After more than 42 and 30 years of service, two long-time colleagues – Jürgen Sturm and Ronald "Ronny" Schönheiter – are retiring this year. Both have been reliable points of contact at the ITS helpdesk, not only for all staff and students of the University of Bayreuth but also for their colleagues within the ITS team.

After such a long time, we couldn’t just let them go without asking them a few questions first:

What was the most interesting project during your time at the ITS?
Jürgen Sturm: The PC Garage: establishing a hardware and system software support service exclusively for students’ personal devices – a project that has been successfully continued for many years by two very capable colleagues.

How did I maintain motivation and commitment during my time at the HRZ/RZ/ITS?Jürgen Sturm: It was always rewarding to find the best possible compromise between local possibilities and fundamental guidelines to address users’ needs and problems.

What were the most significant changes during your time at the ITS?
Jürgen Sturm: Over the course of my 42 years at the University of Bayreuth, IT has evolved from the simplest beginnings—decentralized, modular 8-bit computers with 64 KB of RAM and 360 KB floppy disks, no networks, and mainframe access at RRZE only via punch card readers—into today’s advanced systems. Alongside this, the university computing center transformed into an IT service center, supporting the now ubiquitous and indispensable IT. Unfortunately, the skilled work of colleagues who continue to develop and maintain this infrastructure has largely gone unnoticed.

What lesson would you pass on to younger colleagues?
Jürgen Sturm: The use of critical cloud infrastructure should be undertaken only when it does not create medium- or long-term dependencies regarding data protection, data availability, or costs.

Ronny, what was the greatest challenge you faced during your time at the ITS, and how did you overcome it?
Ronald Schönheiter: Thirty years, from 1995 to 2025: from the University Computing Center to the Data Center, then to the IT Service Center—and now the ITS. As the names suggest, the only constant during this time has been continuous change. Hardware, operating systems, software, services, and tasks—IT is always in flux, with something new constantly emerging.

To draw a bit of a conclusion: the greatest challenge for me—and really for all of us—was not just keeping up with the changes, but always staying one step ahead in order to assist users with their questions and problems and to develop solutions that allowed us to handle the ever-growing number of requests more quickly and efficiently.

Of course, that requires a considerable amount of motivation—so how can one maintain it over such a long period?
Ronald Schönheiter: That only works if you don’t lose the fun and interest in your work, and it also requires a good sense of humor. Equally essential is having a strong service team and good colleagues in other departments, because larger problems can only be solved as a team—IT is not a one-man show; due to its complexity and scope, it only works collaboratively. I can only thank my colleagues for the excellent and collegial cooperation throughout this time.

As parting words, I would like to quote Douglas Adams:

So many years at the ITS—we want to say THANK YOU for your dedicated and committed work. We wish you a wonderful transition into retirement and many carefree moments ahead.

2025 Dates

November 12, 2025 / 9–11 AM / AI Training: AI-assisted image and text editing. Registration is available through the respective courses in the e-learning system.