The first full week of March is designated as Classified Employee Appreciation Week. At Clackamas ESD alone, we have more than 50 types of classified jobs. These are people who touch every corner of our agency’s work and the districts we support, from providing hands-on help to teachers, children and families, to filling endless behind-the-scenes roles to keep buildings and teams safe, cared for and high-functioning.

This Classified Employee Appreciation Week, we’re highlighting five of our more than 200 classified staff members and contractors, to provide a peek into the diverse ways this large group of employees lives our mission of service. We appreciate our entire classified team and the meaningful work they do.

Hamid Bessed is a classroom tech specialist in Clackamas Education Service District’s technology services department. He helps distribute and troubleshoot issues for all of the technology our staff and students use, including laptops, iPads, email accounts, monitors, projectors, WIFI hot spots, docking stations, printers, phones and more. Hamid describes himself as our “first line of tech defense,” and is one of the staff members you call to save the day when your computer has gone haywire.

Hamid pursued a career in IT because he loves repairing things that are broken.

“From the go, I was a person who wanted to fix things,” he shares. “It’s my passion. It’s not just computers. Even at home, when my washer and dryer failed, I tried to fix it. My wife sometimes doesn’t like it because she wants to upgrade. But I don’t give up soon. I want to try more to fix things versus just replacing.” 

Hamid joined Clackamas ESD in 2020, bringing 15 years of experience to our organization, including performing information technology work in conflict zones in Afghanistan with the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command from 2009 to 2015.

Hamid’s motivation comes from the joy he brings people by fixing problems with their technology. 

“You’re fixing things and you’re making someone’s day. They’re happy and you’re happy,” he explains. Hamid especially enjoys helping the children in our special education programs, like setting up their iPads with the TouchChat app that helps nonverbal students communicate through pictures.

In addition to his work helping staff and students with their day-to-day technology needs, Hamid was a part of technology services’ recent work making our systems better protected against malware, viruses, cyber-attacks and hacking ⁠— a critical part of protecting students’ privacy. “I have a feeling of pride that our systems overall are more up-to-date and compliant with the current cybersecurity,” Hamid says.