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March 16, 2016“Smells like efficiency,” VASJ sophomore Jon Adkins said as he first stepped into the Hyland Headquarters in Westlake. He and a group of about 30 of his VASJ peers went on a field trip to Hyland Software.
“As part of our technology offerings we wanted to do a technology trip in each semester,” says VASJ Math Chair Gary Minadeo ‘74. “The first semester we had seen the retail side of technology when taking our trip to Microsoft. The second semester we went to Hyland to experience the programming side.”
Right off the bus, the group of VASJ students were greeted by Courtney and Kristin, members of Hyland’s recruiting team. Courtney gave the group of students an overview of Hyland. Hyland has many companies located all over the world. They are located in Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. Hyland changed its name to Hyland the creator of OnBase because people would not associate Hyland with Onbase.
OnBase is the main software that Hyland owns. “One of the goals of Hyland was to get everything on one database,” Courtney says. Packy Hyland, founder of Hyland, had helped a bank with the software it needed. OnBase provides a secure platform to store all of a business information. This information is accessible when you need it wherever you need it.
“The company was founded in 1991, starting out with only 20 people. All twenty people are still with us today and are active in the community here.” There are now over 1500 employees working at Hyland.
After the presentation, the students were lead into a room to learn HTML coding. They were taught how to code a basic website using the HTML format. They were instructed to open a file that was shared by the instructors. It was a text document set up for a website. With the help of the instructors, a few of the students were able to design a small site from their own coding. They set up the site format including headers, font size and color, and links.
“It was very difficult but also fun and interesting,” says VASJ freshman Will Cartwright.
The class received a tour of the building which included Hyland’s two gyms and arcade room. One gym has a volleyball net where employees can play a game of volleyball during breaks. The students found it interesting and unique that a big and complex company would have an arcade room. The arcade room consisted of the usual games, a basketball hoop, ping pong, many board games, an xbox and playstation. “It was really awesome that they would have something like that in a company,” says sophomore Adam Stauffer.
When it was time for lunch, the group headed downstairs, or down by a slide, rather. “Big Red” as it is called, is a swirly slide that takes you from the second to the first floor of the Hyland building.
“There was an employer given a hard task to complete in a very tight time frame,” recruiter Kristen explained while telling the students how this slide came to be. “Our boss told him he could have anything he wanted if he was able to complete the task. Well,that's what he asked for. “
The trip to Hyland Software was very satisfying and everyone came out happy and full of energy. “My experience going to Hyland software was really good, I learned a lot more than I thought I would,” VASJ freshman Adriana Henry says. Many of the other students agreed with her.
Aminah Wyatt is a sophomore at VASJ. She is a member of the Cross Country and softball teams. She is a part of VASJ's robotics club with plans to be an engineer.
