June 26, 2020
Before he joined CEC in 2015, Jim Anderson was on the other side of the table – as a CEC customer. His IT experience started at a help desk for a school district, where he worked his way up the ladder. For more than a decade, he worked at Loras College as the director of network and information services.
“I was pretty lucky to have the field experiences I did,” says Anderson. “Working in the trenches helps make more effective leaders; they’ve had the opportunity to deal with the chaos that can be technology.”
He worked closely with CEC during his time at Loras College and got to learn more about the company culture. When a job opportunity arose, he joined CEC’s team as the director of IT.
“I’m an IT person who also enjoys working with people,” he says. “I think that explains why I ended up where I did. I happen to be a people person who really likes to experience and work with technology, too.”
In June 2020, he was promoted to a new role to guide IT strategy and development for CEC and its customers.
Meet CEC General Manager for AV, IT, and Structured Cabling Jim Anderson!
Q: What makes you most excited about working at CEC? What do you enjoy most?
A: I really love CEC and the wide array of technologies we get to work with. It opens up so much potential for CEC. We not only design, install, maintain, and support the technology everyone wants, but we can make it happen from the back end, too. We’ve got a solid IT base so we can make sure our customers have a, IT foundation to make technology implementation go much smoother.
Q: Is there a CEC initiative you’ve been involved with that you’re especially proud of?
A: I really enjoy when technologies cross over. For example, CEC was involved with a community hospital project. We provided IT, AV, security, and healthcare communications work for them: surveillance, paging, wireless, structured cabling, switch stacking, etc. They were really excited to be moving into a new facility – and excited about all this integrated technology. Our IT team got to work with our AV, healthcare, and security teams. We brought it all together for them.
Q: How does a typical day play out for you at CEC? What are you responsible for?
A: I typically communicate with customers, CEC employees, and partners – not always in that order and not always all three in one day. But that’s what I’m built do to: develop relationships. CEC’s product is its people. I do what I can to bring the best people at CEC forward, provide the best resources we can to our customers, and partner with the best technology companies.
Q: What’s a fun/interesting fact about you that most people don’t know?
A: I was named Homecoming King at Loras College before I graduated!
Q: How do you spend your free time?
A: I love being outdoors. In the wintertime, I’m a skier and an ice fisherman. In warmer months, I fish and play golf. Along with my family, I’m also on a mission to visit every U.S. national park. My parents did that with me when I was younger. Together, my family has been to 18 so far.
Q: If you could do one other job at CEC for a day, what would it be?
A: I come from the world of operations, but I’ve never done that work at CEC. I’d like to see things from a project manager’s point of view. That way you could work with the field but also get to lead a project. I love the different technologies we offer, so it would be fun to be a project manager for a full, multi-technology project: integrating two-way, healthcare, AV, IT, and fire and security. Then you could really see firsthand what makes CEC great.
