Don Welch is the Chief Information Security Officer for Penn State. He is also an Affiliate Professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology as well as the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Previous to Penn State, he was the CISO for the University of Michigan including all campuses and the Health System. He was a member the Michigan Governor’s Cyber Security Advisory Council and was a co-author of Michigan’s Cyber Security Strategic Plan.
He was the CEO of Merit Network from 2006 to 2014. He received numerous awards to include being named a Champion of Change by the White House, Top CEO for Michigan, and Leader and Innovator of the Year. He has served on two non-profit boards, and as chair of the research and education network association. He has held leadership roles in many committees, conferences and advisory councils for education, technology and information security.
Don served as the CTO at H-E-B, a $12B retail/distribution/manufacturing company that operates in Texas and Mexico. Before starting his civilian career he served in the U. S. Army, retiring as a Colonel and earning the Legion of Merit. His last position was CIO and Professor of Computer Science at West Point. Some of his other Army assignments, include tours of duty with the Army’s counterterrorist unit Delta Force, and service as the senior human resources manager for the Army’s uniformed information technology workforce. At the start of his Army career he commanded two light infantry companies and three infantry platoons.
He has a BS from West Point, MS in Computer Science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. He also earned paratrooper wings and the U.S. Army Ranger Tab.
Retired Colonel Prof. (Dr.) Don Welch, the Chief Information Security Officer, and Acting CIO and VP for Penn State,...
