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Synergent’s mission is to ‘help credit unions succeed and improve the financial lives of their members.’ In our monthly Employee Spotlight series, we feature one of our dedicated staff members to help you get to know the people who are working as an extension of your credit union team.
Felix Ortiz
Felix Ortiz, Senior Desktop Support Specialist for Synergent’s Information System’s department, will celebrate three years of service with the organization in April. Ortiz is crucial to helping provide technology offerings and support for Synergent employees—ensuring that all staff can meet credit union needs to the best of their ability.
“In a typical day in my role as the Senior Desktop Support Specialist, I am responsible for the maintenance and administration of the End User Computing (EUC) software suite,” explained Ortiz. “I’m responsible for quote preparation and the purchasing of hardware/software as directed by my Assistant Vice President in Corporate Information Systems (CIS). My position provides advanced support for staff, client-facing services, and key web applications as they relate to EUC. My role requires a limited amount of after-hours support in the event of emergencies, and I also work alongside two other Desktop Support Specialists to solve everyday Help Desk requests.”
This job is a perfect fit for Ortiz, providing him “the perfect balance” between administering backend systems to ensure the internal virtual desktop environment is functioning for all staff, and being present in the office to perform forward-facing Help Desk request tasks for staff. This balance of being behind the scenes and working closely with Synergent staff is Ortiz’s favorite aspect of his role.
“My role pretty much stays consistent as far as the kinds of main responsibilities go, but it does continue to grow in terms of the number of responsibilities I’ve taken on as I’ve become more familiar with Synergent’s internal virtual desktop server that supports the work done by all of our employees,” shared Ortiz of his day-to-day. “As different needs arise, I have begun to learn more in-depth how the backend infrastructure connects all the pieces to make the virtual desktop work.”
From IT Consultant to Synergent’s CIS Team
Ortiz began his Information Technology (IT) career about ten years ago with a small insurance company before starting consultant work on printers and huge migrations for companies like Wells Fargo, AIG, and Anthem. He also did cable management for servers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Most recently, before coming to Synergent, I had a role at IBM as a Computer Analyst,” said Ortiz. “I finally wanted to get out of the big corporate world and into more of a private, small (in comparison), and more employee-focused and driven organization, which brought me to Synergent.”
The close-knit culture attracted Ortiz, and it’s a big reason he decided to remain with the company.
“My team has literally been incredible to have a good relationship with, as if we have known each other for many, many years,” expressed Ortiz. “My manager is hands down the best I’ve come across in all of my career paths and is a huge part of me staying on the CIS team.”
The work done by the CIS team at Synergent is incredibly important for enabling all other departments and teams—as well as the credit unions they serve daily—to succeed. If not for CIS’s efforts, Synergent staff working directly with credit unions would not have the tools needed to do their jobs efficiently and effectively.
“My team and I keep the virtual desktop environment up and running for the Synergent team, which is vital for our staff to do their testing to simulate the credit union environment and have software applications working properly once deployed to the credit unions,” detailed Ortiz. “It also keeps the cases that come in from the credit unions moving forward, as well as properly configuring software to keep checks processing.”
The environment is complex, and Ortiz must keep an eye on it to maintain functionality and practicality. Last year, his work with the virtual desktops led to quite the accomplishment!
“A project I am very proud of was being able to build out an entirely new and updated parent image last year for our virtual environment and fix a major pain point: reconfiguring our folder redirection for our user profiles,” said Ortiz. “This helped improve the environment, keeping it more secure and updated, and offering a more stable user experience.”
Exemplary Customer Service and Company Culture at Synergent
A highlight for Ortiz in his time with Synergent would be the recognition he receives for possessing excellent customer service skills, earning him many accolades from other staff and the management team—who have stated how positively it reflects on the CIS department.
“I’ve learned you don’t need to know everything here at Synergent; there are always coworkers willing to share their experiences, to help you gain a ton more knowledge and on-the-job training, and to help you advance as your career grows with the company,” described Ortiz. “This is huge because not every company allows you to grow into other departments within the company, but here at Synergent they have not kept me siloed one bit.”
Beyond his personal positive experience at Synergent, he also has a deep appreciation for the dedication Synergent has to bettering and caring for our employees, our credit unions, and our community.
“I continue to stay impressed with how much Synergent takes care of their employees compared to much larger corporations I’ve worked for, as well as all the donations and events they put on for our communities and credit unions,” reflected Ortiz. “This keeps me grateful to be part of the Maine Credit Union League/Synergent community and I will continue to give it my all.”
Outside of work, Ortiz relaxes by visiting different science museums, snowboarding, and fishing and/or kayaking.
“I’ve experienced these joyful moments with my wife, but we now have a little one we brought into this world who is now part of every moment, which is most important,” Ortiz expressed.
