Staff profile: Elgin Dean

When Project Access NOW was just getting off the ground with two busy staff, it became clear the organization needed to pay attention to technology support. Elgin Dean had been managing the Human Computer Interaction Lab at Lewis & Clark College and was identified as a recent graduate who could potentially jump in and help out with a variety of Project Access NOW’s technology needs. On a fine May day in 2008, he visited the tiny Project Access NOW office to learn more about this job opportunity.

“I did expect to be interviewed,” Elgin recalled. “But as soon as I walked in the door, Linda asked me to start fixing things.”

Elgin sailed through his slightly unorthodox interview and became the third staff member of the organization. Things have changed a lot since then.

Elgin said, “At the beginning, I was pulling reports from the original database and provided general technical help. For a long time, we had four employees. Then a few months ago, we more than doubled in size. My job is now different in scale and I have to be a lot more deliberate about what I do, because it affects so many more people.”

Yet Elgin enjoys the range of his job. As the organization’s sole IT staff member, he is able to do a variety of things.

“I wear so many different tech-related hats,” he said. “One week I can help plan a new database and work with the developers to build it. The next I can be crawling around on the floor hooking things up. I’m all over the place.”

What’s more, for Elgin Project Access NOW is “an amazing place to work and a great place to be. And on top of that, we’re doing a great thing as an organization. It’s a good cause.”

(December 2010)