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Ike Whisenand’s office phone was forwarded to his personal cell phone. After hours, weekends, holidays and vacations – it didn’t matter where or when --  he would answer his calls and try to help if he could. At the very least, he’d let you know when he’d be back in his Yavapai College information technology “doctor’s” office and able to address your computer or electronics issue.

“I always tried to answer the phone. I always  tried to communicate with folks. That’s part of the customer service stuff I grew up with,” Ike said, looking back on his nearly 25-year tenure at YC.

Ike’s forwarded phone went silent on Oct. 2, his first day of retirement. Instead of logging into the college network that morning, checking on his Help Desk team and steering IT projects as the college’s Client Support Services Manager, he would instead solidify plans to take his sailboat out more often on Arizona’s lakes and for a motor home excursion to the Gulf Coast. There, he and his high school sweetheart and wife, Laurie, hope to put down stakes and enjoy life near the sea.

A Prescott High School graduate, Ike started his adult life at sea, as a U.S. Navy seaman aboard a submarine. After discovering an aptitude for electronics in a high school shop class, he saw military service as a fertile training ground. “I learned electronics and computers in the Navy,” he said.

After the Navy, Ike returned to Arizona, working for Motorola in Phoenix for four years and later for a computer graphics firm. A harrowing car accident – one that left him hanging upside down but unharmed and secure in a seatbelt -- sealed the Whisenands’ resolve to return to their hometown.

Ike worked for the Prescott Unified School District for 18 months before becoming “the guy that fixes stuff” -- a technician at YC. “I’ve been here ever since,” he said, reminiscing about his first office in a small modular building on the Prescott campus that is now the site of the Family Enrichment Center.

Ike’s memory bank also recalled that early in his YC career the IT team would build rather than buy computers to save money. “We’d buy all the parts and we’d all get together, build 25 machines and load them up with software.”

Reviewing years of technological change, Ike noted that YC once provided distance learning (video classes)  between the Verde and Prescott campuses via a microwave tower atop Mingus Mountain. When something was awry with the tower, it was Ike’s job to fix it and eventually any other electronic or computer failure on YC property on both sides of the mountain. Over the years, Ike and his team of IT wizards helped launch satellite campuses and supported technology users at the Chino Valley Agriculture and Science Technology Center, the Prescott Valley Center, the Career and Technical Education Center and the Sedona Center. The team also ramped up college security in the wake of mass shootings, building card-key access and video-surveillance systems.

“It has been a challenge. But it has been rewarding,” he said.

Ike survived a sharp Reduction In Force during the late 2000s housing collapse and the college’s subsequent experiment with IT outsourcing. Earlier this year, when the college abruptly shifted to mostly remote learning and telecommuting due to the pandemic, Ike was in the thick of the transformation – ensuring faculty staff and students had the tools they needed to succeed. “That was not on the plan 10 months ago,” he said.

As supervisor of YC’s Help Desk for many years, Ike hired and mentored many YC students. He takes pride in the fact that more than a few former students are climbing career ladders at YC while others are successful entrepreneurs, aerospace engineers or corporate IT professionals. The quality of student workers over the years is surpassed only by the quality of employees across the college district, Ike said.

“What really makes the college go is the quality of people who work here. If we didn’t have the caliber of people we have, we wouldn’t be getting along as well as we’re doing now,” he said referring to the pandemic-fueled online learning environment.

It’s those same people, Ike said he will miss in retirement. “I love the people. The relationships you build over the years, you don’t want to leave those behind.”

Still, Ike said. “I’m the old dinosaur in the group. It’s time for me to go out to pasture.”

Patrick Burns, YC’s Chief Information Officer, said Ike was highly regarded at YC as a problem solver, new technology deployer and people manager. “He was a pleasure to work alongside,” he said, adding, “ Ike has been our go-to expert on electronics as well as the designated grill master at our department picnics.  The ITS Department is going to miss his technical and customer service contributions as well as his sense of humor.  On behalf of the ITS Department, I wish Ike much happiness in his retirement and future endeavors.”

Ike and Laurie have two sons, Daniel, a YC nursing student, and Jeremy, an Arizona Department of Public Safety patrol officer. Their Prescott-area family now counts five grandchildren. The couple plan to spend time with their children and grandchildren every year -- during hurricane season on the Gulf Coast!