Biography

Chris Wessells is Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer at the University of San Diego. Since March of 2006, Mr. Wessells has been leading significant transformation of all forms of technology at USD, including networking, telecommunications, academic and instructional technology as well as ERP/Administrative Systems. He oversees a staff of 90 IT professionals at the University of San Diego. Mr. Wessells has also served as USD'™s Interim University Librarian in 2010.

Before assuming his current position at USD, he was Interim Vice Provost of Information Services and Interim Dean of Libraries at the University of Rhode Island. Prior to that, he was Information Technology Director at the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education. Early in his career Chris Wessells was worked for Bank of America as a Systems Engineer and at various engineering companies.

Colleagues have described him as a product of academia: born at Yale University, raised at Stanford University, and educated at the University of California, Davis (BS 1982) and Montana State University (MS 1984). He characterizes his professional experience in terms of two careers. The first was a more traditional programming and systems engineering work in private industry and in academia. His second career as a university visionary and leader of information technologies began in the late nineties.

Mr. Wessells served on the Higher Education CIO Advisory Board for AT&T Mobility; he serves on the Advisory Board for Aruba Networks; and assists in advising and marketing efforts at Ellucian. He received the 2009 San Diego Information Technology Executive of the Year Award sponsored by Cox Communications and the San Diego Business Journal. He has served on regional and state boards (including OSHEAN, Ocean State Higher education, Economic development, and Administrative Network in Southern New England); he has been an EDUCAUSE member since 1996.