ICCU donates $450,000 of equipment to ISU tech students
POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - Idaho State University students got a big donation from Idaho Central Credit Union--one that will help them get jobs in the future.
ICCU gave $450,000 worth of information technology equipment to ISU's College of Technology and the Information Technology Systems program.
“Donations like this allow us to train students on state-of-the-art equipment that will prepare them to go to work on like equipment when they graduate," said Scott Rasmussen, dean of the ISU College of Technology.
John Baker, instructor in the ISU Information Technology Systems program, said the gift will be transformative for the program.
"I would say this is about 10 times what we had," Baker said. "We probably never would have been able to afford that."
ICCU used the donated equipment to run its system six months ago.
“With over 380,000 members and 1,300 employees we were dependent upon that equipment and it did a nice job for us," said Mark Willden, ICCU chief information officer. "We just had an opportunity to go to this brand-new data center and we wanted the latest technology.”
Rather than selling the equipment, the credit union thought students would benefit more.
The gift comes from ICCU's data centers and includes CISCO network equipment, switches, routers, and firewalls. It also includes a massive amount of network disk storage and Dell servers.
“We want to take ISU graduates and make them part of the Idaho Central family and use them for jobs in IT," Willden said.
Students will get hands on experience using technology that's already in the workforce.
"All of this equipment is much more current than the equipment that we're using right now," Baker said. "That means when the students are working on it, they're going to be working on what's being used in industry."
"They're going to be able to leave here and see the exact same equipment they've been working on in class," Baker said.
“This equipment will give ISU the ability to get hands-on experience with all of the latest technologies,” Willden said. “They will come out of school and be able to contribute to businesses like Idaho Central much quicker.”
