Your Westmont Warriors Finish on Top

in 12 years. During his first six months, he’s mapping a new strategic plan to make IT its own department.

“The existing IT team has been keeping the day-today operations going,” he says. “I want to focus on an innovative plan for technology in the county.”

by Scott Craig, photos by Brad Elliott

Westmont

Athletics ended its final season in the NAIA with the baseball team diving onto a celebratory dogpile. The Warriors secured a nail-biting 7-6 World Series victory over the hosts, LewisClark State, claiming the college’s 10th national championship. Westmont will compete in NCAA Division II this fall after more than seven decades with the NAIA. This was Westmont baseball’s first national championship and the first by a Westmont men’s team in 51 years.

Though both teams combined to commit eight errors, there were moments of brilliance, including a stellar pitching performance by Gabe Arteaga of Santa Barbara, who earned the win. Parker O’Neil walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 8th inning to plate the eventual deciding run. Brady Renck of Longmont, Colorado, who had two hits and scored twice, concluded the season, batting .398, and is near the top in several record career categories.

In a postgame ceremony, two Warriors were named to the All-Tournament Team. Ryan DeSaegher, who hit .375 over six games and drove in 11 runs, was named the AllTournament third baseman.

Lucien Wechsberg, who made three appearances, was named as a pitcher to the All-Tournament team. Wechsberg pitched five and two-third innings and recorded two saves. He did not allow a run and surrendered just five hits. He struck out seven and did not allow a walk.

Looking back, the Warriors began the season with new head coach Tyler LaTorre and without catcher Simon Reid, who was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers after his junior season. In March, the Warriors had dropped in the NAIA baseball coaches’ ranking to No. 18.

“It’s a community — this group of players is not alone,” LaTorre said. “They have faith in something greater than themselves. That shows on the field. These guys are not just playing baseball; they are playing for something bigger.”

Streamlining the County’s IT Services

Alumnus Chris Chirgwin (’95) brought more than two decades of executive IT leadership and consulting experience to Santa Barbara County as its first Chief Information Officer

Chris competed in track and field at Westmont, earned a bachelor’s degree in international studies and dreamed of pursuing a career in international business. He returned home to Oregon to complete an MBA at the University of Portland and fell in love with emerging technology, enrolling in as many IT and information-systems courses as they offered. “I knew I wanted to take my career in that direction,” he says. “In the midst of the dot-com craze, things were really taking off. The internet was becoming mainstream. That whole ecosystem fascinated me.”

While at the University of Portland, he started his own web development company, teaching himself web programming languages. After earning his MBA, he began working for a Portland-area software company. During his time in Portland, he reconnected with a former classmate, Dan Hislop (’93).

“Dan told me he’d started a new job at Lanspeed, a small IT company in Santa Barbara, and they were looking for someone to lead the web development group,” Chris says. “I thought that sounded pretty good.”

Chris began a long and fruitful relationship with the IT-services firm. He started as director of web development before advancing to vice president of sales and marketing. In five years, Chris became president; a year later he purchased the company, serving as CEO and owner.

“My wife and I had welcomed our first daughter, and we were trying to decide what was next for my career,” he says. “I was looking for a new challenge.”

After 16 years, Chris sold the company and worked as a consultant to the new owner during the transition. Not long afterward, Santa Barbara County began its nationwide search for a CIO.

Chris plays an active role in the implementation of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to streamline the county’s core business processes. “We have more than 100 applications that touch finance, budgeting, HR and training, and this new ERP will reduce that number significantly and modernize many applications,” he says.

He also oversees an effort to update a public safety radio network for the county fire and sheriff’s departments, moving applications and data to the cloud to optimize resiliency and performance. “We gain a lot by sharing data across multiple departments, which have been decentralized and siloed for a long time,” he says.

He remembers encouraging conversations with Coach Russell Smelley and has monthly lunches with Roy Millender, a retired economics and business professor. “Westmont expanded my perspective and worldview,” he says. “The professors challenged me to grow as a person and think more broadly. They helped me become who I am today.”