To the Bowdoin community,

Happy New Year! I am very pleased to start 2018 by announcing the appointment of Michael Cato as Bowdoin’s new senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO).

Michael comes to us from Vassar College, where he has served as vice president for computing and information services and CIO since 2013. He was the unanimous and enthusiastic choice of our search committee in a very competitive field of candidates. He comes to Bowdoin with a strong record of achievement as a collaborative and innovate leader with nearly twenty years of high-level information technology experience—at Vassar, within the University of North Carolina System, and as a consultant. You can read more about Michael and his background here on the Bowdoin website​.

I am tremendously grateful to Abbie Brown and Steve Blanc, who have served as interim co-heads of our IT division since the departure of Mitch Davis last summer. They have done outstanding work managing our very capable IT staff, advising me and other senior officers, and making sure that the high level of IT service and expertise we have come to depend on didn’t miss a beat. I know Michael looks forward to working with Abbie and Steve, and that he will benefit greatly from their insights and dedication as he takes on his new role.

I am also very grateful to our search committee— Eric Berube, Eric Chown, Tammis Donovan, Jeff Doring, Tina Finneran, Ann Kibbie, Khoa Khuong ’04, Liz McCormack, Heather Peters, Manny Reyes, Jessica Webber ’18, and Derek Yau ’19—and to several others across campus who took time during some very busy days at the end of the fall semester to meet with our candidates. The result couldn’t be better for Bowdoin.

Michael begins his new position on March 1. In the meantime, I know you join me in welcoming him, his wife, Heather Shaughnessy-Cato, and their son, Samuel, to Bowdoin.

Sincerely,

Clayton