Luc Tran, a Westminster resident and member of CSULB's class of 1998, was selected recently by his peers in Network Services as CSULB's employee of the month for May. Tran was recognized in a special ceremony held on Friendship Walk near the University Student Union, which was renamed Luc Tran Lane for the month of May.

President Robert Maxson praised Tran for his dedicated to every aspect of his job. "Luc goes above and beyond and is more than willing to give of his time, knowledge and expertise when it comes to assisting the university's faculty, staff and students," he said.

His selection was an exciting surprise, said Tran, who began his association with CSULB in 1997 as a student assistant in Academic Computing Services while he completed his bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems in 1998. He returned to CSULB as a full-time Information Technology Services member in 2000.

"It's a great honor," said Tran. One reason for his recognition might be how well he works with his colleagues in Network Services. "I'm especially grateful to Network Services' Mig Luis Gomez, Matthew Black, Robert Oyama and Scot Woodyard," he said. "These are senior-level engineers and I was lucky enough to work under them. Whenever I had questions, they would be ready to help." He hit the ground running in his first year as CMS primary support during their initial implementation. "It was a big learning curve," he said. "The best part is that I work with the greatest team on campus. There are a lot of years of experience with a lot of different people on this project."

He worked his way through CSULB in the ACS Computer Labs. "It was a great opportunity to sharpen my people skills," he recalled. "It helped me decide career goals. I found myself dealing with a steady stream of students with a variety of problems. That helped me pick up a lot of knowledge through helping a diversity of students with a diversity of problems."

His primary responsibility as a CMS/PUSH Technology Specialist is the management of the Microsoft System's management server.

"With that, I can deal with asset management, hardware and software inventory and to better help our desktop support team," he said. "I can push out security updates, a new capability in the last year, to help secure workstations. We all work hard in Network Services to improve security for campus computers in general. I'm fortunate to be able to work with so many talented and dedicated IT folks on campus – Mig and the server team, Craig Kleen and the network team, Matt and the unix team, Eli Shubin (Symantec anti-virus administrator), Larry Himmel/Isabel Banuelos and the desktop team, Teresa Morrow and Liem Nguyen and Tam Nguyen from ACS, Mike Soultanian and Marty Brenner from COTA, Bill Grissom and Greg Hosilyk from CLA, John Ferretti and the CBA IT team, Ryan Tapp from the Library, Walter Martinez from Facilities, Allan Kellogg from Student Services, and many other technical coordinators on campus. Together as a team on this campus, lead by Steve La (director of Network Services), we've been able to reduce the amount of spyware and hacking, and have improved security on our desktops."

He also supports CMS in his secondary position. "The Finance/HR/SA modules can take any issues of connectivity to me," he said. I also handle their file shares as well. There's no such thing as a typical day. Crises don't alarm me. They can even be fun. You're not ever going to find a boring day in a job like this."

When he's not playing the occasional pickup game of basketball, he's learning to swim, discovering different restaurants, watching a show or exploring his interest in the burgeoning Korean film market.

His future may hold a pursuit of an MBA at CSULB where he feels lucky most of his friends are in the Information Technology area."We help each other keep up with the constant changes in computers," he said. "We're constantly updating each other with new or different methods of doing things in the IT world."

Tran received several gifts including a CSULB sweatshirt, four admissions to the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts, a family four-pack at Boomers, a complimentary entrée at an Acapulco Mexican Restaurant, a dinner for two at Café La Strada and admission for two to enjoy the South Coast Repertory production of "A View From the Bridge."