120: Trying to Figure Out How to Control That Chaos with Dustin Myers

Dustin Myers—Manager of Technology Support at John A. Logan College and HETMA’s two-year at-large board member—joins Ryan to talk about running lean teams that still deliver big results. He breaks down how a 10–11 person IT org moved from rigid silos to a customer-focused, cross-trained culture, and why communication is the real glue when you’re juggling desktop support, classrooms, theaters, events, construction, and the help desk. Dustin shares how a leadership reset and a college-wide realignment opened the door to standardization, shared language across subteams, and the freedom to “let it fail forward” without losing trust. 

They also dig into the road ahead: cloud-first AV (fewer boxes, more SaaS), AI beyond today’s ML-lite features, and fully immersive learning—from nursing sims to criminal-justice scenario rooms—that adapts in real time to student behavior. The throughline is practical: test small, iterate fast, borrow what works from peers, and publish the lessons back to the community so the next campus can move quicker than the last. 

Topics Discussed

1. Wearing all the hats: desktop/classroom/event/theater/help-desk under one roof. 
2. Cross-training + shared vocabulary to break down silos. 
3. From “not my job” to customer-focused operations after a reorg. 
4. “Let it fail forward” vs. fear of failure in higher ed IT. 
5. Managing chaos: standards, SLAs, and incremental rollouts. 
6. Learning from peers to accelerate standardization (and avoid dead ends). 
7. Cloud and SaaS as the AV future (and what it breaks/what it unlocks). 
8. AI beyond “auto-frame”: adaptive, body-language-aware simulations. 
9. Community college advantage: speed, access, and “punching above weight.” 
10. Construction meetings, validation by example, and stakeholder buy-in. 

Connect with Dustin:
Email – [e-mail]
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustin-myers-cts-anp-172375104/
HETMA Community – https://community.hetma.org/

Connect with Ryan
Twitter (X) – @Ryan_A_Gray
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanagray/
Email – [e-mail]

Voiceover – Chris Dechter

This show is a production of Higher Ed AV Media, please visit www.higheredav.com to learn more about this show and a host of other great content.