HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah — A recent effort to put computers in front of Utah students started when DLA Disposition Services Director Mike Cannon sent out an email to his workforce.

In the email, Cannon explained that portions of the military would soon upgrade their computers so there would be an influx of computers being turned in by the services.

After reading Cannon’s email, Property Disposal Specialist Jared Grimshaw at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, learned his team would soon receive more than 40,000 computers.

“I jumped on Google, grabbed the contact info for the schools and started cold calling,” Grimshaw said.

He called more than 30 public and private schools in his surrounding area to tell them about Computers for Learning and he said Layton Christian Academy showed interest.

Layton Christian Academy has 150 students from pre-school through 12th grade. The school was looking to update a computer lab.

While getting the school registered into the program, Grimshaw learned that the school had been involved in the program in the past but the person who had been registered for the school had retired and the school’s registration had lapsed.

Grimshaw then worked with Jose Aguero, DLA’s computers for learning program manager to help Chris Crowder, an assistant administrator at the academy, to get the school back in to the program.

The timing could not have been better for the academy. They had updated two of their three computers labs and wanted to get the third one done. One bump along the way occurred when the academy picked up their first batch of computers only to discover technical problems that prevented their use.

The school tried again and this time the computers were clear of any issues before they were turned in to DLA, allowing the school to put them to work educating students.

Crowder said the academy received 60 working laptops from Hill. They needed new hard drives and to replace some missing power cords.

Crowder said that earlier they upgraded two of the school’s three computer labs at a cost of $56,000. Crowder said that thanks to the laptops from DLA it cost just $2,500 to get the third computer lab up to date.

“The new administration worked diligently with myself and the CFL office at (Battle Creek) to gain access,” Grimshaw said, “with a few bumps and bruises along the way, but victorious in the end.”