As many of you know by now, our web manager in Marketing and Communications, Ryan Bentz, had to leave us. Sorry I’m a bit late in formal notification via this blog. Those of you who had the opportunity to work with Ryan and see his work know he was a very skilled developer, great communicator and a flat out excellent person to work with. He did a great job for us, helped us make great progress and he’ll be missed. While Ryan liked his job here and embraced our Eagle spirit, personal reasons forced his move back to Seattle where he’s found a new position doing none other than managing a website for an international company.

The good news here is that we have a solid, three-part plan for moving forward. (1) Thanks to Dr. Arevalo and our University leadership, we were granted the ability to replace Ryan. The application period closes this Friday (10/24) and we hope to start interviews late next week. (2) Again, thanks to recognition of the importance of this project, we were granted the ability to contract with Ryan to complete the site map and important pieces of programming work for the new site. (3) We are continuing our partnership with Desautel Hege Communications. They will act as an extention of our staff in conducting meetings with departments and colleges across the University to discuss the proposed site map (more on this in my next entry).

So, while Ryan will be missed, it is onward and upward with the redesign.