UIT All-Hands Meeting and Kevin Taylor Award recap

Chief Information Officer Steve Hess, who will retire in 2026, kicked off the last UIT All-Hands Meeting of his storied career with words of appreciation.

“We have a good team. I’m very pleased with how everybody’s taking to their jobs, the direction we’re moving in, and the things we’re able to accomplish,” Hess said.

The meeting, hosted online and attended by more than 260 UIT employees, presented Hess an opportunity to share organizational updates and inform UIT employees about achievements over the previous year and the strategic direction of the organization and university at large. Campus-wide goals set by University President Taylor Randall in his Impact 2030 initiative include expanding enrollment to 40,000 students, achieving an 80% graduation rate, and acquiring $1 billion in research funding.

In partnership with UIT, Hess said the university is exploring significant changes in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, potentially moving away from PeopleSoft, a software platform by Oracle that supports the U’s HR, benefits, and payroll processing systems. He also noted UIT continues to improve operational and fiscal efficiencies, notably, via campus-wide software agreements that benefit the entire U community.

“We have long-term relationships with several key vendors, and as a result, we get much, much better pricing,” Hess said.

Hess gave an overview of a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, which he said broadly identifies “our strengths and weaknesses as an organization and what opportunities and threats exist.”

“We do this to make sure that we stay relevant, both internally and externally, keeping an eye to the future,” Hess said. “You see many companies that fail over a period of time because they don’t consider these factors,” adding, “in order to be strategically relevant, you need to know where you stand analytically.”

Notable metrics maintained by UIT include network availability, service agreement and project completion rates, and cybersecurity compliance, with Hess observing that UIT has President Randall’s full support to ensure colleges and departments comply with information security policies and cybersecurity tool implementations.

Hess took a moment to thank Ken Pink, who has served as his deputy chief information officer since 2015 and will “go to the happy land of retirement” on October 31, 2025.

“He’s just been outstanding. I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful he’s been to work with and what he’s been able to accomplish in his 10 years here,” Hess said, before giving a preview of DCIO organizational changes to come. Pink, in turn, said he was “sad to be leaving” but thanked Hess “for the nice send off.”

“I’ve appreciated working with this whole team, and I’ve appreciated Steve’s leadership,” Pink said. “It’s been a really good place to work.”

The meeting concluded with the presentation of the 2025-2026 Kevin Taylor Memorial Service Award. The award, in its 11th year, was established in 2014 to recognize superior service and ongoing contributions by UIT employees. It’s given annually to the UIT staff member who best demonstrates the collaborative spirit and customer service orientation of the late Kevin Taylor (b. 1950, d. 2014), former director for UIT Policy and Planning.

This year, the award committee received three nomination letters, all for the same person. The winner, celebrated in his letters as being solution-oriented and possessing a “calm, collaborative demeanor that uplifts those around him,” was Robert Lake, security administrator on the PeopleSoft Architecture & Security Administration team in University Support Services. Lake received a $500 honorarium represented by an oversized check, plaque, and balloons.

Access excerpts from Lake’s nomination letters on this webpage.

 

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