Alexander S. Mar

    I am the systems manager for the Administrative Computing Group of Computing and Communication at The Evergreen State College.  My primary responsibility are the architectural design, installation, configuration, maintenance, and operation of computer systems, their operating system, and system software to support this college's administrative function.   I have worked as a computer systems manager here since July of 1987.

    My work environment is quite simple.  Our group is unusually small for the kind of responsibility this college has entrusted us.  The supervisor of the Administrative Computing Group is Dale Baird, my previous supervisor.  My current supervisor is David Metzler, Manager of Network Services.   Anna Kircher, Director of Computing and Communication, is our overall manager.  Because there are so few of us in the Network Services Group, each one of us learns to excel at what we do and works quite independently.

    We use DEC/AlphaServers computers from Digital Equipment Corporation (now part of Compaq), VMS operating system, Oracle Datbase to support SCT/Banner higher education administrative system, and COGNOS/Powerhouse 4th generation GL to support college's administrative function.  We also use FOCUS from Information Builders to create reports from college's Financial Records System.  Additonal system software are EIGEN Utility from EIGEN Corporation of New York, and DEC/Scheduler, a scheduling utility,  from Compaq..  Our administrative computer system is highly automated, quite powerful for its support tasks, and has a really envious reliability record.  I have experience using many major computer systems, ranging from IBM mainframes, CDC supercomputers,  to mini-computers.  None can top the DEC/AlphaServers running under the VMS operating system.

    College staff access the administrative computing node via TCP/IP protocol on an Ethernet circuit.  A few still must use LAT protocol via Teltone modems and DECServers.  Joseph Pollock and Bryan Siebuhr, my fellow systems managers, did an outstanding job of setting up this college's Ethernt network.  I am also grateful of the support from Steve Kerr of Electrical Engineering and Maintenance.  I can never forget the many hours of Wayne Bland who helped me to maintain the MICOM Data Switch Network and Teltone Data Communication System, the network without choice before our college switched to use Ethernet LAN.



 

My Internet Information:



 

My Favorite Internet Links:

  1. Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U. S. Department of State
  2. China Guide Company, a source of Chinese language learning software, herbs, books
  3. Chinese Arts and Music Association at Seattle, Washington - for serious music lovers
  4. Chinese Software Digest, the source of my Chinese language and educational software
  5. Dragon Cup, USA on dragon boat races, perhaps the world's longest continuous sport
  6. Literature, Online Library of - many classics, including "Origin of Species" are available
  7. Medline - Medical and Healthcare information
  8. National Palace Museum at Taipei, Taiwan has the greatest collection of Chinese arts.
  9. New York Times - it has good coverage about the Pacific Rim countries
  10. Northwest Asian Weekly - a Puget Sound area weekly dedicated to Washington's Asian community
  11. Organization of Chinese American at Washington, D.C. to support Asian-American issues
  12. Patent and Trademark Office, U. S. - do you have an inventive mind?
  13. PC World - I use it to keep up with the computer world
  14. Science Updates of Access Excellence - I use it to keep up with the news in Science
  15. Scientific American, a general science magazine
  16. Seattle Times, an important newspaper of Puget Sound area of Washington
  17. Sky and Telescope, an astronomy source to sate my appetite on optics and astronomy
  18. Space Telescope Science Institute - our future are in the stars
  19. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - learning a little philosophy helps
  20. Twinbridge Software for anyone who wants to have a Chinese language environment similar to mine

Address and Telephone Numbers to contact me at work and at home

The Evergreen State College
    attention: Alexander S. Mar, Systems Manager
Computing and Communication  L2408
2700 Evergreen Parkway NW;  Olympia, WA  98505-0002:  USA
Phone: (360) 867-6409, x6475;   FAX: (360) 867-5614;
E-mailmara@evergreen.eduHome Phone: (360) 357-8549

Last updated:  Thursday  August 26, 1999
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