CRA Hires New Staff

By Stacy Cholewinski

CRA is growing further to meet the needs of the computing research community. We are pleased to announce that we have recently hired two new staff members. Our Washington office now consists of seven fulltime staff.

Jay Vegso is serving as our Member Services Associate. This is a brand new position in our organization -- one that we believe will focus greater attention on the needs of our members. Jay's responsibilities will include the coordination of our workshops and meetings aimed at educating the community on issues and topics of concern. Jay will be managing CRA member data resources and he will also be the primary contact for member questions and relations. He can be reached at jvegso@cra.org and at 202-234-2111, extension 109.

Jay most recently was studying toward his Ph.D. in Medieval History at Cornell University. Prior to this, he received his Masters in Medieval History from Cambridge University and a Masters in Library Sciences from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his undergraduate degree in History from Catholic University of America.

He believes that he will be able to blend his experience in the workings and concerns of higher education with his dedication to service in an effort to advance the cohesiveness of the computing research community.

Jay will be working closely with the membership committee to determine more ways in which CRA can better, more effectively serve the community. They will be targeting special projects for membership drives and will be creating new programs for membership recognition.

Dana Neill is CRA's new Business Manager. This is also a new position. Dana is taking over in part for Kimberly Peaks, former Director of Administration, who left the organization this past summer. Kimberly joined CRA back in February 1990, and was witness to and contributed in many parts to the establishment of CRA as the influential organization it is today. Her experience and dedication will be missed. We thank her for her many years of service and wish her and her family well.

Dana Neill's role within CRA will be primary responsibility for handling all of CRA accounts. She will be working closely with the Treasurer, Jim Foley. She will also be administering the biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird in Utah, as well as other. Dana will handle all vendor contracts as well as payables and receivables and all inquiries of this nature should be directed to dneill@cra.org or 202-234-2111, extension 102.

Dana comes to CRA from United Rental at which she was the office manager with similar accounting duties as she now has at CRA. She received her education in part from George Mason University where she studied Early Childhood Education.

Dana is very excited to be working in the dynamic field of computing research and has enjoyed the dialogue and relations she has had thus far with the community.