CIO/Vice Chancellor Rich Whitney retires

Bill Spindle, vice chancellor for Administrative Services, announced on Thursday the retirement of Rich Whitney, UAA's chief information officer and associate vice chancellor for information technology.

Rich joined the UAA family in 1999 and has spent the last 12 years overseeing the university's telecommunications, network infrastructure and academic technology support services.

Soon after his arrival, Rich reorganized five computer services departments across the university into what is today's IT Services Department, which provides more than 45 services throughout UAA and the UA system. Rich and his team built a unified communications strategy that has enabled the university to be a responsible early-adopter of VoIP technology and a leader in network and communications technology within the UA system.

During his tenure, Rich also collaboratively worked to improve technology services between Anchorage and our community campuses; guided UAA's electronic teaching initiative in early adoption of Blackboard and Elluminate Live!; developed UAA's smart classroom initiative; guided UAA's enterprise directory technology in becoming the model for the UA System's Unified Directory, providing a single identity for all University of Alaska students, faculty and staff; and built UAA's IT governance model, aligning UAA's strategic plans with IT investments, among many other achievements.

Thanks to Rich's many years of hard work and dedication, UAA's IT Services Department has built a reputation for hard work, strong work ethic and service to others.

Rich will officially retire on Sept. 28. Please join Bill and the university in wishing Rich well in his upcoming retirement.