Harris comes to ICC and finds home

Brewer native John Wayne Harris, director of Projects and Energy Management Systems, came to Itawamba Community College as a freshman in the fall of 2006, and he never left.

            The son of Nannette and Joe Harris, he had just graduated from Shannon High School in the spring.

            During the first few days of his freshman year, he said he jumped feet first into running the sound for CenterStage for its fall concert and “turned around and did the same thing for the dinner theatre, all the while going to class and being a part of the All-American Marching Band.”

            And somehow he just knew he wanted to earn his degree and start his career at ICC.

            Through running the sound for CenterStage, he began working with Terry McCarthy, former technical events coordinator, on activities that were scheduled for the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center auditorium. That led him to being a student worker for (Coach) Carrie Ball-Williamson, athletic director. In that role, he attended all of the basketball games and activities at the newly-constructed Davis Event Center. He did set up and sound and light operation as well as helping Ball-Williamson with camps and other activities. “Coach Ball took a chance on me as a work-study, which eventually led me to applying for a job here at the college,” Harris said.

            The job for which he applied two years later after he had earned the associate’s degree in Electrical Technology was “Housekeeper/Sound Technician,” and it was available because there was no one to run sound or lights for the Davis Event Center. “I applied for the position due to knowing a lot of the people here and enjoying my time as a student worker,” Harris said. From housekeeping/sound technician, I knew something about computers and had  finished my electrical degree, so I started helping the electricians and HVAC techs while still doing setups around campus and in the Davis Event Center. Mr. Wayne Sullivan (former ICC vice president of development and planning) found I knew more about computers than I let on, so he sent me to several week-long classes to learn our HVAC automation system. Through those classes, I became a master operator and was the only one in the state for a while.”

            The next step in his career was serving as the energy manager for ICC although he still managed setups and helped in maintenance. When Sullivan retired, Harris was promoted to his current position.

His role as Director of Projects and Energy Management Systems has been crucial to the College during the COVID impact during the last year. “We went from working five days per week to gradually coming back to one day, two days and so forth. That caused lots of maintenance issues to be put off, and now we are playing catch up. I also helped with a lot of the ordering of the supplies, and trying to determine how much we would use was very challenging.”

            Harris said he’s learned a lot from COVID, too, because situations continue to be ever-changing. “Just take it day by day, because it will probably change,” Harris explained. “The way we cleaned and did business had to be a lot more fluid due to sometimes the daily and hourly changes, nonetheless, just becoming more flexible and understanding that no one wants to be conducting business this way, but we have to for safety.”

He said that his job involves management of all construction projects as well as energy consumption. He is also in charge of the college’s plumber, HVAC technicians and electricians, which on any given day could be a nightmare, but he just takes the challenges in stride. “Working with maintenance means that there is always something that needs to be fixed and sometimes not just in working hours (7 a.m.-4 p.m., weekdays),” Harris noted.

            Harris said that although managing construction projects is a lot of work, they are “a lot of fun. Being able to help move the college forward with a new building or renovation that helps the different departments of the college is very satisfying to me.” Two such projects include the Academic and Student Center at the Tupelo Campus, which opened in March 2020, and the new residence hall at the Fulton Campus, which is currently under construction. Harris also is responsible for the natural gas systems for the Tupelo and Fulton campuses as well as managing and tracking all life safety inspections for ICC. His extensive list of duties also includes managing all event setups for the college, everything from something as big as commencement to as small as making sure recruiters have a table set up in the David C. Cole Student Services Building.

            With all of his responsibilities, Harris said that there is “very rarely a typical work day due to the nature of maintaining about 45 buildings. Someone’s air is not going to be working. There is a leak somewhere. A breaker has tripped. All of these things I take very seriously as I feel like it is my job to keep students and employees as comfortable as possible within reason to help them be productive, but yet save energy in the process. It can be a balancing act sometimes.”

            His first duty every morning is to check all buildings on the computer to ensure that they are running and comfortable, then review work orders for jobs that are outstanding, especially those that require priority status. Then he makes assignments to the appropriate maintenance staff members. “Once I get everything settled on the maintenance side of things, I normally turn to the project side and see what needs to be done,” Harris continued. “Then I routinely have to update inspection records at least on a weekly basis. Being a part of projects, maintenance and setups, there is always a meeting about one of these and normally more than one, so there are lots of meetings to attend as well.”

            Although his office is located in the Physical Plant on the Fulton Campus, Harris travels regularly to both the Tupelo Campus and Belden Center to check on facilities.

            Harris has come a long way since he entered ICC’s doors in 2006. Along the way, he received the Employee of the Year for support staff award in 2015, one of the College’s most prestigious honors. 

Almost 15 years later, Harris credits his instructors for making a difference in his life and the decisions he has made along the way. “Karen Davis and Christy Colburn in CenterStage, Cy Williams in both speech and dinner theatre, all of the band directors and all of the academic instructors made my transition from high school to college very easy.”

In addition to a full workload, Harris is working toward the bachelor’s degree in Construction Management from Everglades University in Florida.

Although Harris has no other working experience beside ICC, he said that he has worked with some “great people who were willing to teach me, and I learned a lot from them.” The positives of his job? He said it’s the people with whom he works and encounters. “The people at ICC are one of a kind and always willing to help.” The negatives? “It can get overwhelming sometimes when it seems that every building is breaking at once.”

            To relax, he likes to cruise. “I absolutely love getting on a cruise ship, turning my phone off and not having a care in the world. I do enjoy working outside and working at my church,” which is Brewer Baptist, where he runs the sound and video every Sunday. He also helps to manage its social media and website.

            Harris has advice for those considering a similar occupation. “It is a great industry to apply yourself. There are so many directions to go in that if you get tired of one job, there is something completely different somewhere else in construction/maintenance.”

            And if he could be in any other occupation, what would it be? “I would be a sound technician on a cruise ship.”

            His ICC family hopes that won’t happen for many, many years.