Foreword
Eclectic am I. I have led technology organizations for more than four decades as a military officer, vice chancellor and CIO for 36 Georgia universities and colleges, and currently serve as vice president and CIO of a research university. It all started with me jumping out of perfectly safe airplanes to engineer in circuits and one might argue after four decades, I have not hit the ground yet. It is a path less traveled.
I had regular faculty appointments at West Point, Georgia State University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I taught online (asynchronously and synchronously), in hybrid executive programs, and in normal classrooms for undergraduate and graduate students. In total, I taught 92 classes, won a global, national, and several department teaching awards, and as my daughter once complained, I was the only professor she knew with a perfect 5 rating on ratemyprofessor.com. I strove to be the educator who made a difference and who students contact for the rest of their lives.
Below is a brief summary of these experiences.
Vice President and Chief Information Officer (2015 -Present)
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Responsibilities: Provide strategic leadership and vision regarding the use of technology to educate and inspire UAB students so as to dramatically enhance their life trajectory and world view. Empower researchers, staff, and administrators to simply change the world. Partner with university and business leaders to create a shared governance structure with particular focus on partnership with the Health System. Create a world class IT organization so that if our customers could choose any provider, they would choose UAB IT. Generate business value through reduced costs, process innovation, or revenue generation. Innovate UAB through partnerships with institutional business owners with a focus on academic and research operations. Foster an institutional data-driven decision-making culture that allows UAB to make informed and optimal decisions. Enhance the community of information technology excellence for the economic, social, and cultural benefit of Birmingham and beyond.
- Facilitated University research, teaching, and service through new customer centric services such as unlimited email, unlimited storage, and forthcoming 20x faster internet speeds.
- Secured funding from multiple sources and implemented significant enhancements to University research computing including a tenfold increase to research storage, fourfold increase to research compute, new science DMZ, and new research network.
- Protected the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of University and personnel data through the employment of new services including a modern identity management system, dual-factor authentication system, greatly enhanced password standard, and University-wide patching system.
- Harnessed the voice of the customer to crowdsource technology priorities through the Spark portal. More than 800 faculty, staff, and students have submitted more than 120 ideas, 800 comments, and 3,000 votes. The site has been so successful that it has been copied by other University organizations.
- Served as principal investigator and won $500,000 the Advance Alabama Research Grant.
Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer 2009 – 2015
Board of Regents, University System of Georgia
Responsibilities: Provide strategic leadership and vision regarding the use of technology to educate and inspire the next generation of citizens and leaders in Georgia and the world. Partner with state and USG leaders to create new opportunities and venues, provide services, approve major investments in information technology, and lead Information Technology Services (ITS), the USG’s central organization for technology-based services. These services span the entire state and are provided not only to USG participant organizations, but to other state, local, and private agencies and organizations as well. Lead more than 240 innovators and more than $70 million annual investment in higher education as well as partner with 31 institutions to support more than 310,000 students with an economic impact of more than $14 billion.
- Inculcated a culture of innovation and focus on student success by transforming the learning management system for 30 colleges and universities. This award winning system:
- Hosts 160,000 courses of which over 87,000 were active in Fall 2013;
- Is accessed by 250,000 students daily who generate 50,000,000 hits a day (and growing);
- Is the world’s largest D2L private cloud SaaS system; and,
- Provides an agile and innovative institutional experience with more than 50 third party integrations.
- Introduced and implemented several new cloud-based service offerings for 31 colleges and universities as well as other state agencies. The services have been so well received that Governor Deal is adding 189 K-12 school districts and 6,000 schools representing 1.6 million students in FY15. This will transform education in Georgia.
- Oversight from 2009 to 2014 of the GALILEO virtual library Georgia’s virtual library serving over 2,000 institutions; GALILEO Interconnected Libraries, the library management system for more than 14 million holdings; and Digital Library of Georgia which in 2013 resulted in:
- 452,416,154 searches;
- 30,666,340 articles downloaded;
- $22,871,532 in projected 2013 savings to duplicate GALILEO.
- Developed and deployed an award winning, unique statewide multi-institution course registration system that helped 28,055 students graduate faster by leveraging our private cloud, common learning system and student information system, and the faculty of our institutions to offer core courses statewide. This system is now being deployed to all non-research institutions to enhance student retention, progression, and graduation rates.
- Developed and deployed the Point, our award winning social collaboration site for contract management. This shared governance site allows all institutions and faculty to participate in the vendor selection and contract negotiation process. This system saves Georgia taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually.
- Leveraged and empowered shared governance by 31 institution CIOs by partnering to: build the first IT strategic plan in six years; rebrand the Administrative Committee on Information Technology to the CIO Advisory Council; align around the Chancellor’s strategic imperatives; build the first series of USG IT standards and guidelines; and, dramatically enhance interaction between institutional leaders, business owners, and CIOs.
- Catalyst, enabler, thought leader or champion for other student success projects including:
- Student advising system now used by all 31 USG institutions.
- Predictive analytics pilots or implementations at more than half of our institutions.
- Affordable resources (free electronic textbooks) so as to lower the cost of education.
- GeorgiaOnMyLine: USG’s central clearinghouse of online programs and courses of more than 300 degrees and 9,000 online courses available.
- Led efforts to consolidate the technical organizations and infrastructure of ten institutions.
- Reduced the number of network or computer abuse cases by 87% over a five year period.
- Grew revenues by 15% each year for the last five years.
Vice Dean (2006-2010)
United States Military Academy, West Point, NY
Responsibilities: Assist West Point’s Chief Academic Officer in developing strategic plans and policies; resourcing 13 academic departments and 23 research centers through budget management, personnel management, and physical plant operations; promoting academic research; developing and delivering information technology solutions for the academic program; developing and implementing language and cultural development opportunities for students; and, integrating learning technology and pedagogy. Recruiting and managing an 800-person faculty and staff. Developing and managing a $76 million operating budget.
- Strengthened institutional financial sustainability by leading a team effort to build, execute, and raise the $200 million academic portion of the West Point $500 million fundraising campaign.
- Enhanced student success by leading a team effort to resource and construct over $200 million in renovations and new buildings including $182 million science building and $72 million library.
- Transformed student success and collegiate experience as the Chief Academic Officer’s staff proponent of the largest revision and investment in the international & study-abroad program in Academy history.
- Sharpened student and institutional accountability through a comprehensive review of West Point academic program.
- Enhanced institutional reputation as part of a senior leadership team through recognition for educational leadership and excellence. West Point was ranked #1 college in nation by Forbes Magazine in 2008. West Point was ranked #1 Public Liberal Arts College in the nation by US News and World Report for multiple years.
- Individually recognized as American Council of Education Fellow, Texas A&M Computer Science and Engineering Distinguished Former Student Award, and FISSEA National Educator of the Year.
Associate Dean for Information and Educational Technology
(2004 – 2006)
United States Military Academy, West Point, NY.
Responsibilities: West Point’s academic CIO. Plan, implement, and support academic informational and educational technology program; recommends and staffs USMA strategic vision and policy for academic computing. Provide direct automation support to 13 academic departments, 23 research centers, and the library. Responsible for educational policies and technical research and operations of the USMA academic computing and educational technology program for 4,400 cadets and 800 faculty members. Lead a technical and administrative staff of 48 personnel.
- Transformed the faculty and student educational experience by guaranteeing and delivering same day repair of more than 5,000 faculty and student computers.
- Deployed new wireless system for all academic buildings and areas to empower innovation when coupled with every faculty member and student having a laptop.
- Enhanced financial operations by leading the effort to successfully convince Army senior leadership to double West Point’s academic information technology budget.
- Lowered operational costs by consolidating academy servers while simultaneously and dramatically enhancing reliability and capacity.
- Developed a computer security program for all students based on active learning and student peer mentorship which lowered student susceptibility to spear phishing attacks by 50%.
- Enhanced institutional reputation through recognition by PC Magazine and Intel as one of the nation’s most wired/wireless campuses.
Program Director, Information Systems and Information Technology (2002-2004)
United States Military Academy, West Point, NY
Responsibilities: All information systems and information technology courses and majors offered in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
- Planned, designed, and introduced the first new required course for all students in last thirty years.
- Led a three-department interdisciplinary major while introducing a second major.
- Significantly increased the breadth and depth of IS and IT majors by quadrupling the number of offerings.
Platoon Leader, Senior Staff Officer, Company Commander, Battalion Operations Officer, Division Deputy G6, Strategic Mentor
Various Locations Worldwide (1983-2010)
- Worked in Army technology and leadership jobs positions of increasing responsibility including twelve years at West Point. Rose through the ranks from 2LT to Colonel.
- Extensive experiences living and working globally including five years in Italy, one year in Korea, as well as extensive time in Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Led the development of a number of innovative decision support systems used in the Bosnian and Afghan conflicts.