Greg Utecht Receives CoSN Award

Minnesota Technology Officer Greg Utecht Receives CoSN Withrow CTO Award

CTO Honored for Innovative Use of Technology

Washington, DC (March 12, 2009) - The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) today announced that Lakeville, MN, chief technology officer (CTO) Greg Utecht is the winner of its 2009 Withrow CTO Award. Utecht is the Coordinator of Technology, Information and Media Services for Lakeville Area Public Schools, and has successfully led efforts to effectively integrate technology into curricula, classrooms and schools for nearly 40 years.

"Greg is a pioneer in education technology, and we wanted to take a moment to celebrate his many achievements," said Alice Owen, Chair of CoSN's Awards Committee and Executive Director of Technology for Irving Independent School District, Irving, TX. "His career, spanning 38 years, has been committed to uncovering new and innovative ways to use technology to enrich student learning, enhance classroom instruction, and help parents, teachers and educational leaders understand the positive impact technological tools have on education."

"Teaching and learning is all about connecting students, teachers, information, and ideas. Technology's power to connect people makes it the perfect vehicle to help educate our young people, provide our teachers and staff with today's tools to nurture and expand young minds, and to make schools more accessible for parents," said Utecht. "I am humbled by this honor, and thank CoSN for recognizing me."

When Utecht began his career in Lakeville in 1997, he led the effort to network all of the district's buildings, including its nine elementary, three middle and two high schools. Under his leadership, schools have been updated with new computer labs and other student computer configurations. Computers and phones for teachers are in every classroom and learning space. He also worked tirelessly to consolidate the schools' servers and implement a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system. To ensure that technology upgrades were sustained over the long term, Utecht worked with the school board to develop a new process for allocating money for ongoing computer replacement, and with a committee of key stakeholders to create a computer purchase and redeployment plan. His work on a series of joint powers agreements with other school districts, municipalities and counties helped to interlink their fiber optic networks, which significantly helped to save the district money while increasing bandwidth to the Internet for all users in the district.

Prior to Lakeville, he joined Minnesota's Independent School District (ISD) 196 in 1976 and worked in several schools as their technology coordinator while serving as a science and math teacher. In his early days at ISD 196, he lobbied for the science department to have computer terminals and helped other teachers use the computer lab to enhance student learning. He also pressed for the integration of microcomputers in ISD 196 when they first came to market. Over the years, Utecht led and planned all-staff technology workshops, where he brought together educators from a variety of academic disciplines to teach them how to integrate technology in their instruction. He also helped to integrate technology into all courses at Eagan High School, one of the first fully wired schools in the country, serving as its Technology in Learning Coordinator beginning in 1990. For several years in the 1980's and 90's he taught graduate courses in education technology at area colleges. Several of his students became school and district level technology coordinators and directors in Minnesota. Among his many other achievements, Utecht was featured in the journal of the National Staff Development Council and presented to conferences of the National Science Teachers Association on education technology over 30 years ago. He has most recently been involved with the Minnesota Board of Teaching's efforts to revise the standards for teacher preparation and licensure in the area of technology integration.

For more information about Lakeville Area Public Schools, visit http://www.isd194.k12.mn.us/. Additional information about the CoSN awards program, including past honorees, can be found here.

Scholastic Administr@tor Magazine is CoSN's media partner for this award.

About the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)
CoSN is the premier professional association for district technology leaders. The mission of CoSN is to empower K-12 district technology leaders to use technology strategically for the improvement of teaching and learning. CoSN provides leadership, community and advocacy essential for the success of these leaders.

CoSN leadership initiatives include: Cyber Security for the Digital District (www.securedistrict.org); Data-Driven Decision-Making (www.3d2know.org); Empowering the 21st Century Superintendent (www.superintendentempower.org); Green Computing (www.cosn.org/greencomputing); IT Crisis Preparedness (www.cosn.org/ITCrisisPrep); K-12 Open Technologies (www.k12opentech.org); Small District Technology Leadership (www.cosn.org/wiki/index); Taking Total Cost of Ownership to the Classroom (www.classroomtco.org); Value of Investment (www.edtechvoi.org); and Web2.0 Policy and Leadership (http://www.cosn.org/web2_0/).

CoSN's membership is a unique blend of education and technology leaders and decision makers from the public and private sectors. Visit www.cosn.org or phone 866.267.8747 to find out more about CoSN's programs, events and resources supporting and promoting leadership development, advocacy and connections to ensure that technology is used strategically for the improvement of teaching and learning in elementary and secondary schools.