Adam Brisk
Adam Brisk joined ITSS on August 23 as an Academic Technologist. Adam may be a familiar face around UMD as he was initially hired into a temporary AT position in August 2020 to assist with remote teaching and learning support during COVID. Prior to that appointment, Adam was the Online Learning and Outreach Librarian in the Kathryn A. Martin Library for six years.
Adam brings a strong knowledge of UMD and a broad portfolio of education-related audiovisual, information technology and customer support experience to the ITSS team.
Adam will continue to support academic technology tools and co-lead coordinated communication work with UMD collegiate units and our system Academic Technology and Center for Educational Innovation partners. Adam is also leading our Classroom Reconnect program for faculty as they return to using classroom Audio Visual (AV) tools after a year away from the traditional classroom. He is an avid cyclist and enjoys a wide variety of activities including camping, music and reading.
Adam can be reached at (218) 726-6603 or [email protected].
Andy Blackwell
Andy Blackwell joined ITSS on August 18 as a Classroom Audio Visual Engineer. Andy may be a familiar face around UMD as he was an ITSS AV technician while earning his bachelor's degree at UMD.
Andy will provide classroom audio visual technology design and support to the campus. He brings IT outreach and project management experience from the University of Wisconsin Superior. Andy also has electrical and construction management experience. He enjoys sharing these skills by helping manage the repair of 80 to 150 houses per year for low-income and elderly people with the help of thousands of youth from across the U.S.
Andy can be reached at (218) 726-7135 or [email protected].
Matt Ellquist
Matt Ellquist joined ITSS on August 23 as a Linux administrator. His primary responsibilities will be to join other Linux administrations along to support the more than 100 Linux servers, a major part of the campus IT infrastructure, to meet the campus teaching and learning needs. Aside from that, Matt will also be working on system programming and other special projects.
Matt has a great start by receiving training and working on projects parallelly. After the training in Linux configuration tool, he was able to apply to work immediately and did a great job in setting up a server log shipping module for security effort. We hope this training and work combination can get him up to speed as soon as possible.
Matt is originally from Colorado Springs, CO and moved to Duluth when he was 9 years old. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters, ages 2 and 12. Matt has always had a passion for IT since he was young and has an even bigger passion for learning. He has a home computer lab where he is constantly practicing and growing new skills. He also participates in Hacking Capture the Flag events.
Matthew can be reached at (218) 726-8824 or [email protected].
Michael Lindau
Michael Lindau joined ITSS September 20 as an IT Professional - User Support specialist. Michael will be working at the Help Desk and providing desktop support services to the campus, as well as working on some special projects around mulit-media and photography.
Michael graduated from UMD in May with a Bachelor's degree in Organizational Management. As a student, he worked for ITSS at the Media Hub throughout his four years at UMD. He also did freelance photo/video gigs on the side and held a number of customer service positions.
To stay active, Michael loves skiing, surfing on Lake Superior, and skateboarding. In the last year he has become enthralled with film photography/videography and appreciates the extra intentionality that they require. Additionally, he has been playing instruments most of his life and has focussed primarily on studying jazz guitar as of late. Michael is excited to continue working with ITSS in this new role.
Michael can be reached at (218) 726-6307 or [email protected].
Phillip Klejwa
Phillip Klewja joined ITSS August 23 as an IT Professional - User Support. Phillip will be providing support in the areas of help desk/end user support, as well as computer maintenance and imaging.
Phillip is a recent Crookston alum with a degree in Information Technology. As a student, he worked at the Crookston help desk and supported their laptop imaging program. Phillip also has a degree in Audio Engineering from HTC in the Twin Cities. Phillip's previous work experience included a lot of end user support and hardware repair and he's excited to bring those skills here to Duluth.
When he's not working, he enjoys working on music, going to the gym, and watching the Vikings find a way to muck it up each and every Sunday. Phillip is looking forward to meeting, working, and learning with everyone at UMD.
Phillip can be reached at (218) 726-8864 or [email protected].