wrote documentation for the Cray X-MP. That’s what I was hired for.
Chris
Did you continue in that role until you took on the webmaster role here? Or did you do something else here at the center in between?
Deb
No, that’s kind of what I did, but you have to remember that there was no Internet in 1986, so I was writing a paper manual, right? So, I was working on that paper manual and answering the phone. PSC had e-mail back then. We were one of the few places that did, so we could e-mail users but not all our users had e-mail at that time. I also had kids during this period. So, I had my first child in December of ‘86. I was off for a little while, came back and had my second child in June of ‘89.
When I came back from maternity leave it soon became obvious I couldn’t work the help desk any longer. I couldn’t really answer tickets only being here a couple of days a week, because people sending in help desk tickets expect a [quick] response. So I went from answering questions at that point to only doing documentation which is less time-sensitive.
So that’s what I did, again it was paper documentation, for a long time, until 1990, or ‘91. I was here when this new thing called the Internet popped up. I thought: I will never [get this]! I have no idea how to do this, I’ll never learn how to do this, I don’t know what this is, but, you learn.
I’ve been doing that ever since I started out with documentation. Then as the years went on, we got designers on staff, and we moved from flat-file kind of documentation systems to content management systems. Again, you learn.
This student comes up to us and starts ranting to us about how there’s gonna be a computer network that spans the whole world and everybody will be able to be connected and it’s unbelievable and he walked away and I said to Rick, “That guy, what’s he on?”
Chris
That’s so interesting. So you were sort of “in” on the “ground floor” at PSC and then you kind of evolved in your role along with how the place has evolved?
Deb
Well, yeah, and the world has evolved. I have a funny story that’s kind of related. So, Rick Costa no longer works here, but he was here for many, many years. I also worked with Rick at academic computing and he came down here after I did, to PSC.
When we were both still at academic computing, there was kind of a lobby area outside the PC cluster, and students are in there and Rick and I are working in this lobby area. And this student comes up to us and starts ranting to us about how there’s gonna be a computer network that spans the whole world and everybody will be able to be connected and it’s unbelievable and he walked away and I said to Rick, “That guy, what’s he on?” We’re both thinking: This is never going to happen. And this was like 1985 or ‘86, right?
Chris
What was he, some kind of time traveler? (laughs)
Deb
I know! We laughed and laughed and made fun of this kid for years. He said, “It’ll be a ‘worldwide network’.” We’re both like, yeah right, buddy! But, there you are, all those years ago he foresaw that – the World Wide Web!
Chris
Well, there are visionaries who do that. They’re on the “bleeding edge” of some field and can predict when some discovery will turn into something important.
Deb
Right, but he knew, somehow?
Who knew, all those years ago, that so many folks brought to PSC by Deb would still be here today? But, that’s the kind of place PSC is: people come here to learn, to grow, sometimes they move on, and sometimes they stay to build the PSC of tomorrow.