Appointment of Thomas Putnam as Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer

June 14, 2007

TO THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY

Dear Colleagues:

Executive Vice Chancellor Lucas and I are pleased to announce the appointment of Thomas Putnam as Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, effective August 15, 2007.

Mr. Putnam is currently the Executive Director of Computing and Information Services at Texas A&M University. He comes to us with nearly 40 years of computer systems experience, including 35 years of management responsibility in university, scientific, and engineering R&D oriented environments.

Mr. Putnam completed his BA in Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder and his MS in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He worked on scientific programs at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, developed operating systems and hospital clinical laboratory systems at Honeywell, Inc., and led the user services organization at Purdue University. His initial work at Texas A&M involved strategic projects including system-wide library resource sharing and project management for the financial accounting system. For the past 11 years, he has directed the central Computing and Information Services organization that supports academic, research, and administrative computing as well as networking.

I would like to thank Professors Cynthia Stohl and Jerry Gibson, co-chairs of our search advisory committee, and each of the committee members, as listed below, for their excellent work on this rigorous national search. I would also like to thank our many faculty and administrative colleagues who participated in the search process.

We look forward to the extraordinary commitment and leadership that Tom will bring to this important position as the campus’s first Chief Information Officer. Please join me in welcoming him to our UCSB community.

Sincerely,

Henry T. Yang
Chancellor

Search Advisory Committee for the Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer

Cynthia Stohl, Professor, Communication (Co-Chair)
Jerry Gibson, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering & Media Arts and Technology Program (Co-Chair)

Bruce Bimber, Professor, Political Science & Communication; Director Emeritus, Center for Information Technology and Society
Donna Carpenter, Vice Chancellor, Administrative Services
Dorothy Chun, Professor, Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Frederick Dahlquist, Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry
Richard Durán, Professor, Education
Anna Everett, Professor and Chair, Department of Film and Media Studies
Betty Huff, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Enrollment Services and Management, Division of Student Affairs
George Michaels, Executive Director, Instructional Development
Alan Moses, Technical Coordinator, Office of Letters & Science Information Technology, College of Letters and Science
Bob Sugar, Professor Emeritus, Physics (Consultant and Advisor)
Rich Wolski, Associate Professor, Computer Science

Elise Meyer, Interim Director, Office of Information Technology (ex offico)
Toby Lazarowitz, Executive Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor (staff)