For Dr. Dick Hamann a career in technology provided a way to give back

Giving back has served as a guiding principle for Dr. Dick Hamann’s life and career. As vice president of Information Technology and Resources at Seminole State College of Florida, he is known and respected for his leadership, masterful negotiation skills, problem-solving and most important – an unwavering commitment to student success. After 28 years of dedicated service at Seminole State, he will retire this December, leaving a lasting legacy of leadership and service.

Hamann started at Seminole State as an adjunct instructor in the IT department. When the position for director of Computing and Telecom Services (CTS) opened in the late 1990s, he was encouraged to apply. He recalls that there were 15 people on his hiring committee and the interview lasted 3.5 hours.

“It was obvious that the position was important and that the College placed value on it,” Hamann said. “It also signaled that there were challenges that needed to be addressed.”

From that interview, Hamann gathered that Academic Affairs wanted better technological infrastructure, Institutional Effectiveness and Research wanted a better system to gather data, Human Resources wanted an integrated hiring and payroll system, and the list went on. Others may have balked at a list of needs like that, but Hamann wanted the challenge.

“I could see the benefits of having the technological infrastructure to support the educational programs and growth at the College,” Hamann said. “I felt I could make a bigger impact here than anywhere else.”

Making an Impact

And make an impact is just what he did. When he started as director of CTS in July 1997, there were no laptops or Wi-Fi, not every employee had a computer with internet access and only six computers in the College’s library could access the web. So Hamann got to work. He set off to improve the College’s network infrastructure. Using his excellent negotiation skills, in 1998 he helped craft the first tech refresh agreement between the College and Dell, an agreement that allowed Seminole State and other Florida colleges to order Dell equipment and services at set discounted prices. Hamann also worked with Microsoft to ensure everyone at the College had internet access and later partnered with Siemens to implement their then new voice over IP telephony systems to provide state-of-the-art phone service for Seminole State.

The late '90s and early 2000s were a time of exponential growth at Seminole State. Dr. E. Ann McGee became president in 1996 and moved forward with restructuring and ambitious plans to expand the College’s footprint throughout Seminole County. With a campus already established in Sanford/Lake Mary, the College opened campuses in Altamonte Springs, Heathrow and Oviedo. Growth in the College’s physical spaces demanded the need to expand the College’s technological infrastructure to support the new campuses and keep them all connected. Once again, Hamann, who advanced to vice president of Information Technology and Resources, and his team answered the call.

Being the problem-solver that he is, Hamann looked for a solution and says he found it by working with Seminole County to use extra fiber optic cables that run through the county’s traffic lights to establish a “fiber ring” between Seminole State’s campuses and ensure they are always connected to each other and to the internet. This solution worked so well and was so cost-effective that cities and schools in the county decided to use the same system.

Preparing for the Future

Aside from infrastructure and multiple department needs, Hamann led this team through numerous challenges through the years. He recalls the concerns related to Y2K as 1999 turned to 2000. He considers the College’s seamless technological transition from one millennium to the next as one of his team’s major accomplishments.

Hamann also remembers Hurricane Charley and the wave of storms that impacted Central Florida and Seminole State in 2004. “Everything was down,” he said. Knowing those storms would likely not be the last to affect the College’s operations, he worked to create backup plans for the College’s many systems and functions as well as a plan to resume normal operations after storms passed. Seeing the plans Hamann had for backup and disaster recovery for IT, Dr. McGee saw the need for similar plans to be implemented collegewide. And she knew Hamann could get it done. So, the College’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) was established with Hamann as the chair.

"I decided to work with [Seminole County], and we organized a tabletop emergency exercise for the College’s Executive Team at the county’s Emergency Operations Center,” Hamann said. That exercise exposed a need for the county and the College to improve their plans for partnership during emergencies. Fast forward from that first exercise to today and Seminole State’s Emergency Response Team is aligned not only with Seminole County’s Office of Emergency Management but also with the Department of Homeland Security.

Hamann’s work with the Emergency Response Team and the county would prove invaluable years later when coronavirus led to a pandemic. In 2009, when avian flu was a concern Hamann met with the ERT to see if migrating the College online was possible if a pandemic or another emergency made in-person operations unsafe or impossible.

In the months and years following that meeting, Hamann worked with this team and the eLearning Department to duplicate every class section and enrollment to create an online version in the College’s class schedule and enrollments on the learning management system. They also established a remote telephone system, utilizing the existing telecommunications infrastructure with CISCO. Seminole State was already using Zoom in a limited capacity for online courses, so when the pandemic forced the College to move its operations online in March 2020, Hamann and his team were ready.

“The courses were all there [in the learning management system], so we worked with eLearning to build them,” Hamann said. “The remote telephone system was in place, and the infrastructure was there to increase our Zoom licenses. We just had to scale everything up. We used Spring Break to get everything running.”

When the College reopened after Spring Break in 2020, many employees worked remotely and students resumed classes online. Hamann recalls his colleagues from around the state being impressed with how quickly they were able to get things back up and running.

Yet Hamann isn’t one to take the credit. He says his team is the reason everything runs smoothly.

“I’m proud of my team,” he said. “My team is the best on the planet! They’re very committed. They do the best they can with the resources they have, and they never complain.”

Hamann says the hallmark of his team’s good work is that it goes unnoticed…in a good way. “We know we’re doing a good job, because no one knows,” he said. When everything is working as it should (i.e.  computers turn on, Wi-Fi connects, phones work, etc.), he points to his team in the background ensuring things stay that way and protecting the College’s digital space while those using the technology remain unaware.

Giving Back

With all of Hamann’s success in building the strong technological infrastructure that has contributed to making Seminole State the powerhouse it is today, he recalls receiving offers for jobs at other colleges and organizations through the years and turning them all down. He says Seminole State is where his heart is.

"Staying in education is my way of giving back for everything that has been given to me,” Hamann said, recalling how he emigrated from Colombia to the United States as a teenager and all of the opportunities that were afforded to him. “Of course there’s more money in the private sector, but that’s not where my heart is. My heart is in helping people at the College.”

As he prepares to retire, Hamann’s dedication to the College and its students will continue. The Foundation for Seminole State College has established the Dick and Martha Hamann Family Fund in his honor to support student success. Seminole State also honored Hamann’s legacy by naming its new Emergency Operations Center for him during his retirement celebration on Dec. 5.

“Nobody is more passionate about Seminole State than Dick,” said Seminole State President Dr. Georgia Lorenz. “He gives of himself generously to others…Seminole State would simply not be what it is today – including an Aspen [Prize] top 10 finalist – without Dick and his many, many contributions.”