Staff Recognition & Achievement

Beginning last May, Vice Chancellor Emeritus Thomas Stafford led OIT employees on several tours of the Memorial Bell Tower, a 115-foot monument that honors alumni who were killed in World War I. Participating on the first tour on the front row, from left, are Brian Williams, Josh Jury, Carol Hill, and David DeFoor. On second row, from left, are: Bill Coker, Sarah Noell, Dan Waller, Lark Mullins and Caffie Darden. On third row, from left, are: Derek Jordan, Daniel Sink, Renee Dowell, Debbie Carraway, Febbie Gordon, and Mildred Brown. At rear, from left, are: Adam Andruchowitz, Chris Radabaugh, Verna Little, Tony Lawrence, Stan North Martin, and Everette Allen. This photo is courtesy of Tom Stafford.

Behind the campus’ primary data centers, wire closets, and telephony and administrative systems are the hearts and voices of OIT staff whose customer service and quality of work speak for itself. We are proud to honor the following individuals:

OIT Division Award for Excellence

The 2017 OIT Division Award for Excellence winners were TJ Buffaloe and Keyta Kemp. Nik Davlantis was also nominated for this award.

Pride of the Wolfpack Award

2016-2017 Pride of the WolfPack Award winners were Charles Brabec, Matthew Castle, Nik Davlantis, Alexander Fantroy, Mark Harben, Matt Haught, Katie McInerney, and Angela Walker.

Totally Outstanding Attitude, Service & Talent Award

2016-2017 T.O.A.S.T. Award recipients included: Joanie Aitken and Team, Kenan Barnes, Rob Blanke, Danny Boemermann, Damian Boyce, Jordan Boyle, Ron Bradley, Rick Brown, Michele Byrum (2), Eric Campbell, Matthew Castle (2), Bryce Clodfelter Jr., Sam Cynamon, Caffie Darden (2), Nik Davlantis, Chris Deaton (2), Brian DeConinck (2), David DeFoor, Heather Dellinger, Jeff Dye, Miles Elliott, Dan Evans (2), Tom Farwig, Louise Flinn (2), Jack Foster, Tiera George, Rhonda Greene, Gail Gregory, Kristin Taklich (2), Mark Harben, Lee Hargis, Kelly Harrelson, Isaac Hinkey, Tom Holden, Karen Horne, Elijah Jones, Keyta Kemp, Chris King, Ayana Knight, Jeremy Kuhne, Carrie Levow, Gary Li, Verna Little, Tim Lowman, Catherine Lumsden, Taylor Lundy, Shawn Madey, Jason Maners, Stan Martin, Clayton Maxwell (2), Katie McInerney, Bill McKelvey (2), Mariela Montero, David Mueller, Alex Nicholos, Jill Phipps, Jerry Pinder, Cheri Pipkin, Grey Reavis, Kathryn Rees, Ken Rich, Nicole Rivera, Ed Rogers, Don Schmidt, Chadwick Seagraves, William Setzer, Lavanya Sridharan, Shannon Swaringen (2), Amy Tawes, Lon Thomas, Stevie Thompson, Alice Thurman, Lucy Tiefenthaler, Charles Walker (2), Dan Waller, Chris Webster, Patrick Williams, Jianmin Xie, Early Yu, Charlena Zell, and Zachary Zientek (2).

Retirees

Mildred Brown, Febbie Gordon, Eddie Jones, Tanja Davidson, Tony Lawrence, Nathan Maynard, and Richard Merwin retired during the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Professional Activities

• Everette Allen partners with colleagues from several UNC system schools to lead the UNC Apple User Group and the Jamf Pro cooperative implementation.
• BJ Attarian and Hal Meeks founded and co-host the Association of Higher Education Cable Television Administrators Bars and Tones podcast.
• Mardecia Bell and Andy Kotynski are members of the FBI’s InfraGard.
• Mardecia Bell, Leo Howell, Andy Kotynski, and Anthony Workman are members of the Information Systems Security Association.
• Danny Boemermann and Greg James presented “Blue Lights – A New Approach to an Old Problem” at the Association for College and University Technology Advancement (ACUTA) conference in October.
• Ron Bradley, David Ladrie and Susan West received their ITIL Service Transition certification.
• Brandy Briggs, Chris Deaton, Jessie Henninger, Carol Hill, Chris King and Angela Walker are now ServiceNow certified system administrators.
• Rick Brown continues to serve on the AHECTA Board of Directors.
• Ralph Cabrera is certified in Project+ and Linux+.
• Chris Deaton coordinates workshops and guest talks for the campus Web Developers’co-working days.
• Brian DeConinck and Jen McFarland hosted a monthly podcast aimed at WordPress users in higher education settings.
• Brian DeConinck presented at the 2017 WordCamp Raleigh conference and WPCampus, where he was selected as “best speaker.”
• Kerry Digou was re-certified as an Internal Security Assessor for PCI/DSS. He also presented at the 2016 Identity Finder and 2017 Treasury Institute conferences.
• Steve Eddy, Andy Kotynski and Lavanya Sridharan are members of the Project Management Institute.
• Noah Genzel received the Help Desk Institute Knowledge-Centered Support Foundation certification.
• Alvin Gilmore is serving on the Building Industry Consulting Service International’s Education Advancement Committee.
• Rhonda Greene serves as a member-at-large of the Public Relations Society of America Technology Section Executive Committee and chairs the Sponsorship and Fundraising Committee. She was also elected as a Staff Senate alternate for District 51.
• Mark Harben served as chair of the OIT Employee Relations Committee.
• Leo Howell served as a member of the EDUCAUSE Higher Education Information Security Council (HEISC), Governance Risk and Compliance Committee and the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) IT committee. He also presented at EDUCAUSE Security Professionals conference.
• Leo Howell, Andy Kotynski, Ken Taitingfong, and Anthony Workman are members of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2).
• Chris King served as program co-chair for the 2016 ACM SIGUCCS conference in Denver, Colo., coordinating over 50 speakers and assisting with the publication of dozens of papers on higher-ed IT practices. He also gave a well-received presentation at Knowledge17, the ServiceNow national conference in Orlando, Fla.
• Will Jackson is a certified technology specialist.
• Andy Kotynski served as the chair of the Security & Compliance Governance Subcommittee. He also presented the ISC2 Safe and Secure Online curriculum to over 150 elementary students.
• David Ladrie, Ron Bradley and the ClassTech staff hosted the 2017 Classroom Summit in May 2017.
• Stan North Martin continues to serve on the cabinet of the EDUCAUSE IT Communications Constituent Group.
• Jen McFarland presented at the 2016 HigherEdWeb conference.
• Sarah Noell presented a paper at the 2016 Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) conference.
• Jill Phipps served as an NC State Staff Senate Parliamentarian Officer District 51 Senator.
• Grey Reavis presented at the 2016 Accessing Higher Ground conference and the ELI Annual Meeting.
• Henry Schaffer co-authored the report, “Automating Individualized Formative Feedback in Large Classes Based on a Directed Concept Graph.” It was published in the February 2017 edition of the Frontiers online journal.
• Greg Sparks continues to serve on the ACUTA legislative and regulatory affairs committee and on Cisco’s Public Sector Technology Exchange.
• Ken Taitingfong successfully received SANS GISP and CISSP certifications.
• Kristin Taklich successfully received SANS GIAC Information Security Fundamentals (GISF) certification.
• Chris Webster is a ServiceNow Certified Application Developer.
• Patrick Williams continued to serve on EMC’s Technical Advisor Board and Technical Advisory Panel. He also co-presented a CloudIQ session at EMCWorld 2017.
• Many OIT staff continue to provide leadership for UNC CAUSE, the organization that promotes cooperation and knowledge sharing among the IT community within the UNC system. Sarah Noell is serving as president, Karen Horne is treasurer, Jen McFarland co-led the 2016 conference and is co-leading planning for the 2017 conference. Jason Maners served as the program committee chair for the 2016 conference and coordinates the Special Interest Groups. Louise Flinn served as the marketing and publications chair for the 2016 conference. Harry Nicholos continues to provide leadership for the conference’s vendor committee. Numerous OIT staff presented at UNC CAUSE 2016.

Improving Staff Working Conditions

Since its inception in 2008, the Staff Relations Team (SRT) has organized a number of employee-related activities, including roundtable discussions, town hall meetings, award ceremonies, and social events in an effort to improve communications and to engage staff.

As OIT has evolved, however, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit volunteers from each of the eight respective units to form this team. As such, the SRT transitioned in June 2017 to a new structure, facilitating the opportunity for others to lead and coordinate the many division activities and events.

2016-17 Fiscal Year Activities

During this fiscal year, the SRT sponsored a town hall meeting with employee recognitions in January, the OIT Awards for Excellence program, the Pride of the WolfPack Award, and the Totally Outstanding Attitude and Service and Talent (T.O.A.S.T.) Award.

OIT Staff Diversity

OIT employs a variety of individuals with different cultures, life experiences and expertise that are invaluable to the university’s operations. With a workforce of 292 employees, we continue to strive to recruit members of underrepresented populations to enrich and diversify our work environment. As of May 15, 2017, our workforce included 206 men and 86 women, who are: