- Overview
- Speakers
How to Become a NERCOMP Board Member
Where: Virtual
When: Friday, December 11, 2020
2:00pm - 2:30pm
Note: Login instructions will be sent prior to the event. If you have not received login instructions by 4:00pm the day before the session, please check your spam folder, if you still have not received the login details please email nercomp@nercomp.org.
Workshop Organizers: NERCOMP Governance and Nominating Committee
Event Overview
Have you thought about becoming a NERCOMP board member?
Interested in nominating someone or simply just want to learn more about NERCOMP Governance?
Join members of the Board and Nominating Committee for this informational webinar as we review the nomination and election process.
Kevin Brassard
Kevin is the Interim Deputy Chief Information and Security Officer at Central Connecticut State University. In this role, Kevin is responsible for various special projects, as well as the information security posture of the university. Kevin has assumed a leadership role in the COVID contact tracing efforts for the university, teaming up with the campus’ Medical Director, coordinating a contact center staff of over 20, and providing analytics for the management team.
Prior to his time at Central, Kevin was the Chief Information Officer at Nichols College from 2005-2020. In addition to his responsibilities as CIO, Kevin assumed management responsibilities for the Division of Graduate and Professional Studies at Nichols from February, 2012 through June, 2013. In this transitional role, Kevin was tasked with reorganizing and sharpening the organizational structure, integrating academic oversight with the day division, and increasing enrollment.
Kevin finds the most interest in working on opportunities to enhance the living and learning environment at Nichols. As such, Kevin actively engages with faculty and students on a regular basis. Although not an academic by trade, Kevin has not been a stranger in the classroom. He is a frequent guest lecturer on topics such as information security and systems strategies. Kevin has also taught classes on project management and information technology strategies.
Kevin is completing his first term as an elected member of the NERCOMP Board. Prior to that Kevin served as an appointed member of the NERCOMP Board of Trustees for two years. In his tenure on the Board, Kevin has become an active and engaged member of both the Vendor and Licensing and the Professional Development Committees. Kevin was also part of the team that spearheaded the replacement and upgrade of the NERCOMP website and its integrated association management system.
Kevin served as the chair of the committee for the NERCOMP annual conference in March, 2017, and before that served as the vice-chair of the annual conference committee in March, 2016. Kevin served as a member of the conference committee the previous three years; with the last two of those years serving as a track chair. In the area of professional development, Kevin has facilitated a PDO day on the topic of document management and workflow technologies.
Prior to Nichols College, Kevin was the Regional Information Technology Director for GKN Sinter Metals in Worcester, MA; overseeing manufacturing technology operations at six plants in Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Kevin has over 30 years of experience in information technology, spanning industries such as high tech manufacturing, managed health care, and automotive parts manufacturing. During his professional career, Kevin has served as the Chairman and Treasurer of the MFG/PRO New England User’s Group, and was a member of the Oracle Automotive Customer Advisory Board.
Kevin has an M.S. degree in Computer Information Systems from Bentley University and a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Western New England University.
George Claffey
George Claffey has been involved in technology and technology education for the past 20 years. Dr. Claffey has serves as a Chief Information Officer at Central Connecticut State University and has held CIO roles at various public higher education institutions including, Charter Oak State College, Western Connecticut State University, and the CT Distance Learning Consortium. As the Chief Information Officer, he provides technology vision and leadership for developing and implementing IT initiatives that create and maintain strategic value for the enterprise and the deployment and adoption of emerging technology solutions to meet evolving academic and administrative goals of education institutions. He earned degrees from Central Connecticut State University in Management Information Systems (B.S.), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Management (M.S.), and a Doctorate from Northeastern University in Higher Education Administration (Ed.D.)
Pennie Turgeon
Pennie Turgeon, Vice President for Information Technology and CIO, 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.
Karen Warren
Karen is in her ninth year at Wesleyan University where she assumed the role of Deputy CIO in Nov 2016. Karen has oversight for the user services, technical services, and academic technology teams. Combined, they provide the foundational support for all other IT operations in the University, develops strategic input regarding systems and infrastructure, and provide support for teaching and learning through the use of technology.
Karen is currently chair of NERCOMP's Board (2016-2017) and served as NERCOMP Annual Conference chair in 2016. She has presented on numerous topics at the NERCOMP Annual Conference and other professional workshops. Karen is active in campus life and committed to crossing functional and departmental lines to bring solutions to the Wesleyan community. She served on the University's re-accreditation team in 2012. Karen also participates in events from the National Center for Women in Technology and the local Society for Information Management.
Selected projects include core network refresh, enterprise WLAN upgrade, ServiceNow implementation, and migration to Office 365.
Prior to coming to Wesleyan, Karen spent 15 years at the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, CT where she was IT Director for 10 of those years. Karen focused much time on the importance of broadband access in K-12 education, forging a strong and lasting relationship with Connecticut Education Network. Having spoken at numerous conferences on the topic, Karen was invited to participate on a panel at the FCC on the importance of ERate to broadband in schools.