Ashland, Inc.

Zach Jacobs (left) is a current EE major from Union, KY.  He graduated from Larry A. Ryle High School.   Zach worked as a co-op in Network engineering at Ashland Inc.

Hunter Rogers (middle), CS major, from Grayson, KY, graduated May '06.  Last we heard, he is working for IED (Innovative Electronic Desings), a company that creates state-of-the-art, commercial audio management systems.

Wes Marcum (right), CS major, from Lexington, KY, graduated from Paul Lawrence Dunbar H.S.  He obtained CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) certification while on co-op rotations.  Wes graduated May '06 and is now with Gaylord Engineering.

Ashland Inc., ITEO Systems Management Co-op Report by Jennifer Danhauer (Double major in CS and EE) (ITEO means Information Technology Enterprise Operations)

Jennifer graduated from Owensboro Catholic High School in Owensboro, KY.

  Ashland Inc. is a very versatile fortune 500 company. It began primarily as an oil company, but over the years has diversified into many other directions. The company works with the production and development of chemicals for industrial and commercial use. Ashland is the name behind several household names like the Eagle One brand of car care products, Valvoline Instant Oil Change service centers, and the Valvoline racing team, among others. The Ashland Inc. Executive Office is in Covington , KY. Valvoline Headquarters is in the Lexington campus, located off Richmond Road on Blazer Pkwy. The Ashland Data Center, where I co-op, is also in this Lexington campus.

Summary (summer 2005)

During my first tour I mainly focused on acquainting myself with the environment of the company and learning the necessary languages and software needed. I began by working with the intranet site for my division, fixing small problems with the code, and researching Visual Basic and ASP.net which are the basis for the site. As the term progressed I was able to assist the other co-op students and some other co-workers with larger projects and was eventually given several to do on my own. I grew more familiar with database interaction and programming, as many of the functions of the site rely on various databases. In addition, I was selected as the primary back-up for one of my co-workers who manages the main applications Ashland uses for monitoring.

The Work

My first project was the automation of the creation of the weekend call list used by operations. The lists were previously compiled manually by the day shift manager in Lotus Notes, a very tedious process of finding the information, copying and pasting into the memo, and making any necessary edits. If a mistake was made, it usually resulted in the manager being required to start again from the beginning. To automate the process I wrote a script with Visual Basic to create the list with the appropriate input data from the different departments. The script was then translated to run in the NetIQ application once a week. I then rewrote the script in asp.net with visual basic script language to run from the website. The web interface allows the operators to access a copy of the list, make edits to the schedule, edit the members of their departmental group, and add and edit input for the creation of the schedules.

My fellow co-ops and I also worked together to build a weather monitoring tool specifically for one of Ashland 's employee rallies. This tool was requested so that conditions could be monitored at various locations, and their impact on satellite reception could be discerned. A co-worker was able to supply a function he had written that would pull the needed data from the National Weather Service websites, then display it in a table for all of the selected sites. We included links from the National Weather Service, and added functionality so that the list could be expanded to include other sites for future rallies.

In addition to development and troubleshooting, co-ops with the ITEO Systems Management department of Ashland assist in the administration of two main applications: Onesight and NetIQ. Both applications are used for monitoring purposes. Onesight is designed to monitor our production commerce website, to ensure that it is working correctly and also to monitor the traffic across the site. Onesight also uses voice monitors to test the automated telephone answering system in different parts of the world. I was made familiar with this application, and assisted with testing and upgrading our production systems to run with the newest releases of Onesight.

NetIQ is a very versatile application that allows the administrator to monitor the health and functionality of the hundreds of servers used by Ashland . This application allows scripts to be scheduled to run at different intervals to perform various maintenance, troubleshooting, monitoring, and functional jobs on the servers. It makes it infinitely easier to maintain and keep track of the hundreds of servers and their health without manually checking each one.

Teamwork and the Ashland Work Environment

The co-ops in my department work to maintain the intranet site for the department. The site is written mostly in Visual Basic and asp.net. Since I had no previous experience with either, my first task was to begin learning both. My fellow co-ops helped a lot as far as answering questions and pointing out things they thought might interest me or that I might need to know. We worked as a team to take care of problems and projects, dividing tasks among ourselves depending on capabilities.

Overall I enjoyed my first term with Ashland , and as I headed back to classes for fall '05, I was already looking forward my second work semester scheduled for spring '06 work session.

My third work session in Fall '06 was in the ECS ( Enterprise Computing Systems ) Systems Management department and was very different because I worked with a co-op partner, Bill Hudson. Bill is also a CS major at UK . Working closely with a partner on programming projects requires a good deal more organization and coordination. I learned that communication is essential, as without it, Bill and I would have ended up overwriting each other's work or else doing duplicate work.

I also learned that it is very beneficial to have a partner to discuss ideas for solutions and methods of implementation. Since Bill and I think differently we were often able to find easier solutions that the other had missed. Working efficiently as a team we were able to implement our major programming project within the short time span we were given.

The enhancements to the change system that we were assigned for this term required research into the new functionality available from upgrades made before this term by fellow co-ops - one being Hunter Rogers, UK. It also required a good understanding of the inner workings of the change system . ( When upgrades or enhancements are made in a company-wide computer environment, requests must be submitted to all users, everything has to be reviewed by committees, risks to users assed, and estimates of downtime must be made.) The changes involved adding a field to a request form as well as updating some of the rules for submission. While reading through the code, I updated the syntax of the code to help maintain the uniformity of style in the site, as well as proofread and edited all text for displays and e-mails. I was responsible for all testing after we implemented the changes, checking for bugs. This included testing out all of our new functions to make sure they worked correctly in the production environment and did not cause any unexpected side effects, and that we had not forgotten anything in the process of implementing the change.

This work term I was treated as an integral part of our group, and given responsibilities and privileges accordingly. There was not always someone coming behind me to check my work, allowing me full credit for both achievements and errors. This position allowed me to use and expand the skills I learned from my interpersonal communication class, which I highly recommend for others in this field as that is the kind of communication used most often. By taking the time to sit down and talk out problems and needs with users I was able to fulfill their needs quickly and correctly as I was not required to backtrack and rework solutions due to an incorrect assumption. Also, by working with people in different groups I have been able to expand my knowledge of other areas like SQL and networking.

This job constantly offers experience in web programming, as we are pretty constantly looking to upgrade and advance the site. We are encouraged to research and learn new techniques and methods that can be used to improve the site. For example, my partner and I are currently researching asp.net 2.0, and the feasibility of converting our current asp.net environment. This would be a very demanding but rewarding project for our 4 th work term.

Since, as an alternating co-op, I am here full-time during work semesters, meaningful working relationships with those around me result; I am treated like a permanent fixture in the company. It's very rewarding to see my work in use and to see it helping others to do their jobs in a better or easier way. I enjoy working each semester, stepping back from the rigors of college life for a time, and focusing on what is ahead for me in a career. I have extra energy and incentive to do my best in class, and I have a better idea of the kinds of classes to take as well as the areas of engineering and computer science I would like to explore further.