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Patty Lucas is the voice network manager at Oakton Community College. That means, whenever there is a problem with a telephone line, fax line or modem line or the hardware at either of the two Oakton campuses, Lucas handles it. It is a total of 1300 electronic ports. With increased staff and student usage, that number will be growing. 

 

How was this growth and maintenance handled in the past? About 10 years ago, Oakton had a $40,000 annual maintenance contract with a phone company. Lucas, whose background included being a systems programmer for telephone systems at Nortel Corporation, went to her supervisor and the Oakton Board and said: “Can I do all those changes, replacements and maintenance? Please, give me a chance.”  Since then, Oakton has never had to employ an outside contractor for maintenance.

 

Lucas created a Main Distribution Frame (MDF) at each campus. There are 1,000 jumper wires at the Des Plaines campus and 300 jumper wires at the Skokie campus; each one is networked in its MDF. To create these frames, Lucas had to begin work at 5:00 AM to spend two hours before each campus opened for business, so that she could close ports while networking each wire.

 

Her work ethic is solid. That is one of the reasons why she became active in her union. “I wanted to help out. I was grievance chair for two years; I really liked that job,” Lucas said. Lucas now works as chapter chair, a very demanding position at Oakton and elsewhere.

 

When she is not at Oakton, Lucas tends a quite extensive floral garden around her house. She likes to read the murder mysteries of Nora Roberts and Roberts writing as J. D. Robb. When asked about travel, she says she and her family—a husband and two sons—like to travel to the Caribbean in the winter. Patty Lucas says, “Chicago is too beautiful in the summer to leave, and I have too much work to do then.”