Employees from UIT's Deputy Chief Information Officer organization and Software Platform Services team pose on May 18, 2023, for a group photo at Liberty Park, where they met for the DCIO-SPS Olympic Games. Photos by Thanh Nguyen.
UIT teams vie for trophy in team-building Olympic Games
An SPS employee tosses five flying discs at once.
On May 18, 2023, Salt Lake City once again played host to the Olympics, albeit on a much smaller scale. Instead of an international contest among athletes, the DCIO-SPS Olympic Games were internal to University Information Technology (UIT), featuring more than 85 employees from the Deputy Chief Information Officer (DCIO) organization and Software Platform Services (SPS) team in the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) organization.
The teams met at Rice Terrace Pavilion in Liberty Park, wearing red (SPS) and white (DCIO), reminiscent of Utah Football’s team colors for the annual Red and White Game (recently renamed the 22 Forever Game).
SPS Director Kim Tanner kicked off the event, noting her excitement about the valuable team-building opportunity.
“This experience is all about working together, building relationships, and having a wonderful time,” Tanner said. “I humbly say, ‘We are all winners.’”
She also congratulated the teams on a smooth start to the summer semester.
“On behalf of [CTO] Jim Livingston and [DCIO] Ken Pink, seriously, excellent job on the start of school for summer. It was extremely quiet, even though we have so many projects going on,” she said. “All of you are doing awesome, and we all work well together. Please give yourselves a big round of applause!”
University Support Services (USS) Engineering Director Jason Moeller provided information on the day’s schedule, lunch (hot dogs from J. Dawgs, various drinks, and an assortment of cookies), and activities, which included a bean bag toss, frisbee toss, cup pong, and lightning basketball.
Activities were timed, allowing each team to score as many points as possible until the clock ran out, regardless of their respective number of participants.
- Bean bag toss — 46 DCIO, 62 SPS
- Frisbee toss — 23 DCIO, 27 SPS
- Cup pong — 66 DCIO, 46 SPS
- Lightning basketball — 10 DCIO, 20 SPS
SPS cemented its victory in the fourth round, scoring a total of 155 points to DCIO’s 145 points.
It’s the second win for SPS, which defeated DCIO last year in a kickball match. In September, DCIO bested SPS in bowling. The series now stands 2-1 in SPS’s favor — not that anyone is keeping score.
Pink closed the event, thanking everyone for coming out and participating in “some fun, morale-boosting and team-building exercises.”
"USS and SPS work together on a lot of projects, and it's good to reconnect since we're not in the office as much,” Pink said.
He also thanked Moeller, Tanner, USS Administrative Manager Tammy Mabey, CTO Administrative Assistant Angelica Chacon, and everyone else who helped organize the event, as well as Data Management & Analytics Director Brian Harris, who made some crowd-pleasing pizza in a portable oven on the side.
Harris joked that DCIO should have won. “Our pizza was way better,” he said.
“Unfortunately, that wasn’t one of the competitive events,” Pink laughed.
Instead of a medal, SPS walked away with a 3D-printed gold trophy courtesy of brothers David and Robert Lake, who work in USS.
As Tanner accepted the trophy from Moeller, she shouted “Go, SPS!”
Below are some additional images from the event.
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