(WACO) – Local Cisco enthusiasts have a place where they can interact with Dallas-Fort Worth- area professionals without leaving Waco.

TSTC is home to the Waco Cisco Satellite Users Group led by John Washington, an instructor in the Computer Networking and Systems Administration program. Monthly video teleconferencing meetings with the Dallas-Fort Worth Cisco Users Group allows students and others throughout the area to learn about Cisco equipment, networking technology and job opportunities.

Washington said his goal for the group is to have more students and area professionals attend and learn.

“When they have their meetings, they ask who is there and if anyone is looking for jobs,” Washington said. “It is a chance for employers and people attending the meetings to contact each other with particular skills.”

The Dallas-Fort Worth Cisco Users Group is the largest and oldest such gathering in the United States, said Beau Williamson, the group’s president.

“Many of the students and people just starting out in their technology careers have been helped by the Dallas-Fort Worth user group to obtain their certifications via study groups, as well as doing people networking,” Williamson said. “Many members have launched very successful careers by actively participating in the user group meetings and study groups.”

TSTC’s Computer Networking and Systems Administration program offers students the opportunity to earn Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT) and Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Routing and Switching certifications. TSTC is a designated Cisco Academy.

“Cisco Certified professionals are in big demand, and certifications like the CCNA, CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional) and CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) are key to opening the door to new or better opportunities for our members,” Williamson said. “The industry is evolving and we are finding that other skills such as Python scripting for DevNet, DevOps and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are increasingly becoming important.”

The Dallas-Fort Worth Cisco Users Group and Waco Cisco Satellite Users Group meet at 6 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month. The Waco gathering meets in the Bowie Room on the third floor of the John B. Connally Technology Center at the corner of Campus Drive and Crest Drive at TSTC.

The next meeting of the Dallas-Fort Worth Cisco Users Group and Waco Cisco Satellite Users Group will be at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 7. The meeting will be a discussion about mobile threat detection using on-device machine learning engines.

For more information on the Dallas-Fort Worth Cisco Users Group, go to dfw.cisco-users.org.

For more information on Texas State Technical College, go to tstc.edu.