The new Information Technology and Services Department Director Teresa Sanford has been at Guilfor for 20 years. The mother of three grown children sat down with The Guilfordian to speak about the IT&S department, as well as how her career in information technology has evolved over the years.

The Guilfordian: What led you to Guilford originally?

Teresa Sanford: We (my husband and I) decided to come to North Carolina, because we made a conscious decision not to raise our family in Southwest Florida; we wanted our children to have four seasons. Also, my husband is from North Carolina and I went to school in North Carolina at Atlantic Christian College. We had a great fondness for this area, and we wanted to be closer to family. We chose Greensboro because it was a more family-oriented, kind of laid back situation.

The Guilfordian: How long have you worked in this field?

Teresa Sanford: My whole career beginning when I graduated in ’82. I have been in technology since I began. My degree is in business administration with concentrations in marketing and management. Where you think you are going to go when you get out and where you actually end up are usually two different things (laughs). I started working in the field with my first job (after college) at a large nursing home, a Fortune 300 company. I was in the technology department, and it just grew from there.

The Guilfordian: So you got started before there was even an internet?

Teresa Sanford: Absolutely. Y’all would never know that (laughs). There are things that I saw that you guys could never relate to.

The Guilfordian: How often have you had to completely learn something new?

Teresa Sanford: You do it every day in this business. You have to. If you are going to be in this business, you have to be able to want to learn something new every day. That is the first and foremost thing because technology changes. When I started, technology might change yearly and now it is daily and sometimes it is a very momentary thing. So you have to be incredibly flexible. You have to be able to think outside the box. You have to be able to know who your customers are, and in this environment, it is y’all, the students.

The Guilfordian: I bet you had a lot more responsibility when assignments started to be due on Moodle and email has become so important for classes, too. You have to have the internet working at all times.

Teresa Sanford: The internet is critical, as is delivering our services. That is why our server room is behind the natural gas generator, so the server does not go down even if there is a power loss. We are susceptible to outside events that we cannot control, obviously. Those are times are when you just can’t help it. I think the staff of IT&S does an exceptional job of understanding how important we are to everybody and how important it is to continue to deliver really good service to you guys and the faculty and staff. I think they do. They work tirelessly to make sure that those things are done and that we are here in a good span of time for help and assistance. I think they do a very fine job.

The Guilfordian: What does your new job entail?

Teresa Sanford: It is responsibility for the IT&S department as a whole: applications, networks and systems and user services. It is the whole ball of wax. It is making sure that we are moving forward as a team in service to this community especially in relationship to our SRLP II, which has a lot of technology components in it.