Averitt honored by
Computerworld for IT leadership

Samuel F. Averitt, vice provost for information technology, chair of the North Carolina Networking Initiative (NCNI) and alumnus of the College of Engineering, has been selected as one of Computerworld magazine’s Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2004. The award was announced in a special Jan. 5 edition of Computerworld.

Samuel F. Averitt

The annual award honors 100 top IT and business executives for their exceptional technology leadership. This year’s winners will be honored at the Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference in Palm Desert, Calif., in March.

Averitt was selected by Computerworld editors from among hundreds of nominees. Award winners in past years have included IT executives from national and international organizations such as Allstate Insurance, Drexel University, Microsoft and Royal Caribbean Cruises. Suzanne Gordon, vice president of IT at SAS Institute Inc. and a member of the NC State Board of Trustees, received the award in 2003.

According to Maryfran Johnson, editor in chief of Computerworld, “Our Premier 100 IT Leaders represent an elite class of technology thought-leaders who truly practice what they preach about using IT to creatively solve business problems and enable new services.”

“I’m honored to be selected,” Averitt said, “but you can’t succeed without a great team. The award speaks volumes about NC State’s institutional leadership, campus colleagues and IT division staff.”

Averitt has worked his entire career at the university, spearheading the university’s leading status in networking since the early 1980s. Now with a fiber optic multi-gigabit backbone, the university’s data network is one of the most powerful and robust in higher education. The university is a founding member of Internet 2. Averitt’s expertise also contributed to the NCNI’s launch of the nation’s first operational GigaPoP in 1997. Under Averitt’s leadership in 2003, the NCNI joined the National LambdaRail (NLR), a new consortium of leading U.S. research universities and technology companies building a next-generation national network using optical technology.

A native of North Carolina, Averitt was an early advocate of rural high-speed Internet access. He has frequently worked with state leaders on network connectivity issues. In 1998-2000, he was also the technical lead for the collaborative project that standardized and upgraded the data networks of all 16 UNC universities.

Posted January 7, 2004

Return to the Bulletin homepage