Background
I’ve been working professionally in higher education IT for over 25 years now in the Midwestern United States.
Most recently, I am currently AVP for IT and CIO at a private university. In that role I have been involved in many projects large and small across the university as well as managing a staff of 21. Some notable projects and achievements include
- Recommending an online learning strategy for the college: back in 2004 I was selected to be on a team of six faculty and staff to research online learning and make recommendations to the college – there were 3 key ones. The college adopted one of the recommendations shortly thereafter (summer online offerings) and another recommendation became real in 2011 with a launch of a new hybrid masters program. In 2013 the adult undergraduate program became a fully hybrid program as well.
- Enterprise course management system: I lead the team that migrated the college from Blackboard to moodle. The transition went smooth and faculty adoption has been growing every year. Since then I have managed the CMS, built integrations to our ERP, and created custom tools within it.
- Student evaluation of courses delivered online: I co-lead an effort with the faculty director of the college’s Center for Teaching and Learning to move from paper-and-pencil course evaluations to wholly online evaluations in 2005. The project was so much more than a software implementation. It was an organization change around a process that was very controversial. We presented a paper on it in 2005.
- As IT security officer I’ve managed a full penetration test (external penetration test and internal vulnerability assessment) done by our external auditors. Following that I managed an information security assessment performed by an excellent consulting group. I built an IT security plan for the next several years.
- I recently led the conversion of all faculty, staff and students to Google Apps for Education, implemented a new web time entry system, and a student success (current student CRM) all SaaS.
- Recently I led implementations of a degree planner system and migrating admissions CRMs.
- I manage a staff of 21, the department’s budget, annual capital projects, leases and many maintenance and SaaS contracts.
- I’m a 2009 Frye Fellow and 2014-15 Thrivent Fellow.
All of these projects have been great experiences navigating the complex organizational structures within higher education as well as areas where leadership was key.
Interests
My interests outside of technology include state and local history, street cars, public radio and photography.
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