Anthony Soto, Assistant Manager Data Center, IT Service Delivery

Putting Staff and Customers First

Now in his 14th year at VNSNY, Anthony Soto is the definition of a team player. “Anthony works long hours and always volunteers for projects and tasks that involve late nights and travel to the data centers,” notes one of his ESPRIT nominating letters. “He does this because he understands that this work needs to be done for our patients, members, and clients.” Anthony himself gives all the credit for work successfully accomplished to the following Teams: IS Operations, IS Production, Enterprise Service Group – Intel, and IT Telecom Group. “They manage the company’s mainframe, servers, and network, and basically keep all systems running 24/7,” says Anthony.“Most of my nine staff members have worked for VNSNY for 20 to 30 years. We work fantastically as a team, looking out for each other. Along the way we’ve become friends, which makes VNSNY a very nice place to work.”

Anthony notes that the biggest IT initiatives go on behind the scenes, and that success often means other staff members don’t notice what’s been done. For example, during October, Anthony and his staff supported the move of some 1,500 staff from 1250 Broadway to the new 220 East 42nd Street office. “Once the network was up, we brought up the servers,” he recalls. The staff got to the new location, the computers were there, and it was just a matter of plug and play—there was little downtime or interruption of service to internal users or to our customers.”

Anthony adds that he owes a lot to his supervisor, VNSNY IT Infrastructure Manager Larry Byrnes. “When my previous manager left, Larry gave me new responsibilities that I was able to learn and succeed at. I really appreciate the confidence he had in me—and still has to this day—encouraging me to stretch myself. As technology and environments change, it fulfills me to know that I’m still learning, and applying what I know to make life easier for our clinicians. Everything my team and I do is ultimately for them.”