Jonathan Piersol is the Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Howard University, where he directs the planning, development and implementation of innovative technologies and leads the Enterprise Technology Services (ETS) organization. He provides leadership for information technology efforts through portfolio & systems management, resource acquisition, new technology evaluation and user consultation. He is also responsible for developing and successfully executing the IT strategic plan, a comprehensive roadmap for delivering ubiquitous technology services and core applications that support the university’s administrative, research, and academic goals and furthers Howard’s mission of building an interactive, student and research centered institution committed to excellence in teaching and learning. Mr. Piersol has more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry, rising through the managerial ranks at privately held and publicly traded companies. Prior to coming to Howard University, he was the vice president and chief information officer at The Thurston Group LLC, a privately-held, minority owned, government contractor specializing in cloud infrastructure, networking and telecommunications technologies. He provided leadership and vision for developing and implementing information technology initiatives that aligned with the missions of government agencies and commercial clients. He has over 15 years of executive leadership experience in large private and public research universities. Mr. Piersol was the executive director & deputy CIO for enterprise technical infrastructure (ETI), a 75 person engineering organization that supported over 1,000 servers and 2 mainframes and operated 2 data centers at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also held several executive leadership positions at the George Washington University, Lucent Technologies Inc., and TeleSpectrum Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: TLSP). Over the course of his career, he has implemented countless technology systems, deployed several national scale networks, constructed and operated multiple data centers, supported large university campuses, and managed a global IT operation. He has been successful managing large geographically dispersed technology organizations by setting a clear vision that inspires people to deliver exceptional services and customer support. Mr. Piersol earned his bachelor of science degree in Accounting from Strayer College, a Master of Science degree in information technology from The George Washington University, and an executive MBA from Georgetown University. Jonathan is a certified project management professional (PMP) and a certified information security manager (CISM). Mr. Piersol is a native Washingtonian and a combat veteran who served honorably in the United States Marine Corps from 1986 to 1992. Less   View all posts

Mr. John "Jack" Suess is Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). As Vice President, he reports to the President and provides university leadership for information technology at UMBC and serves on the executive leadership team of the university. Mr. Suess has been an active researcher in advanced networking and was PI on UMBC's 1997 NSF grant for vBNS networking and was the PI on a 2014 NSF cyber infrastructure grant to upgrade the network to 100 Gbits. In addition he has been co-PI on a NSF grant to increase women in IT through improved access to global resources and a state grant for broadening IT skills across all majors. Mr. Suess has served, or is presently serving, on the boards of Internet2, EDUCAUSE, IMSglobal, InCommon, REN-ISAC, and the NIST National Strategy for Trusted Identity in Cyberspace He has been a thought leader and researcher in the areas of advanced networks, cybersecurity, identity management, analytics, and the technology standards for learning technologies. Less   View all posts