After spending more than two years as a part of the Upper School Tech squad, Shenelle Haines has become an integral part of the community. Through technology troubleshooting, Sophomore advising, and yoga instruction Haines supports students and faculty in many ways. We sat down with her to hear more about her life and what lead her to this job.

Spectrum Newspaper: Firstly, What is your official job title?

Shenelle Haines: Let me look this up… I don’t know it by heart. Ok, are you ready?  My job title is Upper School Interactive Technologies and JNA Coordernater and Support Service Technician… and Yoga Instructor

SN: Obviously you do a lot of different things around the school. What does your normal day look like?

SH: It’s different everyday! I try to follow [the student] schedule, which is insane. But otherwise I my day is kind of whatever comes. Sometimes we have projects we are working on, but mostly the flow changes by season. At the beginning of the year, its super super busy because events are happening in the school, new people are in the space, lots of banquets and events to introduce people to the space. And then the middle of the year it slows down and it gets quiet, and the end of the year gets busy from wrap up events and collecting laptops.

SN: What about summers?

SH: The summer is usually projects, so it can be quiet or it can be very busy. Last year was very busy.

SN: Has it always been so busy?

SH: Well, no. [My] first year I thought I didn’t have enough to do. It was slow for me because I came from working at Apple. I worked in Apple retail…time was scheduled out by the minute. So I came from an environment where I was on and moving at full engines. So coming here was a lot different.

SN: How was the transition?

SH: It was hard to acclimate, but as I started to learn the roles and the needs I started creating process and work for myself.

SN: Have you always been into technology, and working with computers?

SH: No, not really. It kind of just fell into my lap. I’ve always worked around technology, before Apple I worked at Circuit City as an operations manager. And so I worked around technology, but I wasn’t involved in it. I worked in operations, process management, inventory type things. It wasn’t until I came to Apple where I did similar stuff. But, when the business was growing and started demanding a lot more things, they asked me to run tests or talk to customers about what’s going on with repairs and I was like, “Well I need to know whats happening, I need to understand the process to do the work.” I told them to send me to training. I wanted to learn how to fix computers, so I could actually speak on how they were being fixed, and they did.

SN: So that’s when you realized you wanted to be in a STEM careerSH: Yeah. I was really good at it. I pay really close attention to detail, and I also really loved the challenge of being on of the only women in that space.