In-Depth

EWA Services: Outstanding in Its Field

Like your job? Here's your chance to compare your company with eight of the best—at least in how they treat their Microsoft Certified Professionals.

• By Michael Domingo
• September 01, 2000

While some companies cope daily to battle employee complacency, EWA Services doesn’t have to try hard to keep its employees interested in work. EWA’s employees and training program are field-tested in the literal sense.

EWA, short for Electronic Warfare Associates, is a training and consulting firm with 25 trainers who hold a host of certifications: MCSE, Cisco, Dell, and Lotus Notes and Domino among them. EWA’s trainers do onsite training and consulting for a variety of clients across the U.S., but home for the company is Killeen, Texas, which is next to Fort Hood, the largest military base in the continental U.S.

EWA offers its employees the typical laundry list of benefits and incentives: paid time and costs for certifying, bonuses and public recognition among peers for achieving certifications, access to high-tech equipment, time off for conferences, full health and dental insurance, three weeks of vacation time per year, and a TechNet subscription.

EWA seems typical of most small businesses, so what sets it apart from other companies? According to Jennifer Morgan, one of EWA’s Microsoft Certified Trainers, it’s “the variety of projects that we work on.” Because of the company’s close proximity to Fort Hood, for example, one project involves helping the U.S. Army set up, test, and run its information systems during combat maneuvers.

“When the Army goes to the field,” says Morgan, “so does its network.” She’s been called on a few projects to help set up a bank of NT servers with 10 to 20 domains, running Exchange email and several secure Web sites that are able to provide accurate, real-time information during training exercises in the field. “We work side by side with the soldiers 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the exercises.” The long hours might seem brutal and not a great aspect of any job, but in this case, Morgan finds it fulfilling to be in the field with soldiers who are keeping the systems humming, and to ensure that delicate pieces of machinery can face up to the demands of combat.

As for migrating to Win2K, Morgan says that the Army is looking into it, but “implementing Active Directory has yet to be approved.” Because EWA is a training provider, its MCTs have already been trained on Win2K and have conducted some training for paying students. In case the Army asks, EWA can say that it’s prepared to help the Army make the transition.

Morgan herself was field-tested with plenty of on-the-job experience. She was hired as an automation specialist three years ago, helping to train employees on software usage, phones, and office administration. She proved to be sharp and, with several months of training, earned her MCP, then eventually her MCSE and MCT. “It’s been an interesting three years,” she concludes.