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Cloud Superhero Spotlight
Editor’s Note: This conversation continues our series of interviews spotlighting the wonderful contributions that research and higher ed community members make to the NET+ Program.
Be on the lookout for additional interviews throughout the year, and email Apryl Motley if there’s a Cloud Superhero you would like us to spotlight in the future. We’re grateful for all our volunteers and appreciate all they do to move our work forward.
— Sean O’Brien – Associate Vice President, NET+, Internet2
Remarkable, dedicated, extraordinary, and collaborative are just a few of the responses colleagues readily offer when asked about Jack Suess, vice president of information technology and chief information officer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). The list of Jack’s accolades and contributions to the research and higher education (R&E) community is long and noteworthy.
But what’s most important to him? During a career at UMBC that spans four decades, he’s put the community first in all his endeavors. “I feel some of my greatest contributions in my career have been in working to advance community activities,” Jack said. “At the same time, those activities greatly benefited my institution because of the relationships and ideas that were gained.”
Those activities have included co-chairing the EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Security Task Force, chairing the REN-ISAC Advisory Group, chairing the InCommon Steering Committee, serving on both the Internet2 and EDUCAUSE boards, and serving on both the NET+ and Community Engagement professional advisory groups. In 2020, Jack received the EDUCAUSE Leadership Award in recognition of his enduring impact on the higher education IT community. He was also recognized with the inaugural Internet2 Presidential Leadership Award in 2011.
At this year’s Higher Education Cloud Forum in New York, Internet2 will honor him again as he receives the NET+ Cloud Superhero Award, established in 2022 to recognize community members who possess cloud superpowers and share them with the R&E community. “Receiving this award is special because the community is very passionate about what they are doing to benefit higher education,” Jack said. “I am thrilled to accept this award because I’ve been involved in the community since the very beginning.”
More Insights from Jack
Best Advice about the cloud he ever received (& from whom): The best advice was from Ken Klingenstein back in 2004; his advice was to always think beyond the institution. This was why InCommon was being created, and Ken foresaw decentralized services accessible via the web with common authentication. That wasn’t truly cloud, but within a few years, it created the environment for SaaS solutions to thrive in higher education and the fabric for the cloud computing we see today.
The greatest challenge facing R&E in implementing cloud services: We have to do a better job of justifying the return on investment for the cloud. All too often, we only focus on the cost of infrastructure on the premise versus in the cloud. There are productivity and security implications that we are missing in the simple calculation. For example, implementing zero-trust solutions is very hard without using the cloud effectively.
The importance of having an active and vibrant cloud community in R&E: Referring back to Ken Klingenstein, he always talked about the importance of planting seed corn, because 20 years from now the leaders in cloud will be those just getting started in cloud today. In my lifetime, there has not been a period where higher education was ever under the types of pressures we are seeing today, especially at our best institutions. I believe this period of disruption will lead to more adoption of cloud services, but in a way that allows us to more readily and significantly reduce technical debt.
Cultivating Career and Community
Indeed, he has. Community involvement and professional development have gone hand and hand as Jack progressed in his career from being a student worker in the computer center at UMBC to leading the entire IT division. Specifically, Internet2 and NET+ have been instrumental in helping him in his current role.
“In 2000, I got UMBC involved in the Internet2 Middleware initiative,” Jack recalled. “That work connected UMBC and me with incredible peers throughout the country. Through those relationships, I got a chance to be a part of a number of different community efforts.”
“These groups and relationships help you learn about all the great activities and efforts occurring in higher education,” he continued. “For me, as a leader, this was incredibly important for facilitating UMBC’s IT planning.”
He especially valued being able to call cloud community colleagues and benefit from their expertise and experience. “This ability to extend your professional network and have connections with people at other institutions is incredibly powerful when members of your team come to you with questions or problems,” Jack observed. “It’s been essential to moving forward with technology projects and avoiding roadblocks. Being part of a community is sometimes getting help and other times providing help, and generally being there to support each other.”
Learning Along the Way
Based on Jack’s personal and professional experience, this culture within the R&E cloud community of giving and getting support when you need it is at the very heart of higher ed’s mission and purpose.
“As a first generation college student, higher education changed the path of my life,” Jack noted. “I love how everyone at UMBC is focused on our mission of delivering a great education for our students and supporting the work of our faculty, who are amazing.”
“Getting to help researchers seeking to change the world in a small way is an incredible honor,” he continued. “I also enjoy interacting with students and helping them figure out how their academic skills can align with a career when they graduate.”
In small and large ways, leveraging cloud services effectively helps everyone in higher ed from faculty and researchers to students and staff achieve their goals. “I look at my role as someone who is surveying the community and trying to position UMBC as an institution that provides a set of technology services that support our institutional goals,” Jack observed. “The cloud plays an important part in that through both NET+ and IaaS, helping UMBC be nimble and quick in adopting new ideas that can help the institution.”
Paying It Forward
UMBC’s ability to adopt new ideas quickly, establishing the institution as an innovator, is proof positive that Jack’s community first approach to leadership works. Earlier this year, when UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby announced his forthcoming retirement, she remarked that a “combination of service and innovation is at the heart of the division that Jack has led for three decades” and thanked him for his immeasurable contributions to the community.
But not to worry! Jack isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He’s agreed to stay at the university until the search for his successor is completed. Besides, there are more challenges to conquer and more community building to accomplish.
As Jack noted, “the challenge is that the learning curve for implementing cloud services is significant. Just moving to the cloud is relatively easy; learning how to fully leverage the cloud is much harder.”
It’s important to have a vibrant cloud community in R&E so that no institution faces this challenge alone. “I encourage my entire team to get involved,” Jack said. “Before UMBC was an R1 institution, the Internet2 community welcomed me and my team, and we wouldn’t have achieved R1 status without their support.”
“I want to thank all the people who answered our questions and helped us,” he continued, “and I’m making sure my team does the same for others coming up through the ranks.”
At the same time, Jack acknowledged that taking on leadership roles was initially outside his comfort zone. “I was often reluctant to step up for leadership roles. We all have a little imposter syndrome. Am I really ready?” he explained. “I had to change my mentality and say my default answer should be “yes.” I can manage my time and learn in ways that I don’t know yet. Saying yes to opportunity when it calls is important, especially when it’s supporting our community.”
ICYMI