Sometimes you might not even know Jim Westney is there. He is as quiet as a mouse, seated in a small room where the only other sound is the dull hum of the computers that surround him.
As volunteer webmaster for Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95, that’s just the way Westney likes it. “I like the quiet days to myself,” he said. “But I also like the mixture of working with people.”
Staring at a computer monitor, Westney, 58, showed off several pages of the district’s Web site (www.lz95.lake.k12.il.us).
Like many sites, it started with just one page and has evolved, he said, “kind of like a person. It just keeps growing and developing. It has gone through many design changes.”
The site was born November 1997, and it began with bare-bones information such as the names and addresses of the district’s schools–five elementary, two middle and one high. Today the information includes monthly curriculum and events, the district’s technology plan, employment opportunities and a look at the 1999-2000 school calendar.
Westney, a Lake Zurich resident, began working for the district as a technology volunteer in October 1997. At first he just helped teachers and administrators with their computer questions, but soon after, he began building the site.
“There was a void, and I was there,” he said. “I just kind of stepped in.”
Although he didn’t know anything about building a Web site, “I read manuals and how-to books, things like that.”
As the district’s webmaster, he maintains the district’s site. He also is the webmaster of Whitney Elementary School’s site. His wife, Ginny, is a special-education teacher there.
“May Whitney needed to have a site, and there wasn’t anyone there who was ready to do it,” he explained, adding that a principal or teacher must volunteer to do the Web site in his or her spare time.
The schools’ webmasters are in constant communication with Westney, said Crystal Steker, the district’s director of technology.
“He coaches teachers one-on-one who are having problems,” she said.
“There are a number of teachers within a school who are doing their own pages for their school’s Web site, so I teach authoring and publishing to them,” Westney said.
One of the best things Westney has done, Steker said, is that he “designed a process by where other teachers can hook into the framework that he has made.”
This framework helps other schools develop their sites.
As for the district’s site, Steker said Westney “has taken an average Web site and really turned it into something that is not only designed well, but provides a lot of useful information.”
One spring afternoon, Westney stopped by Adams Elementary School to visit Principal Lynn McDowell.
McDowell was having a problem with her graphics, particularly the image of a bulldog that had multiplied itself across the page.
“My page was perfect,” she said. “I checked on it Friday night, and now all of my graphics are broken.”
Westney took a seat at the computer and put his trouble-shooting skills to the test.
“I’m trying to determine if the graphics are damaged or OK,” he said. “If they’re OK, we’ll just republish them. If not, we have a different problem.”
A few clicks of the mouse and five minutes later, Westney concluded that the graphics were OK.
He republished the pages, and the site was working again in 15 minutes.
Westney works Tuesdays and Thursdays year-round from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. His time is spent making changes and updates to the district and Whitney School sites, and talking to and visiting teachers and administrators to help them solve their problems. He spends an additional eight hours a week doing district work on his computer at home, either dealing with emergency postings or working on the two sites.
Because most teachers don’t know anything about building a Web site, he teaches them everything they need to know.
“It can be very simple or very complex, depending on the type of page that you’re building,” he said. “Some of it is just aptitude,” adding that previous exposure to computers helps a lot.
He also occasionally teaches computer classes in the afternoons and evenings for teachers and administrators. Recent classes were on Windows fundamentals and Macintosh fundamentals.
One benefit of having a school district Web site is being able to provide everyone in the community with a large amount of information. For example, Westney was able to alert people about a school closing due to bad weather.
“I had gotten e-mails asking if I was going to post the school closings and I did,” he said. “I did that from home as soon as I was made aware of it.”
Westney is fascinated by the evolution of computers. He recalled what they were like when he worked on them in 1968 as a programmer trainee for Allstate Insurance Co. in Northbrook–“huge.”
The personal computer he works on “would have taken up this whole room,” he said.
Then, computers ran on keypunch cards by reading the patterns on them. “You needed a whole stack of cards to hold a tiny bit of information,” he said. “There aren’t many of us who remember that.”
His area became part of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Co. and relocated to Riverwoods. He was director of information systems when he retired in August 1997.
Westney never planned on a career in technology. He received a bachelor of arts degree in 1963 from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., where he double-majored in biology and chemistry.
“I thought I would get into the medical field,” he said.
His first job was at G.D. Searle Pharmaceutical Co. in Skokie, where he was a lab technician. It was there that he got his first taste of computers.
“We used them to do statistical analysis of lab results,” he said. “I realized that I liked the computing better than the research.”
Another good came from his lab-technician job: He met the woman he would marry; she, too, was a lab technician.
“We were co-workers, and I guess we got along because we got married,” he said with a smile.
They married in 1965 and moved to Lake Zurich in 1970. They have a daughter, Kristine, and two granddaughters, 5 and 2 1/2.
When he retired, Westney said, it wasn’t difficult for him to decide what to do with his free time.
“I knew what my outside life was–computers,” he said. “I have just continued on, and I’m still learning.”
In his spare time, he helps friends and acquaintances set up and use their computers. He even has his own business cards, reading ” ‘Puter Tutor– Personal Coaching and System Setup.”
No stranger to volunteering or to the community, Westney was a member of the Ela Area Public Library District Board for 12 years, serving as treasurer for two four-year terms and president for one four-year term. He also was on the Village of Lake Zurich Planning Commission for two years.
For the last year and a half, he has volunteered as an adult advocate for Omni Youth Services in Buffalo Grove. He serves as a role model to a young person with whom he was matched.
“We meet at least once a week,” he said. “We’ve gone bowling, gone out to dinner, did our income taxes together and worked on computers together.”
Westney finds his volunteer job as webmaster fulfilling and challenging, and he enjoys working with different people every day.
“It gives you a social outlet,” he said. “It keeps your mind working and it keeps you from becoming a vegetable.”
He plans to continue as long as his services are needed.
“I don’t see an end right now,” Westney said. “It probably will continue to evolve. Who knows what will happen? That’s part of the interest.”
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For more information on the Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95 Web site, call 847-540-7036. For more information on volunteering with the school district, call 847-438-2831.
