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NEWS RELEASE

10-03-03

Contacts:
Labh Hira, College of Business, (515) 294-2422
Ben Allen, Provost, (515) 294-0070
John McCarroll, University Relations, (515) 294-6136

CANDIDATES FOR NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY POSITION TO VISIT ISU CAMPUS IN OCTOBER

AMES, Iowa -- Four candidates for the new Iowa State University position of chief information officer will visit campus in October.

Coming to campus will be J.L. Albert, assistant vice president, computing and information services, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater; William Crowell, former vice president, chief information officer-North America, Teva Pharmaceuticals, North Wales, Penn.; John Dickson, director, Division of Computer System Services, Center for Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, Md.; and Walter Weir, chief information officer and director of computing services network, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

The chief information officer will oversee information technology services, special projects and new initiatives for the university. The leadership position is expected to result in more efficient coordination among the university's technology units, some long-term cost savings and increased alignment of information technology services and infrastructure with the strategic goals of Iowa State.

"We look forward to visiting with these candidates, all of whom bring impressive credentials in the field of information technology. I greatly appreciate the work of our search committee in identifying such talented individuals for the new position of Chief Information Officer," said Labh Hira, search committee chair and dean of the College of Business.

The candidates will present a public talk on "A Vision for Computing and Information Technologies and a View on Diversity at an Academic Institution" from 3 to 4:30 in the Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium in Howe Hall on the first day of their visits. Dickson will be on campus Oct 8-9, Weir on Oct. 13-14, Crowell on Oct. 20-21 and Albert on Oct. 30-31.

Following is additional information on the candidates.

Albert has been with Oklahoma State since 1990, serving as assistant vice president since 1999. He also has served as director of computing and information services (1993-1999) and director of the University Computer Center (1990-1993). He held various other positions at companies in Oklahoma and New York. He received a B.S. in agriculture in 1969 and a Master of Science in natural resource management with an emphasis in applied statistics in 1973, both from Oklahoma State.

Crowell was with Teva Pharmaceuticals and from1995 to 2002, he was staff vice president/chief information officer at Meredith Corporation, Des Moines. He also held various positions at companies in Florida and on the East Coast. He received a B.S. in 1971 from the University of Richmond, Va., and an M.B.A. in 1973 from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Dickson has been with the National Institutes of Health since 1979, serving as director of the Division of Computer System Services in the Center for Information Technologies since 2000. He also served as the associate director from 1999 to 2000, and has held several other computing-related positions at the Institutes. From 1973 to 1979 he was a postdoctoral fellow and then a research associate in the Department of Neurophysiology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He received a B.A. in physics from Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., in 1966, and a Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1973.

Weir has been chief information officer at Nebraska since 1998. He joined the university in 1995 as assistant vice president for business and finance and director of the computing services network, a position he continues to hold. He also held information technology-related positions at Fordham University (1986-1995) and was associate professor of computer science at the U. S. Military Academy at Westpoint (1982-1986). He received a B.S. in economics from the University of Nebraska in 1972 and an M.B.A. in business/computer science from the Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, in 1979.

More information on the candidates is available online at http://www.provost.iastate.edu/positions/cio.html.

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