Part-time teacher to help with Vancouver Olympics
Steph Stough
-Art & Life Editor –
During the week, she can be found in the buildings of STLCC-Meramec, teaching Introduction to Advertising and Oral Communications–but what she does outside of school gives her opportunities to travel all over the world. Her name is Sheri Jenicek and she has been a part-time teacher at Meramec for two years.
Jenicek` also works for Aggreko, the world’s top provider of power generation and temperature control equipment. Aggreko is an official sponsor of the Olympics, providing all the lights and generators for the Games.
Jenicek returned from Vancouver, Canada on Jan. 18, where her and her colleagues of Aggreko helped set up the lighting for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Jenicek specifically helped with setting up for the opening event.
“My project side is working with the opening ceremony. Our job is to make sure the ceremony goes on without a hitch. The opening ceremony is such a big bang. It’s so electrical, so many lights and different aspects of power that go into it are already on the board and carefully planned out,” Jenicek said.
Since she has started working for the company four and a half years ago, Jenicek also traveled to all over the United States and around the world to places such as South Africa, Dubai and Beijing.
She said on these trips that there are a lot of aspects that need to be taken into consideration in each different event.
“[Once we get to the Olympic location, we go over] any last minute specifications, such as any conversions we may need to make that are different. We did a lot of hands on conversions. Vancouver has been an easy transition as opposed to Beijing,” she said. “The language barrier and the conversion barrier, all of these things come into effect when you are looking at the different Olympics.”
When Jenicek started with Aggreko as a filing clerk, she said was attentive to the people around her and learned quickly.
“I started off talking to the sales people and filing for them and just listening to them. I learned more about the equipment and the more I learnedabout the equipment, the easier it was for me to sell it to other people,” Jenicek said.
She said she started selling Aggreko’s service at a local level and then moved up.
“I applied for corporate and then I got a corporate job, and then I moved to external sales with actual consumers, which is working with electrical contractors and mechanical contractors. We have a different division, which I came from in college, and that interested me in looking into the Games because I love sports,” Jenicek said.
Jenicek explained the preparations of the work Aggreko does as a group effort.
“I don’t know if you can say I had one specific role. There are so many people involved we must give everyone credit. You have mechanical engineers, power distribution and people that just work on panels. We have so many people that bring so much to the team,” Jenicek said, “We all have planned the equipment and its entry into Canada. We have looked at many drawings, blueprints and diagrams to ensure that we have the power and temperature to make this an outstanding event.”
Aggreko employees also study the city and its climate. “We need to be able to anticipate the weather conditions and the shortness of daylight during the days.” Jenicek said. “Everything is so elaborate.”
Jenicek is a graduate of Oakville High School, and went to STLCC and Webster University to get an associate’s degree in Fine Arts, a Bachelor of Arts in Business and a Master of Arts in Marketing and Communications.
She said she likes to have fun and volunteer in her spare time.
“I love to travel, workout, and get together with friends and family,” Jenicek said. “Once a week I visit St. Louis Children’s Hospital Cancer Research. I like to go to the special events, like taking the kids to the zoo.” She said that she has wanted to be a teacher since she was a little kid.
“I always dreamed of being a teacher and would play school with my friends and brother in our house,” Jenicek said.
Her favorite part of teaching is being able to share her expertise.
“I love sharing my knowledge and experiences with my students. I feel it helps them better understand business in the workplace, which they will all experience someday.” Jenicek said.
“In my career I have been lucky enough to come into contact with so many outstanding people!”
Jenicek is going back to Vancouver and said she is looking forward to seeing the culmination of all their efforts.
Jenicek said, “I will be there for opening ceremony, so I definitely want to see that our hard work goes off without any complications,” Jenicek said.
