Monroe County once again has its own in-house Information Technology (IT) department with the recent hiring of experienced IT professionals Boyd Elrod, Tracy Stille, and Dion Hughes.
Boyd Elrod, a Macon native and current Monroe County resident, is not a newcomer to the county’s IT responsibilities. His Macon-based private IT business, Inspirus Consulting Group, LLP, has been overseeing the county’s web network for several years on a part-time basis since he was first approached by then-Monroe County IT director Andra Howard in 2021 for assistance with converting the county’s software to Microsoft Office 365.
With Monroe County once again in need of IT services upon Howard’s exit in 2021, Boyd took on additional responsibilities in maintaining the county’s computer network, and those responsibilities only continued to grow over the next two years. In late 2023, Monroe County Manager Jim Hedges offered Boyd the opportunity to come on board full time as the county’s IT Network Administrator, moving the county’s IT department fully in-house for the first time since Howard left more than two years ago. Assisting Boyd in Monroe County as an IT Technician is Tracy Stille, a Macon native who joined Inspirus after retiring in late 2022 from a long 36-year career (29 in IT) at Geico. Then, in February 2024, another experienced IT technician, Dion Hughes, was hired to further bolster the county’s IT department. Dion, a longtime Milner resident, came to Monroe County after working for the past 24 years in IT at Morrow’s Allan Vigil Ford car dealership.
On Jan. 2, Boyd and Tracy moved into their new county office on the second floor of the County Administration Building. For Boyd, it’s a short commute from his home off Hwy. 41 South, but Tracy is getting used to a bit longer commute from his Twiggs County residence. Boyd said Inspirus mostly operated out of his home because IT professionals are constantly on the go, servicing clients.
“When you’re doing what’s called ‘fix/break IT work,’ it’s largely unscheduled,” Boyd said. “You work out of your car. So I had additional parts at the house and practically everything I could need for a job in my car at all times. Running and gunning, we call it.”
Just because Boyd and Tracy have a physical office now, it doesn’t mean they will be working a traditional 9-to-5 job. For example, they will be handling IT issues for public safety officers who have all-night shifts, and therefore, all-night computer needs. They also can’t run network updates while servers are being used during regular business hours.
Tracy said of the non-traditional work schedule: “You’re used to being called. In the IT world, that’s just something you get used to. It’s just part of it.”
Boyd said it’s a particular pleasure to be able to assist Monroe County’s public safety professionals with their technology needs. He noted they are at the front line whenever any citizens have emergencies, and he is thankful for their service.
Boyd said there will be no shortage of things to do in their first few months on the job. He said there are firewalls that need to be deployed, inoperable fax lines that need to be restored, and service contracts that need to be reviewed for effectiveness and cost. He’s already made a list on his office whiteboard with six or seven items that he has deemed to be “urgent” over the next few months.
From a longer-term perspective, Boyd said he wants the IT department to be a good steward of any and all of its resources, including increasing the amount of grant applications it submits. He also wants Monroe County to beef up its cybersecurity.
“With the advent of AI (artificial intelligence) and just the sheer processing power that’s out there, attacks are going to get far more sophisticated and far more frequent,” Boyd said. “That’s a cat-and-mouse game that will never change. It’s just that the bad guys get better tools every day, so the good guys have to stay yet one more step ahead.”
Not everything in the county’s web network needs an overhaul though. Boyd said the county’s move to Office 365 has been a success and its Cloud-based e-mail is working well. He said he’s heard complaints about the county’s phone system but thinks most of those can be solved with additional user training.
Boyd said, “Infrastructure-wise, everything is pretty stable.”
What hasn’t been stable is the continuity within the IT department as the department has primarily been outsourced to private IT providers for at least a decade. Boyd said having daily IT oversight and a long-term vision will be a huge boost to the county.
“One of the most appealing things to me about this position is that I get to own this network and manage it,” Boyd said. “One of the problems that Monroe County has had with IT is no ownership of problems and ownership of large projects. . . That’s an exciting prospect to me.”
One way Boyd and Tracy have already significantly boosted the county’s IT services is by going through a nearly half-year-long process of inventorying and labeling every IT asset in the county, including all computers used by county employees. Eventually, they want to move to a more sophisticated bar-coding system to track inventory.
Boyd said IT work is a lifelong passion that began when he got his first computer at the age of 13. He graduated from Mount de Sales Academy at the age of 16 and went almost directly into the working world.
“I’ve been fortunate to be able to parlay a hobby into a career, and things have fallen into place so that I could pursue it,” Boyd said. “Professionally, I’ve been in IT for well over 20 years now in some capacity or another.”
Boyd said he doesn’t have a professional IT degree but said his work experience has more than made up for that.
“I had a potential client tell me one time, he said, ‘Where are all your certifications?’ And I said, ‘I’m too busy doing the job to get a piece of paper that says I know how to do the job.’” Boyd recalled. “A lot of corporate employers place a lot of value on that. But then you have what we call ‘cert chasers.’ They go out, they do a lot of time schooling, but they don’t have any practical experience. They have very little value. Unless you’re just padding your resume, I put more value, and I tell my applicants this, I put more value on real world experience. I can train aptitude all day, but I can’t train attitude. And if you have someone with a good attitude and an open mind that is willing to work, then the skills will come.”
While working at Geico in 1996, Boyd met his now-wife Velvet, who is actually Tracy’s sister. Boyd and Velvet Elrod married in 1997, and Boyd and Tracy have been brothers-in-law for nearly 27 years. Tracy also got married in 1997 to wife Melissa. The Stilles have an 18-year-old son, Floyd, who graduated from high school last May. In their down time, Boyd said his biggest hobby is operating high-tech remote-control cars and drones while Tracy prefers working on his pair of classic vehicles, a 1971 Chevrolet Cheyenne his father bought brand new and a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
Boyd and Velvet Elrod have lived in Monroe County for nearly two decades. Boyd is not closely related to any of the other Elrods in Monroe County but noted there is an Elrod Street within the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Meanwhile, Dion is not a Middle Georgia native but was instead born and raised in Battle Creek, Michigan before his family moved to Georgia when he was 13 years old. Dion lived in Riverdale and Stockbridge, respectively, before he and his wife of 26 years, Lisa, moved further south to Milner about 20 years ago. Dion and Lisa Hughes have two daughters, Haley, 23, and Makena, 18.
Dion worked two stints of a total of 27 years at Allan Vigil Ford, starting out washing cars and taking care of the lot before his boss asked him one day, “Hey, do you wanna do IT?” Dion laughed as he recalled that he didn’t even how to turn a computer on at the time, but he has gone on to a successful multi-decade career as an IT technician.
Dion’s daughter, Haley, lives in Forsyth with his three-year-old granddaughter, Journey, and his seven-month-old grandson, Ryland, so he said taking a new job in Monroe County was a natural fit.
“It’s just a good position, good benefits, closer to home,” Dion said. “I’ve got my daughter and grandson just a mile away. It’s just too good to pass up.”
Dion, whose first day of work was Feb. 19, said it helped that he immediately felt comfortable around Boyd and Tracy despite never having met them before.
Dion said, “When I came in for the interview, I was like, ‘These guys are good guys.’ I just knew right away that this is the place.”
Dion said his biggest hobby, besides spending time with his family, is watching college football and NASCAR. His favorite team, the Michigan Wolverines, recently captured its first consensus national championship in 75 years.
Boyd, Tracy, and Dion said they’re still getting to know their new county co-workers but said county employees shouldn’t expect any technology changes under their watch that they won’t be given the resources to handle.
“My goal is to work hand-in-hand with the employee,” Boyd said. “Technology is a tool. It’s no different than any other tool you use every day. And if we do our jobs right, most of the time you won’t know we’re here. It’s like the power company. You flip that light switch, it comes on, and you don’t think about linemen, coal plants, transmission lines, all that good stuff. And that’s my goal is to not have things be intrusive. And a little bit of user education in this organization would go a long way. People have gotten used to doing things a certain way because they had to. They had to find a workaround. If you don’t know how to use the telephone, you’ve got to find a way to use it, so you just use it the best way you know how. What we need is formal training and education. Some of the features, I don’t think we’re scratching the surface of what the phone will do, what the e-mail capabilities are, and there are some things on my almost full whiteboard in there that are my must-dos and my bells-and-whistles because I want this equipment and these systems to work for the staff.”
(Above pictured from left to right: Stille, Elrod, and Hughes)
