In August 2025, I will be inducted into the CIO Foundry Hall of Fame. The purpose of the recognition is “spotlight outstanding IT leaders who had significantly contributed to and profoundly influenced the IT discipline, the use of technology in business and the advancement of the CIO role.” It is the lifetime achievement award within the technology community. There were eight inductees this year and it is notable that two others, Brian Shield and Jim Scofield, are friends who came from the Atlanta technology community. I was the only one from higher education, and in the 30 year history of the awards program, only the 8th from higher education (out of 209 Hall of Fame inductees).
UAB published a nice congratulatory news article and hosted a small recognition event with other members of the President’s Executive Cabinet. As I reflect back on my 42 year career, it was work worth doing with people worth serving with to accomplish the mission.
There are some lyrics from the West Point Alma Mater that have always resonated with me:
And when our work is done,
Our course on earth is run,
May it be said, “Well done”
Be thou at peace.”
As I near the end of my professional career, I am at peace with the choices I made, the successes and failures that responded from those choices, and my attempts to leave the world a little bit better than I found it.
I am reminded of the President Theodore Roosevelt person in the arena quote,
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I was, for most of my life, a man in the arena. The decisions I made pushed boundaries and innovated in new ways. Some people really did not like that. I was ok with their criticism and in a couple of rare cases, personal dislike. You are not really innovating unless you have critics. You are not innovating unless you occasionally fail. I am at peace with those choices and look forward to the next generation of technology leaders making choices, being the leader in the arena, and striving to leave the world a little bit better.