Sun has renewed their annual sponsorship of MassWIT. For a second year MassWIT will continue holding events at Sun's Burlington campus each month.

Sun Microsystems, Inc., has generously sponsored MassWIT with monthly meeting space, and hosted the inaugural leadership conference held in March. Incorporated in February 1982 with four employees, Sun is a $18.25 billion global leader in network computing solutions.

Sandra Belknap, Manager, IT Marketing & Communications, took the time to answer a few questions about the Sun-MassWIT partnership, and how the benefits work both ways.

"A few things here -- one of the big goals of Sun's executives locally, is to bring more awareness to the community that Sun has a strong presence in the Boston area," Belknap said. "In addition to the Burlington campus, Sun has offices in Nashua, Marlborough, and Acton. Teaming up with MassWIT to showcase our great site in Burlington is one way to help to achieve this goal."

Additionally, Sun has always supported the volunteer efforts of its employees to give back to their local communities, she said.

"The Sun women who work with MassWIT do this on their own time, volunteering to stay onsite on meeting dates to ensure that MassWIT members have a place to gather each month," Belknap said. "Since September, Sun women have volunteered more than 200 hours of their personal time to support MassWIT activities, including the March Leadership event."

How do the goals of MassWIT match up with Sun's mission?

"Sun's tagline is 'We make the net work,'" Belknap said. "This obviously ties back to our technology mission of being a leader in network computing. But for the purposes of our MassWIT activities, that tagline works well too. After all, our site sponsorship enables MassWIT members to network, but in a different way!"

How does MassWIT membership help Sun?

"Sun truly values diversity in the workplace," Belknap said. "Two years ago, I was provided the opportunity to work with other women at Sun to get a women's affinity group started for our employees in the Boston area. This effort uncovered a desire for women at Sun to have more access to leadership, career development and networking opportunities. A year into the establishment of this affinity group, and many successful programs, including events with other women's affinity groups in the Boston area, we were approached by MassWIT to host their meetings. Since MassWIT wanted to provide its members with similar opportunities, we thought that this would be a good fit for us.

"Over the past year, we have named our local affinity group 'Sun WIT,' and have internal interest for our various activities with our employees in the Boston area and New York," she continued. "Some other Sun locations are looking at the work that we've been doing in the Boston area, as best practices examples that can be replicated. Amazingly, we've been successful with very little budget because we find opportunities to 'barter' our personal time and limited Sun resources, as in the case with hosting the MassWIT meetings. We look for the 'win-win' in all of our activities!"As we move forward into a second year of hosting MassWIT meetings, Sun participants are looking forward to really focusing on the leadership and career development aspects of the membership," Belknap said. "With this focus in mind, I will be passing over the leadership of the MassWIT monthly meetings to other women at Sun, so that they can take advantage of the leadership opportunities that I've had this past year. Beginning in September, Colleen Nicastro and Lara Foster will co-lead the planning for the MassWIT meetings at Sun. Both are familiar faces to the MassWIT community and have been MassWIT members for the past year. In addition to the new leadership, we've also built a larger group of volunteers from across Sun who will be on site to support the monthly meetings. With one successful year already behind us, we're looking forward to great opportunities moving forward with MassWIT."