Meet Lindsay Parsons. Lindsay has been with UTOPIA a little over a year and is one of our Network Operations Center (NOC) Technicians. She started here as an intern in the summer of 2014 and was hired after a position opened up. Her first impression with UTOPIA was one she didn’t quite expect. Growing up she had a different idea in her head of what a NOC generally looks like. She explains, “you know how in the first Mission: Impossible movie Tom Cruise has to sneak in and retrieve the ‘NOC List’ from the embassy in Prague? Let’s just say I grew up severely misunderstanding what that movie meant by ‘NOC’.”

As a NOC Technician, Lindsay is expected to keep a tab on the ‘pulse’ of UTOPIA’s network and make sure things are running smoothly. Describing her position, she explains, “we do hundreds of tasks everyday to make sure customers new and old stay online. Most days, it’s kind of like spinning a lot of plates or herding cats.” Lindsay definitely has to wear many hats in this position and she sure wears them well.

Working at UTOPIA can be challenging at times. Most parts of Lindsay’s job require attention to detail and concentration, but it’s also expected that she drop whatever she’s doing to do more urgent tasks. “It can be kind of jarring,” she explains. “Switching from one task to another to another to another, then back to the first task.”

Although things can get stressful at times, Lindsay loves working here and believes in UTOPIA through and through. “I believe people should have affordable accessibility to a service that has become entrenched in our modern lives. I’m here because UTOPIA’s network allows local ISPs to offer customers lower prices, higher speeds and ultimately gives the customer agency when accessing the Internet.”

When asked what she wished other people knew about UTOPIA, Lindsay responds, “we want to move high-speed fiber in your area! We don’t often know there’s a big demand for our product unless we hear about it.”

When Lindsay isn’t helping to keep the NOC running smoothly, she keeps herself busy. Something most people don’t know about Lindsay is that she likes to make tiny cross-stitch projects, set them in tiny frames and hide them throughout downtown Salt Lake. There will usually be a new one every week so go ahead and keep it if you find one! She once also bribed a librarian into buying their Nicholas Cage poster, which you can see in her photo. It’s not a collectible item and she spent way too much money on it, but was totally worth it!

Lindsay makes us laugh and keeps us on our toes here at UTOPIA and we’re extremely grateful to have her around.