Client-Centered Focus: Technology and Library Services by Nan Myers
As the first Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Salus University, Bill Brichta, who began in January 2013, had his work cut out for him. And some dramatic results are beginning to show. “We really became a client-centered provider this year,” he says. “The key is to proactively ask ‘what do you need to be successful’ and then provide the leadership to create and support that for our students, faculty, and staff.” After serving as CIO and vice president for Technology at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown for six and a half years (prior to that at Lehigh University in other capacities, including twelve years as a director of Technology), Mr. Brichta says he came to Salus because “I thought I might really have an impact here. It seemed like an open opportunity to enhance delivery of services and to work with truly great people.” “The core issue is that technology never really sleeps,” he says. “There will always be something that you need to support – and support well – even if unknown today.” He and his staff of 19 in the Technology and Library Services (TLS) department advance key technology and library initiatives throughout Salus. “There are many connections that we touch directly. We oversee networking, technology refresh for desktop, email, the Blackboard course management system, wireless, network security, and numerous systems that work quietly behind the scenes.” He adds, “The day-today credit goes to our committed TLS staff who routinely create order out of chaos.” Some recent improvements include a new unified help desk. Now anyone with a technical problem on the Salus campus can call a single extension or email the help desk directly. In addition, the department has installed new wireless technology with additional bandwidth for the students, while a total campus migration from a legacy email system to gmail offered a more robust system at a lesser cost.
“We willingly test new ideas to propel things forward,” Mr. Brichta says. “So much of what we do is behind the scenes.” He gives as an example the virtualization of a large number of servers that cut down on costs as well as the Data Center footprint. The University is also moving from a legacy network structure to a software system that stores and organizes information, and checks passwords to determine whether the user is a system administrator or normal user. The department also has added more capabilities to the University’s Jenzabar software system to help manage student services and systems and this summer a migration from paper records to electronic patient records at The Eye Institute was completed successfully. Mr. Brichta’s role within the University’s administration enables him to work with the faculty, staff, students and administration to determine priorities. He and his department brainstorm a lot of ideas at their weekly meetings and move forward based on “five-year technology planning and a good set of committees.” “Our message is to deliver best practice technology,” he says. “We are looking at elevating all our planning for disaster recovery, including examining generator size and diversifying risk.” He is committed to ensuring that should something unforeseen occur, “the University is in a position to recover rapidly.” He speaks highly of Salus students, and looks to them to see how they view and use technology. “The Salus students are bright, mature and laser-focused,” he says, “which makes it a bit easier to try cutting-edge gains.” Bill Brichta looks forward to spearheading many more technology advancements at Salus. He comments, “One of the great results of installing new systems or leveraging new devices is that you frequently receive feedback about how remarkable it is…and that really motivates all of us to go hard after the next improvement. It fills the gas tank.”
Bill Brichta CIO Technology and Library Services Jane Tyson Administrative Assistant
Jill Leslie Assistant Director Instructional Technology Services
Glenn Roedel Director of Client Services
Yong Su Assessment Data Manager
Amina Masood Classroom Technician
Ruby Singleton Coordinator
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Chris Esposito Director of Network Services
Leonard Campbell Director of Network Security and Technology – TEI
Alex Anderson Data Base Administrator
Luminata Vulcu Librarian
Kris Stinson Manager of Help Desk Services
Mike Kilczewski Medical Software Specialist
Keith Lammers Director of Library Services
Marian Weber Librarian
Bob Atkinson Manager Repair Services
Darryl Burrs, Jr. Desktop Support Specialist
Edward Sloskey Hardware Specialist
Tony Baniewicz Sr. Repair Technician
T h e A l u m n i Ma g a z i n e o f S a l u s U n i v e r s i t y
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Frank Hettich Sr. Repair Technician
FALL 2013