EDCOE Team Member Spotlight - David Seabury

12:15 PM - August 16, 2021

Briefly describe your background (where you grew up, family, why you came to work for EDCOE).

I grew up in El Dorado County, specifically in Georgetown, on 11 acres with a great view of the foothills. My two older brothers and I went to school at Black Oak Mine USD which is where I also started my career in Information Technology support. After graduating I had an opportunity to attend a summer internship for the EDCOE IT department which provided a great introduction to IT support in education. Shortly after that I was hired at Black Oak Mine USD as their District Computer Technician where I worked for 3 years and then transitioned to Rescue USD where I worked for 6 years as a Technology Support Specialist. I came to work at EDCOE in 2010 when a Systems Administrator position opened up in the IT department. I saw it as a great professional growth opportunity as well as a chance to support all of the school districts and programs in our county. Since that time, I have worked in the roles of Network/Systems Administrator, Assistant Director, and now Director of IT. My amazing wife and I are raising three kids of our own with one more expected to arrive in September!

What is your department, title, and how long have you worked for EDCOE?

I am the Director of Information Technology, and I work in building A of our EDCOE Green Valley campus. I have worked at EDCOE for 11 years and have worked in public education for over 19 years.

Describe how your role helps support programs/schools/students directly or indirectly.

Our IT department provides a multitude of services for all of our EDCOE departments and student programs. These services include Helpdesk & Systems Support, Network & Systems Administration, Database Administration, Programming, Web Development, and IT Professional Development. We also provide support and services to our school districts which include Wide Area Network Support by providing internet connectivity for most districts in our county, Local Area Network and Wireless engineering and support, Firewall and Cybersecurity Services, Systems Support, Database and Application Hosting, and E-Rate assistance. It’s my responsibility to provide support to our IT team of 13 outstanding hard-working individuals and to also make sure that our department is providing the best solutions and customer service to EDCOE staff and students as well as the school districts in our county.

What are you and your team doing to support education during COVID-19?

I have never seen a time when IT has been needed as much as we have been during this COVID-19 pandemic, and our entire IT team stepped up to the challenge. During the early months of the pandemic, we quickly gathered and distributed as many laptops, Chromebooks, hotspots, monitors, and webcams as we could to send out to staff and students. We also teamed up with our wonderful Transportation department to develop a mobile wireless hotspot solution to drive out and provide internet access to families in areas of need in our county. In coordination with our districts, we deployed the “EDC-STUDENT” WiFi network that is broadcasted at every school and library in El Dorado County giving students and parents parking lot access to the internet when not available at home. Our team worked around the clock to procure, configure, and deploy hundreds of hotspots to staff and students. Our team helped most of our districts to setup content filtering on student used hotspots and devices to prevent students from accessing inappropriate content from home during distance learning.

New applications were implemented like the Catapult COVID-19 Daily Self-Screening system, Adobe Sign for electronic signatures, and expanding the use of existing communication applications such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. During this past school year, our team has deployed hundreds of new Chromebooks for students and laptops for staff; installed “conference room” cameras in our Charter and ROP classrooms used for Zoom and asynchronous learning; implemented interactive displays for our Charter and Special Services classrooms; installed touchless QR code sign in/out systems at the Green Valley campus, and increased internet bandwidth speeds for a few of our districts. Our team even updated our county scholarship website, https://scholarships.edcoe.org to make it easier for students to submit applications for scholarships from their mobile devices and help reduce the needs for physical paperwork.

What do you most appreciate about your department/team?

I’m proud to work alongside such a dedicated hard-working team. Even during challenging times, they know how to have fun, and everyone is willing to jump up and help anyone in need.

What is your proudest moment at EDCOE? Why?

Something really special about working at EDCOE is that we get a unique opportunity to experience lots of proud moments. My proudest moment was when we completed the multiyear long project to deliver grant funded fiber internet connections to all of the schools in Black Oak Mine USD. Being so rural, these were areas where no ISP was willing to provide high speed internet on their own due to the geography and population count. When we completed the work through the Broadband Infrastructure Improvement Grant, the district went from having less bandwidth than most people have on their smartphones to having the fastest internet connection in the county. It felt amazing to be a part of that work to provide a service to a school district that was being forced to hold back on modern innovative teaching simply because they didn’t have the internet bandwidth to support it.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I typically enjoy going to the movies, visiting new places, working on my car, and completing home improvement projects, but now being a Dad of three young kids, they are now my biggest focus of my spare time. We like to play at parks, go swimming, boating, bike riding, hiking, playing Legos, and playing video games, etc.

What is something many people may not know about you?

Being a product of the 80’s, I often look back at that time with fond childhood memories. So much so that I ended up becoming an owner of a 1981 DeLorean and am a member of the NorCal DeLorean Motor Club. Yes, my car does have a flux capacitor. I enjoy attending club meetups, tech days, and car shows especially if they are fundraisers for a good cause. I have even had the opportunity to take my car to a few 80’s themed school PTO fundraisers as well. I would like to drive it more often, but it only gets driven from time to time.

If you could meet anyone in the world, living or deceased, who would it be and why?

Many biblical figures come to mind but as I think about someone in more recent times, my thoughts lean towards Walt Disney since I have a fascination with theme parks, especially Disneyland. I have a quote on the wall in my office that states, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing – Walt Disney” which is a great reminder for us to help prevent paralysis by analysis when working on goals or projects.

From supervisor, Wendy Frederickson, Associate Superintendent, Administrative Services:

David exemplifies our values of service and relationships. He truly cares that all team members are supported with technology and works diligently to ensure all issues are resolved thoroughly and timely. He always has students and families as a priority, and he seeks to find better ways to support students and staff through technology. A great example of this is the creation of the WOW vans. IT is a foundational support department. David takes a tremendous amount of pride in everything he and his department does. We all – EDCOE, districts, and families – rely on the technology to work. We rely on David and his team to make sure it works!!!!

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