Announcements and Introduction

Walter T. Conway, Jr.

Over the past ten years, The Treasury Institute for Higher Education has committed resources to promote education in PCI DSS compliance and best practices throughout the industry.  This includes facilitating well attended workshops annually, managing an industry PCI-DSS blog and being a strong voice on industry councils.  As most of you know, the Institute lost a friend and colleague with the passing of Walt Conway who put a tremendous amount of time into this effort.

Going forward, the Institute will continue its commitment to PCI DSS education.  We have asked three individuals, Ron King, Pete Campbell and Gene Willacker to lead our efforts in this important area.

• Ron will be responsible for overall coordination and co-moderation for the 2014 workshop, including chairing the Program Committee.
• Pete will co-chair the 2014 workshop Program Committee and co-moderate the workshop and serve as a representative of the Institute and NACUBO on the PCI Council.
• Gene will oversee the Institute's PCI Blog.

First and foremost we thank Ron, Pete and Gene for their continuing the Institute's PCI work and growing the presence developed by Walt.  Most importantly, we are excited that the Institute's PCI blog is back online and we will begin planning the 2014 PCI DSS workshop.  Expect the program committee to be reaching out to the higher education PCI community in the near future to solicit presenters and topic ideas as it prepares the 2014 agenda.

By way of introduction...

Gene Willacker is the PCI Compliance Officer for Michigan State University (MSU). This position was created in 2011 in order to improve information security and to minimize institutional risk by strengthening the university's PCI compliance efforts for its nearly 450 merchant operations. At MSU, PCI compliance is a Treasury function under the Office of the Controller, supporting the university through the MSU Cashier's Office.

Gene has been working in several areas of the information technology field since 1990, focusing on IT security since 2002. Prior to joining the Controller's Office, he was the Information Security Administrator for MSU's Division of Residential and Hospitality Services (RHS), a 5,000-employee business unit operating in every area of the MSU campus. While there, Gene developed PCI compliance strategies for the division and managed its network security operations. Gene is certified by the PCI Security Standards Council as a PCI Professional and as a PCI Internal Security Assessor (ISA).

Gene's philosophy is that information security and PCI compliance need to be approached with the understanding that they must be an everyday part of business as usual. They are not simply information technology initiatives or checkbox audits, but the end result of business and technology working together to minimize institutional risk.

Please join us in welcoming Gene to our PCI blog.


And remember to save the date for the 2014 PCI DSS workshop:

Monday, April 28th  through Wednesday, April 30th

The Palmer House

Chicago, Illinois, US

Dennis W. Reedy

Jon K. Speare

Executive Directors

Treasury Institute for Higher Education