The Real George

George Westlund
Information Technology Consultant
Application and Information Management
Cal Poly State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407

Who is He?

George Westlund is an Information Technology Consultant within the AIM/Application Services and Support, a department within Information Technology Services. He started working for Cal Poly in a similar, but much simpler capacity in August 1, 1977. He is a Cal Poly graduate with a B.S. in Architectural Engineering and a M.S. in Computer Science. For an up-to-date list of his office location and phone number, select here.

What are his responsibilities?

George has a variety of responsibilities including:

Current Responsibilities
- Cal Poly Responsible Use Computing Policy
  - Drafting Policy statements
  - Draft Policy Procedures
  - Implement procedures after they are approved
    - On-line publication
    - User notification
  - Policy Enforcement
    - Working with Judicial Affairs
    - Working with the University Police
- CMS/PeopleSoft software librarian
  - Perform upgrades from CMS Central (Chancellor's Office)
  - Apply patches from CMS Central
  - Maintain web pages showing the status of
    - Available patches and upgrades issued from CMS Central
    - Campus modifications past and in progress
    - Status of each database instance
    - Status of application servers
  - Plan patches and communicate with the functional user community to schedule their implementation
  - Provide a preliminary analysis of newly released patches indicating what scripts they contain as well as their prerequisites.
- CENTRAL UNIX™ Limited User Support which includes
  - Virtual Hosts for departments and clubs on the CENTRAL UNIX™ mail Apache Web Server.
Old Responsibilities
These are old responsibilities that have either moved away from me or are in the process of moving away from me.
- CENTRAL UNIX™ User Support which includes
  - Software maintenance and installation of instructional applications
  - Consulting with faculty members in support of their course related computing activities
  - Assist in system planning
  - Helping users with system problems.
  - Meeting with users who who are having policy related problems.
- Authors several of the User Guides published by Academic Computing Services
- Manages Information Server software on HP-UX™ Operating System
  - The Cal Poly Web Server
  - The Cal Poly Directory Server (Web Interface)

What does he support?

Current support items
- Cal Poly's Responsable Use Computing Policy
- Cal Poly CMS project developers and PeopleSoft database application upgrades.
Maintenance mode support items
- Systems Status Page (describes problems on various centrally supported systems, currently being migrated to a channel in the MyCalPoly portal)
Old support items
Again, these are old items that have either been migrated to other support groups, are still in transition or are being dropped from support.
- HP-UX
  - Compiler and System Utilities
    - FORTRAN 77/90
    - System Mail Aliases
  - Server software
    - Apache WWW Servers
      - Campus Web Server
        
        Directories of Faculty, Staff, and Student Web Pages.
      - OpenMail1 and OpenMail2 Web Servers
      - Directory Server
    - Directory Server (U of Ill CCSO) or a web form for those with Internet Explorer
    - HP's OpenMail
    - CS&T's OpenTime
    - POP Mail Server
  - Client software
    - LYNX
    - Netscape
    - Internet Explorer
    - HP's OpenMail GUI
    - CS&T's OpenTime
  - UNIX™ Instructional Applications
    - UNIXMENU
    - Pine
    - Pico
    - Mail
    - vi
    - various other applications installed on Central UNIX.
    - Y2K Testing and remediation on Central UNIX

Education and Background

George grew up in Atascadero, about 20 miles North of Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo County, was raised there and has lived there since his parents first moved to the area in 1956.

Atascadero High School, Class of 1971
Masters in Computer Science, 1985, College of Engineering, Cal Poly State University
- Thesis Project: Departmental Librarian Support Software on Cyber 170 running NOS
Bachelors in Architectural Engineering, 1976, Collage of Architecture and Environmental Design, Cal Poly State University
- Senior Project: Seismic Database on CDC 3300 System

Other Interests

George has a wide variety of interests including:

Doing things with Friends
Visiting my nieces over in the San Joaquine Valley
Playing with my toy trains (I never got enough of this as a kid apparently)
Country Music (I was in a local Country Rock band, Blackberry Ridge, from 1977-1987 and it still influences my musical tastes)
Sound Reinforcement (both at church as when the old band gets together to jam or play at special occasions).
Western Dancing (a fallout of my musical tastes and a good way to spend time with friends as well as get some good exercise)
Traveling (the U.S. for now; someday New Zealand, Australia, and maybe even Europe not to mention some cruises in the future, such as Ensenada in May 2003)
Camping (using a 1973 23 ft travel trailer nick named "The Lead Sled")
Motorcycles (a 1982 Honda CB-900F Super Sport)
Cars / Driving (1986 Ford Thunderbird èlan and a 1990 Ford F-250HD Pickup)
Computers (You'd think I'd get enough of this at work)
Marksmanship (No, I wasn't a postal worker in a former life)
Photography (both film and digital based, see my off-campus web site for examples of my digital photography)
Home Improvement (a never ending project when you live in a rural area)
Gardening (you have to do this when you have almost an acre and a half with an 8000 square foot lawn)
TV/Movies (I can also be a couch potato)
A few cats for rodent control (They aren't very good at it, when they hang around)
Playing mad scientist at Halloween.

For information on my eye surgery go here.