Every day, Division of IT Employees are working hard to deliver best in class Texas A&M University technology. It is not surprising that many employees receive awards and recognition at a local, state and national scale.

Awards

President's Meritorious Service Award 2020

  • Xiaobing "Sally" Yang, Help Desk Central Workforce Manager

Texas A&M Sustainability Champion 2020

  • Cheryl Cato, Associate Vice President for Research and Education Network and Enterprise Facilities Operations

SIGUCCS 2020 Best of Category Awards

SIGUCCS 2019 Best of Category Awards

2019 Center for Digital Government Best of Texas Award

  • Innovation in Gamification: Aggie LIFE

SIGUCCS 2018 Best of Category Awards

2018 HDI Pinnacle of Excellence Award

  • Help Desk Central/Service Desk

2018 Texas Association of State Systems for Computing and Communications (TASSCC) Trailblazer Award

  • Miner "Pete" Marchbanks, Jr., Ph.D., Executive Director

2018 Center for Digital Government Best of Texas Award

2018 CIO Ones to Watch Award

  • Judith Lewis, Ph.D., Senior Information Technology Manager

2018 Texas A&M Student Employment Impact Award

  • Matt Lacy, Senior Information Technology Manager

SIGUCCS 2017 Best of Category Awards

2017 HDI Pinnacle of Excellence Award

  • Help Desk Central/Service Desk

Presentations

Ft. Worth Aggie Muster 2021

Dion McInnis, Lead Software Applications Developer, will be the speaker for Fort Worth Aggie Muster 2021 April 21.

WebCon

IT Creative Manager Xavier Porter will present “Fall Forward: Creating UI Success from UX Disaster” for the University of Illinois WebCon April 9.

FireEye Webinar

Chris Wiley, Principal Security Operations Engineer, spoke about the success of the division’s Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Program (CAP) during a FireEye webinar in March.

Texas A&M Communications Summit

Xavier Porter, IT Creative Manager, discusses how to create better user experiences and user interfaces in a talk titled “Fall Forward: Creating UI Success from UX Disaster”.

Service Management World Conference (sponsored by HDI) 2019

Robert Cheyne, ITSM Process Manager, will present Taming the CMDB Beast detailing how Texas A&M Division of IT struggled to populate their Configuration Management Database (CMDB) with valid and useful IT Asset data. In this session, Cheyne will share how they set up their CMDB, implemented ServiceNow Discovery, and provide recommendations and lessons learned from their experience.

Pink19 IT Service Management Conference by Pink Elephant

Jana McDonald, Business Relationship Manager (BRM), discusses the BRM implementation at Texas A&M University and how she started her journey as a BRM. She will elaborate on the primary roles and objectives that developed along the way.

EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2018

Joshua Kissee, Chief of Staff to the Vice President for Information Technology, spoke at the IT Strategic Planning Community Group Session at the 2018 EDUCAUSE Conference in Denver, Colorado. Kissee also joined Juan Garza, Assistant Vice President for Academic Services and Director of the Provost IT Office, and Vice President for Information Technology M. Dee Childs to present the “Optimizing the Value of Collaboration with your Institution” breakout session.

HDI Conference & Expo - April, 2019

  • Matt Lacy, Sally Yang and Scotty Shepherd will present Applying Workforce Management in a Student-Run Service Desk, a presentation on how to manage a student workforce through technology, systematic recruiting methods, peer-to-peer training practices, and quality assurance standards.
  • Michael Crocker, Matt Lacy and Jon Griffey will present Turning the Aircraft Carrier in Higher Ed: Texas A&M's KCS Voyage, a case study examining how Texas A&M's 18-month Knowledge Center Service (KCS) voyage helped strengthen documentation practices, bolstered knowledge base process development and accelerated employee time-to-proficiency.

Houston ServiceNow User Group (SNUG) - February 2019

Michael Crocker explained how Service Desk implemented Knowledge Centered Service (KCS) using ServiceNow to provide knowledge articles for the self-service portal.

Brazos Valley Chapter - Association for Talent Development (BV-ATD) - October, 2018

Bobby Bernshausen presented Back to the Storyboard: Building your Presentation from the Ground Up, a creative guide to using storyboarding to prepare for a presentation.

HDI Conference & Expo - April, 2018

Jon Griffey and Matt Lacy presented Texas A&M University's Sprint Towards Continual Service Improvement, a case study on how the Service Desk has made improvements over the last 2+ years. The presentation focused on the Help Desk Central renovation, efforts to improve Incident Management and other ITSM related efforts, implementation of metrics and analytics, Workforce Management within the Service Desk, and a forecast of the next 9-12 months with knowledge centered service.

Texas A&M University Group Leadership Forum - March, 2018

Joshua Kissee presented, It's All About Relationships: Partnering with Clients to Shape the Future, an annual presentation exploring business relationship management principles and the user value hierarchy.

Tech Summit 2018

Texas A&M Division of Information Technology employees shared their knowledge at Tech Summit 2018. The following individuals presented at the annual conference:

  • Kyle Boatsman - Workflow Essentials for Web Development; Improve the Usability (and Accessibility) of Your Documents
  • Victor Delgado - Demystifying RemoteApp: What It Is and What It Can Do for Your Organization
  • Puneet Gaddam - Enhancing Web Accessibility and User Experience with ARIA and HTML5
  • Juan Garza - Exploring & Engaging the new IT Governance Framework at Texas A&M University
  • Jon Griffey - Lynda.com, the Evolution of a Shared Service
  • Karen Hrncir - The Role of Business Analysis in Project Management; Lynda.com, the Evolution of a Shared Service; How In The World Do I…: A Panel Discussion on Practical Project Management
  • Joshua Kissee - Exploring & Engaging the new IT Governance Framework at Texas A&M University
  • Jack Jennings - Teaming with Knowledge Workers and the Virtual Environment
  • Cynthia Kauder - Automating Business Processes Using the TAMU Laserfiche Framework; Accessibility by the Numbers: Analyzing the Risk for Higher Ed
  • Judith Lewis - Automating Business Processes Using the TAMU Laserfiche Framework
  • Jay McAbee - New West Campus Data Center - Innovation in Action...from Bites to Bytes
  • Dion McInnis - Find: “Motivation” - Describing and Finding the Right Image
  • Guillermo “Gil” Muñoz - Running Reports on Exchange Server Calendars; The Legal Landscape for Information Technology in Texas
  • Michael Pace - The Role of Business Analysis in Project Management; The Quest for Consistent Success
  • Kyle Page - Leadership 101 & Beyond
  • Jeff Phillips - Innovations in the ServiceNow Shared Service
  • Xavier Porter - Workflow Essentials for Web Development
  • Kim Reverman - Innovations in the ServiceNow Shared Service
  • Tom Swanner - Innovations in the ServiceNow Shared Service
  • Hailey Yamada - Getting the Most Out of HTML Emails

Publications

Profile Magazine

Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Dr. Michael Sardaryzadeh is featured in the March issue of Profile Magazine.

From Informal to Formal: The Path to IT Governance at Texas A&M University

Authors Juan Garza and Joshua Kissee explain how IT Governance provided a closer alignment between IT decision-making and the university's overall strategic goals. The article was published in the EDUCAUSE Review.

Bridging the Gap Between Students and Security: 7 Steps to Creating a Successful Cybersecurity Campaign

Authors Allison Oslund and Morgan Hampton showcase the strategy behind creating engaging cybersecurity awareness campaigns in this blog published in the EDUCAUSE Review.

Service

Rick Smith

VMware Customer Advisory Board Member.

Susan Edmisson

For 2017-2018, she served as Chair of two University Staff Council committees: Staff Emergency Fund and Professional Development.

Joshua Kissee

Educause IT Strategic Planning Constituent Group Leader, 2018-2021.

Walt Magnussen

Has been appointed to the FCC advisory group, the Communications Interoperability, Security and Reliability Council.