ITSM Process Manager Craig Bennion retires after 44 years

If you’ve taken an ITIL Foundations course through the University of Utah in the past 20 years, chances are Craig Bennion taught it.

The IT Service Management (ITSM) process manager, who retired on June 30, 2025, after serving the U for 44 years, led his first Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) class in 2005. ITIL is a systematic framework of best practices designed to help IT organizations manage risk, strengthen customer relationships, and build an IT environment geared for growth, scale, and change.

An accredited ITIL Master, the highest ITIL 4 Foundations certification, Bennion spearheaded ITIL implementation at the U, particularly around help desk operations, and incident, problem, change, and service level management.

“Craig leaves an awesome legacy,” Phil Kimball, associate director for Service Management in the Chief Technology Officer organization, said during a retirement reception in Bennion’s honor on June 26, 2025, at 102 Tower and online. “He’s very collaborative when troubleshooting, problem-solving, or making recommendations on change in a way that’s reflective of strategy. … A lot of the process work we do in UIT is thanks to Craig’s steady leadership over the years.”

In 1981, Bennion started as a part-time student consultant in the Computer Center, where he taught students, faculty, and staff how to use the Univac 1100 mainframe.

“When I first took chemistry classes on campus, we spent the first few weeks learning how to use a slide rule,” Bennion said. “A lot of homework problems that would take three and four and five hours to do by hand, when programmed into a computer, could be solved in half a second. That’s what really got me into computers.”

In 1986, he was hired full time to manage the Campus IT Help Desk and five student computer labs.

During his career, Bennion chaired the IT Professionals (IT Pros) Forum, contributed to six core ITIL 4 books, and coauthored two papers for EDUCAUSE on change management. Bennion is past president of the Intermountain ITSMfUSA Interest Group and has presented on ITIL change management at the UETN Tech Summit and Westnet Education and Research Consortium (WERC).

An avid traveler, Bennion has walked on the Great Wall of China, driven through Russia from Leningrad (St. Petersburg) to the border of Hungary, traveled through Sweden while researching the genealogy of his wife, Sheree, (fun fact: he also speaks Swedish), journeyed through Alaska and Kenya (photo of a lion Bennion took while on safari), and is planning a trip to Turkey.

“Craig has had some amazing opportunities to travel that made us all jealous,” Kimball said. “The photos he returns with, well, he could be a photographer for National Geographic.”

In retirement, Bennion looks forward to spending time with family, more adventures, and honing his photography skills. In addition to travel and photography, Bennion enjoys hiking, biking, camping, singing (in 2014, he sang at Carnegie Hall in New York City as part of the choral group Utah Voices), scuba diving, and astronomy.

Please join us in wishing Bennion a happy, well-deserved retirement.

 

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