David Blezard

David Blezard has had a 28-year career in higher education IT. David is currently the Senior Director of Enterprise IT Systems for the University System of New Hampshire, overseeing business applications teams and infrastructure services supporting the USNH schools across New Hampshire. His teams install, develop, and manage a wide range of applications ranging from HR, Finance, and Student ERP tools to department-specific software. He also continues to maintain connections back to his academic technology roots with involvement in the planning and operation of the learning management system, web conferencing, and media technologies used for teaching and learning across USNH.

David’s involvement with NERCOMP began with his first role, running the campus computer labs. He contributed his first presentation at the 2001 conference. He has now presented at more than a dozen annual conferences, at many more workshops, and has been part of the professional development organizing since 2013. In 2021, David was asked to fill in a vacant seat on the NERCOMP board where he has worked on the vendor licensing, professional development, and community relations committees. He has contributed to the broader IT community by presenting at many conferences including SIGUCCS, EDUCAUSE, All Day DevOps, and DevOps Enterprise Summit. David also has experience as a faculty member, having taught network and system administration courses as an adjunct instructor for the UNH Computer Science department for 17 years.

David has experience in a range of volunteer roles and community involvement. He has served as a member of the Internet2 NET+ advisory board for Zoom for two years and has been a board member with the Seacoast Chapter of NH Audubon since 2003 serving in various roles including president and treasurer. He also acts as a volunteer naturalist of for the Seacoast Science Center of Rye, NH in their annual BioBlitz! event.

 

Michael Cato (Moderator)

Michael leads Bowdoin College's Information Technology strategy and operations through the Information and Technology department and has spent well over 20 years in Higher Education IT. He is active in a number of professional organizations such as CAUDIT, EDUCAUSE, and NERCOMP, and the Next Leaders Fellowship, with an emphasis on leadership development, inclusive leadership, and the array of issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion. He is the 2022 Technology Executive of the Year – Education award winner from the IT Senior Management Forum (ITSMF), and the 2021 recipient of the EDUCAUSE DEI Leadership Award.

Michael holds a B.S. in Zoology from Andrews University and an M.B.A. from Wake Forest University. He loves to learn, read, eat, occasionally cook, and starts most days being humbled by CrossFit. Michael is raising an awesome son with his partner and wife Heather.

 

Daren Hubbard

As the chief strategist and operational leader of the Office of Information Technology, Daren Hubbard is responsible for providing strategic leadership to identify, develop and implement the University’s information systems, services and technical infrastructure.

Prior to joining Princeton in January 2024, he was vice president of information technology and chief information officer at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He had previously served as CIO and associate vice president at Wayne State University and has more than 25 years of experience in leadership and higher education. He is an active member of several higher education technology advisory groups.

Hubbard holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan and a Master of Library Science and Master of Business Administration, both from Wayne State University.

 

Pennie Turgeon

Pennie Turgeon, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer/Chief Information Security Officer, assumed her role at the New York Institute of Technology in October 2019. She is responsible for ensuring that the university’s information technology (IT) resources are aligned with the strategic priorities of the institution, and that IT services are secure, reliable, easy to use, and cost efficient. To accomplish this task, she works with students, faculty, staff, and trustees to provide leadership, direction, and overall coordination of all aspects of IT. This includes administrative and academic information systems, academic technology support, high-performance computing, media services, technology-enhanced classrooms, videoconferencing and web streaming, web applications development, computing labs, help desk services, networks, systems, telecommunications, data management/analytics, and security/privacy policies. She also coordinates requests for the procurement of enterprise IT services and resources and is responsible for the management of vendor and partner relationships.

From 2006–2019, Pennie was the Vice President for IT and CIO at Clark University as well as the University’s Chief Information Security/Privacy Officer. Prior to that, she was at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for 15 years where she built and cultivated technology-mediated learning environments as the Director of Academic Technology and Distance Learning. She also held positions at Texas Instruments as a systems developer and at IBM as a marketing sales assistant. Pennie served on the NERCOMP Board of Trustees from 2005–2013, serving as the Treasurer from 2007–2009. She continues to be involved with NERCOMP by serving on the Board’s finance committee. Pennie holds a B.S. from Worcester State University and an M.B.A. with a concentration in Management Information Systems from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.