UW-Madison names chief information officer

Bruce Maas, chief information officer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has been selected as the next information technology leader at UW–Madison, Provost Paul M. DeLuca, Jr. announced today (June 8).

Maas brings a wide-ranging background in financial and budget management, academic administrative experience, IT project management and CIO leadership.

“We had an excellent pool of candidates, but Bruce rose to the top as a result of his versatility and skill set,” says DeLuca. “He will play a vital role in shaping the future of our institution.”

In his time at UW-Milwaukee, Maas served as the campus budget manager; assistant dean for business affairs for the School of Education, the School of Social Welfare and the College of Health Sciences; and as a deputy CIO. In addition, he served as the project manager for the PeopleSoft Student Administration implementation. For the past seven years he has served as the chief information officer.

In 2007, Maas successfully completed a joint leasing agreement among Milwaukee Public Schools, Milwaukee Area Technical College and UW-Milwaukee with a major telecommunications company to provide leasing rights to 12 FCC-licensed channels in exchange for monetary compensation. The contract provided long-term funding to UW-Milwaukee for a second data center as well as staffing in support of the university’s successful research cyber-infrastructure initiative.

In addition to continuing his role as UW-Milwaukee CIO, in 2010 Maas accepted a half-time yearlong appointment at UW–Madison reporting to Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell. He led the transition team responsible for implementing a new organizational design for the service center supporting all 27 UW System institutions.

“I am grateful for this opportunity to serve this great institution and look forward to building on an excellent foundation of IT services that support the campus mission,” says Maas. “I have worked with colleagues at UW–Madison for many years and look forward to joining with them to advance the institutional goals directly. I especially am committed to the opportunity to build on the strong leadership role that UW–Madison has played in building statewide, national and international IT service consortia.”

Maas says that managing costs in a time of limited resources hinges on the ability to share commodity services, such as information technology.

“All institutions are being challenged to find ways to do the basics at less cost, so that a greater percentage of our investment can support innovations that occur within academic departments and research centers,” he adds. “I am strongly committed to that goal.”

Maas becomes just the third Madison campus CIO, succeeding Ron Kraemer, who took a similar position at Notre Dame in August, 2010. Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Joanne Berg has served as interim CIO since then.

“We thank and appreciate Joanne for her service,” DeLuca adds.

As CIO, Maas will be responsible for advancing the technology aspects of numerous important campus initiatives, including the IT strategic plan and research computing. The IT strategic plan is a campuswide effort that is addressing specific ways to advance the research, teaching and outreach mission of UW–Madison.

The CIO must be able to marshal resources both within and outside of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) to help improve IT services across campus. DoIT, with a central staff of 650, also reports to the CIO through its chief operating officer.

A 17-member search-and-screen committee, chaired by engineering physics professor Jake Blanchard, recommended the finalists to DeLuca. To select a new CIO, all five candidates participated in an extensive set of meetings and presentations.

He will begin on Aug. 1. His salary will be $230,000.

For more information about Maas, along with an archived copy of his public lecture, visit http://www.cio.wisc.edu/cio-search/