UIT All-Hands Meeting, Kevin Taylor Award recap

UIT employees gathered online and at 102 Tower on September 15, 2026, for the organization’s All-Hands Meeting, hosted by interim Chief Information Officer Jake Johansen. Presentation slides, which include new hires and recent retirees, is available in Box (login required).

Johansen used most of his time to walk through the University of Utah’s ongoing modernization efforts, a topic he said will inevitably impact UIT. He explained that the university is in the middle of a broader push — driven by enrollment pressures, funding shifts, and rapid technology change — to consolidate administrative functions like finance, HR, and IT across campus.

Consulting firm McKinsey & Company is currently evaluating IT services campuswide to figure out what should stay centralized in UIT and what makes more sense left with individual colleges and departments. Johansen was careful to note that phase two of the U’s coordinated services effort is still in the discovery stage, and that most day-to-day work won’t change overnight.

Johansen addressed the return-to-office conversation, saying, “this is a return to office discussion, not a return to work,” noting that UIT leadership recognizes how productively UIT employees have worked since the shift to hybrid schedules began in 2020. He thanked employees for their thoughtful responses to a recent survey on work location strategy, saying the feedback was "constructive and helpful.” He said UIT is still weighing space and parking constraints against employee well-being and team collaboration, and he will communicate more as those plans take shape. He also reminded staff that new employees hired after July 1 will see a change to retirement benefit contributions, a move to standardize the structure across campus and University of Utah Health.

Unit leaders followed with updates from the past year. Chief Technology Officer Jim Livingston highlighted network modernization work and continued progress on disaster recovery, such as backing up IT systems in the cloud.

Dean Keyek-Franssen, director for the UIT’s new University Technology Partnerships & Integration unit, welcomed 20 staff members who recently joined UIT from the Colleges of Humanities, Science, and Social and Behavioral Science.

Chief Financial Officer Lisa Kuhn reported new funding for cybersecurity and AI initiatives, along with an expansion of the UIT warehouse. Interim Chief Information Security Officer Trevor Long announced that a long-planned default-deny firewall rule is now in place universitywide. UIT Project Management Office Director John Penrose reviewed major projects underway, including new IT infrastructure for several campus buildings, and recognized longtime project manager Earl Lewis, who is retiring in December. University Support Services (USS) Senior Director Jason Moeller shared that his team is on pace to field more than 10,000 service tickets this year — a new record.

The meeting closed with the presentation of the Kevin Taylor Memorial Service Award, now in its 11th year. The award honors employees who reflect the spirit of Kevin Taylor, weighing his legacy of humility and open-minded listening and a nominee’s service excellence. Taylor had been UIT’s director for policy and planning for a decade before his death in 2014.

This year’s committee received seven nominations, including Abbey Allen, Ivan Mayorquin Cabello, Barb Iannucci, Ray Lacanienta, Josh Leigh, Ryan Millward, and Charles Wilcox. Slides of the award presentation are available in Box (login required).

The 2026 award went to Iannucci, director for Digital Experience & Customer Relationship Management in USS. Iannucci received a $500 honorarium and plaque.

Her nominator wrote that Iannucci's leadership “is rooted in trust,” noting that “she doesn’t need to be the loudest voice in the room or the person making every decision” because she “trusts the knowledge and expertise of the people around her.”

Congratulations to Iannucci and to all of this year's nominees.

 

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