Glenn Culbertson walks in and removes his hat, fixes his hair, then makes sure his clothes are straight and that he looks professional.

Sitting down on a chair in front of the Samsung camera with a smile he says, “Let’s get this over with.”

Standing at the opposite wall, Sue Aschim, supervisor of graphics and mail services, loads up the Polaroid card maker program and points the camera. A small beep sounds, indicating the picture has been taken; one minute and ten seconds later, a red plastic card comes out of the printer.

The card contains Culbertson’s picture and name on it, along with the Mt. Hood Community College logo and a blue strip at the bottom stating “Employee.”

For the first time, MHCC will be receiving photo IDs. Mark Runyan, public safety and insurance risk manager, suggested the idea for safety reasons and other possibilities. Leading the project is Chief Operating Officer Gary Murph, Aschim and confidential executive assistant Staci Huffaker.

The photo ID project took about a year to be implemented. The school had to secure funding for the project and search for the right vendor to buy the equipment from.

Husor was chosen to supply us with the proper equipment (printer, camera, lighting system, cards and supplies) to make the photo ID cards. There are two systems used in the production of these cards, one is located here on campus and the other is located at Maywood. The goal for Maywood is to begin installation on Tuesday.

The process of making the card is simple, and takes two to three minutes. Student and faculty information is kept in a data bank organized by the administrative computing system. Aschim or Huffaker asks for the person’s date of birth then pulls up their information from the data banks. Printed along the back is their full legal name and a barcode number containing their MHCC account number.

The picture is taken, and the card begins to print. The feature of the card that distinguishes a faculty member from a student is the strip at the bottom. Faculty members are blue and students are yellow.

The photo IDs will serve as a security tool, identifying the employees and students of the college. “[It] shows a sense of belonging to the college,” Huffaker said.

As well as being a safety precaution, it will also serve as a customer service tool. When students see a faculty member, they will know their name and that they are there to help.
The uses are modeled after Chemeketa Community College’s cards. For example, the barcode on the back is used as a library code number.

Also, the cards can be used to access the computer lab and security doors. It might take up to 10 years to fully implement all the possibilities of the cards.

Students will not get photo ID cards until fall term of 2006 because there are thousands of students enrolled and not enough equipment.

“In order to do students, we have to do thousands of students in a short time, and we’re not ready for that,” Aschim said.

Right now, the main focus is getting the entire faculty’s cards done.

This process is considered as practice for the future when dealing with getting student photo IDs printed.