Face to Face
Adam DeWolf
Enterprise Network Manager

Adam DeWolf has one cool job. Whether it’s testing new cellular phones for the Alyeska Information Technology (IT) team or touring Alaska mountaintops checking out the company’s radio repeater sites, his expertise ensures the successful communication throughout the Alyeska system.

As part of IT, Adam and his team are accountable for the Alyeska business network, which includes data center facilities in Anchorage and Fairbanks, telecommunications for the entire company and all voice services. In addition, it’s his job to evaluate new technologies that come into the marketplace.

How did you end up in Alaska?

I came to Alaska with my parents in 1975. They came up to work on the pipeline. My father had initially intended to work on pipeline construction as a laborer. He took a temporary job selling cars and trucks to pipeline workers, and quickly realized he was making more money doing this than he would as a laborer. He never did go to work on the line.

Describe some of your work in the field:

Most of the trips I make to the field are more about talking to people and asking how things are going. Recently, we visited the Glennallen Response Base, and took a helicopter up to one of our mountain top radio repeater sites. While there, we got a feel for the condition of the sites and looked at the radio systems installation. We spent some time with the staff at the response base discussing how the communication systems were working. We use this feedback to help tune the systems, and address issues we may not hear about if you stay in town.

What are some of your current projects?

Well day-to-day, I’m kind of like the Maytag repairman. I monitor the health of our communication systems, and respond to any outages or problems that come up. We also assure the communication systems are kept up to date.

Right now we’re finishing up a project that involved the reconstruction of our data storage capabilities. New federal E-discovery mandates have placed restrictions on what we can delete from our computers. We had to enhance our data storage capacity in order to support that. Also, we’re swapping all of our servers that are near the end of their life cycle, and due to new FCC regulations, we’re planning the replacement of an estimated 2,000 two-way radios across the Alyeska systems within five years.

What do you like the most about working for Alyeska?

Alyeska is a great place for a young person to excel. When I started here in my twenties, there were not a lot of age-related barriers. I got here when Information Technologies were just taking hold. Here was a company that was a bit behind the industry technologically, and needed help building and deploying computing infrastructure. It was fertile ground with a lot of opportunity to make a difference in the company. I’ve enjoyed that.

Also, Alyeska has always been flexible with schedules, work life and home life. This company doesn’t watch the clock. They basically say, “This is your accountability. You need to get this done.” When the chips are down, and people are working 100 hours a week, we pull together to get things completed. But usually, it’s a mellow atmosphere.

One of the great things about working for Alyeska is its appreciation for diversity. The IT Team is a great example of this.

What keeps you busy outside of work?

I have teenage boys and two of them are really into hockey. We spend a lot of time going to games and practices. At one point we had five people in our house playing hockey, including my wife. That got to be a little much. We have a family photo of the five of us, all in our five different team jerseys.