Red and black runs through Tyler Ingram’s blood.
“I love everything about the University of Georgia,” he said. “I’ve been here my whole life. I grew up here, grew up a Dawg fan.”
Ingram’s life has revolved around Athens since his childhood. He grew up in Madison County, a 20-minute drive from campus, before attending the University of North Georgia for a year and transferring to UGA for the remainder of college.
He was inspired by his mother, who worked at the university for over 30 years. Now, Ingram is the IT director at the Odom School of Ecology.
“I got a job here as student worker down in plant biology with an IT guy,” he said. “He pretty much taught me everything I know about this job.”
Before graduating with his bachelor’s degree in computer science, Ingram was offered a full-time position as an IT professional. He eventually finished his degree under the University System of Georgia’s tuition assistance program.
“I’m in charge of everything technology for the school,” he said.
Along with his colleague, Josh Fonseca, Ingram spends his days doing a little bit of everything. He maintains the school’s website, manages the internet, goes over the budget and much more. But, he prefers the human interactions more than anything else.
“My favorite part of my job is probably the people here,” Ingram said. “Everybody will always say it’s the community, and everybody’s really close.”
Since the Odom School of Ecology does not have a ticket system, he said that people are comfortable knocking on his door and asking him for help. Ingram manages the back end of all the faculty pages and security for the entire school.
Yet, his biggest project happened the first week he was promoted. Ingram said that when he first started his position as IT director, the school hosted all their servers in the same building, but he moved all of the websites to a virtual host with Enterprise Information Technology Services.
“I would love to finish my career here and just leave a good mark,” Ingram said.
He is proud to be part of the first standalone school for ecology in the world, and he is eager to see the school continue to develop its programs.
“I would definitely like to see the school grow,” Ingram said. “We are growing our undergraduate and graduate enrollment every semester. The ultimate goal would be a new building for us.”
When he is not fixing everybody’s computer problems, Ingram is running around to baseball or gymnastics with his children.
“Being a dad is awesome. My free time is 100% dedicated them,” Ingram said. “It’s definitely an adventure, and I love it so far.”
He said that his hobbies include playing ball with his boys, learning cartwheels with his daughter and enjoying the occasional fishing trip. None of it would have been possible without the Bulldogs.
“I’m just in debt because UGA has been so great to me,” he said. “I’m happy to work in a place like this and have the opportunity at such a young age.”
Ingram said he is thankful to his predecessor, Brian Perkins, for teaching him everything he knows, and to Mark Hunter, dean of ecology, for his leadership and support. With them, he said, IT is always there to support whatever endeavor people need.
“I want people to know that we’re here to help,” Ingram said. “And we are very grateful for everyone’s support and gratitude.”