Celebrating a combined 77 years of service to WSU, Colleen Swanson and Dean Guenther to retire.
Colleen and Dean will celebrate their WSU careers together in a joint party open to all who would like to come and send them off. Please join us as we celebrate Colleen and Dean on Friday, November 9, in the Terrell Atrium from 2-4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.
Colleen Swanson began her ITS career as a Data Entry Operator II, before advancing into the Supervisor position. As data entry reached its sunset, Colleen split her time between that and Network Systems. (The era of using CRT’s [Cathode Ray Tubes] on dumb terminals via coax cabling!) Following her work in Network Systems, Colleen became part of the first Helpdesk team in ITS, and once again advanced into manager. One of Colleen’s memories of her tenure at ITS includes surviving the Campus Infrastructure Renewal Project (CIR). This project was to replace wiring and cabling campus wide, via tunnels and buried fiber, and updated switches. Colleen remembers seeing the first personal computer that came to ITS, hearing comments that they would never catch on! Colleen served in Phone Desk and Work Order management, and finishes her career in Desktop Support. “I’ve been given the great opportunity to speak with people from all over the campus, and campuses, during my time here,” Colleen notes, “and have developed some friendships with some FUN people!”
Dean Guenther, a proud WSU alum, has been a member of the Information Technology Services (ITS) team and Washington State University employees for 42 years. He started in the Data Center Operations group before moving into application development.Dean has enjoyed many roles at WSU throughout four decades such as Dairy Herd Records, Word Processing Applications, Vax, Unix, and more. For the past several years, he has served as the manager of the Identity and Access Management group in ITS, overseeing the process of providing many thousands of students, staff, and faculty access to WSU resources through the WSU network ID processes. Following his retirement, Dean and his wife Mary plan on staying in the Pullman area enjoying their daughter, great friends, and the Palouse’s four beautiful seasons.
Questions or regards may be sent to Lauren Wells, lauren.wells@wsu.edu
