OneNet’s Network Engineer
Keep the spice flowing, keep the people happy.
That’s Sky Pettett’s unofficial job description. Officially, Sky is a network support engineer—it’s his duty to keep the broadband plentiful and connection steady.
Sky is the newest addition to the Network Operation Center (NOC) team, which is directly responsible for providing reliable Internet to clients.
“I was fresh out of grad school last summer when I interviewed for the job,” Sky said. “Surprisingly enough, they didn’t hate me so I got the job, and here I am today.”
Despite his baby brother status, Sky’s settled into life in the NOC.
“The biggest adjustment was getting used to the lingo; there are so many TLAs,” Sky said. “Oh yeah, TLA stands for three letter acronym; we have an acronym for acronyms.”
There’s a lot more to working as a network support engineer than just ruining the elegance of the English language.
On a normal day, Sky can be found taking phone calls from customers, upgrading circuits and consuming near-lethal amounts of Mountain Dew.
But Sky’s favorite part of the job is inventing new ways to improve the network with the rest of the NOC crew.
“I like the problem-solving part of the job,” Sky said. “When you fix the issue, the clients look at you like an all-powerful king of the Internet.”
Unfortunately, the outside world isn’t always as cushy.
“One time when another engineer and I were traveling back from a client visit, we had to pull to the side of the road to do some work.” Sky said. “This guy from across the street came out of his house with a gun.”
Luckily, the man was just naturally suspicious of strangers outside his home and didn’t mean them any harm.
Sky has become a valuable member of the OneNet team through his diligence, expertise and sarcasm.
Like many others at OneNet, his work is directly bettering lives and advancing technology across Oklahoma.
~Story and photos by Micah Parnell, Outreach Intern Fall 2014
Yeah….that’s my son. You are fortunate to have such a wonderful, smart young man working with you. Thank you Michah Parnell for the article. It made my day to read this article. I love his quote on the last picture!
Sky is my grandson! He’s always been a bright boy/man with a great imagination and unique style(i.e. the sneakers).
Thanks for the article. I certainly enjoyed it. I can use it as a bragging tool when I talk about him to the other grandmothers in my group!
Reba Baker
Thank you Stephanie and Reba for your kind words. Your son and grandson has become a valuable member of the OneNet team!
This is such good news ans I am so proud of Sky. I never had any doubts whether or not he could handle the technical part of the job. In fact, I had no doubts about anything facing him! And, U am very, very glad to see the Pettet family starting out on such happy notes. Thank you, Robert Nordmark, for sharing Sky’s good fortune with me. [I also have many good things to say about Robert, but I’ll save those for another time!]
Mike Morris – former adviser and current friend to the great guys mentioned above!
Thanks Mike! We’re fortunate to have both Sky and Robert overseeing our network services. We agree they do a great job!
So proud of my nephew Sky!!!
Gail, thanks for the note. We are proud of him too!