Meet Marcus Norman, Systems Engineer

Marcus Norman prides himself on being a laid-back guy. It’s a characteristic that serves him well in sometimes stressful job of migrating clients to new servers.

Marcus said that, while no one likes dealing with transferring all their systems to upgraded equipment, it can be relatively painless with a little advance planning. He said he makes sure clients are well informed about the process and can schedule the work around their busy times.

“We just try to plan everything ahead of time,” he said. “We try to make it so they have a say.”

It helps, Marcus said, that he’s been “doing computer stuff forever.” As a high-school student, he found he could figure out work-arounds for problems he was having with his own machines. “I like to dissect how things work,” he said.

These days, Marcus is 25, and high tech is both his job and his hobby. At home, he has his own server set up so he can stream his music to his TV, and he’s even built a virtual private network connected to his mother’s and aunt’s houses so they can share media with each other.

“I only do it because it’s cool,” he said.

Marcus brings the same love of tinkering to auto repair and home improvement projects that he does in his spare time. “Anything where you can kind of get your hands dirty,” he said. “I’m always trying to keep myself busy.”

After two years at ComputerSupport.com, he finds he’s able to help out the newer staff, pointing them to solutions he’s found for various issues that come up. He likes the work environment because everyone works together and gets to be involved in multiple aspects of IT. Besides, he said, it’s a fun environment.

Even when he helps out stressed-out high-level clients, Marcus said he tries to keep calms so everything works as smoothly as possible. “I’m a pretty personable person,” he said. “So I try to work with them.”