Five-Minute Feature: Matt Quinn, Veteran and Military Resource Center Manager

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Get to know the Empire State University community through this rapid-fire interview series that bridges professional accomplishments and personal interests. What makes Empire State University exceptional? The unique people behind the work. Five minutes—starting now!

What led you to your career path? 

It wasn’t a straight path, as I never knew what I wanted to do, so I started trying different things.  At Empire, I’ve had the chance to work in multiple areas.  What they’ve all had in common was opportunity to work with or serve the military community indirectly or, like now, directly in the VMRC.

What is your favorite thing about SUNY Empire? 

The cast of characters I’ve met here is one of my favorite parts of Empire.  My first mentee was a Spanish paratrooper who was always so excited to talk, and to have the opportunity to complete his degree. The 93-year-old WW2 veteran with his stories about the arctic convoys to Murmansk, and facing the typhoon that hit Hawaii while working on the movie “Waterworld.”  Empire’s own Jim McMahon, who had a story or two for every occasion.  Also, traveling to military bases throughout the country brought me to some amazing places I likely never would have seen.  

What’s one moment in your career you’re especially proud of?   

I can’t really point to one moment, but the VMRC has been hosting the transition assistance program for about a year now.  When you hear from military personnel, instructors, and presenters from all different industries that your location is the best place they’ve ever attended, it’s rewarding.

What’s the best street food or snack you’ve ever tried? 

That’s a tough one, there were some amazing food trucks doing the rounds in Irvine, CA. You couldn’t go wrong with one of those.

What’s one thing you feel is important to share this Veteran and Military Families Month?  

Honor veterans as a group, but remember they’re individuals as well.  All veterans’ experiences were different, different branches as well.  As you get to know or work with veterans, you’ll see the individuality of each. 

Behind the Scenes with Information Technology Services

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Empire State University’s success as an online university is sustained, in large part, by the work of Information Technology Services (ITS)—an office made of six internal divisions, ranging from user experience to business affairs and communications. Learn about some of the office’s responsibilities, initiatives, and objectives through the experiences of three staff members in this new segment of Behind the Scenes.  

Eric Grignon is deputy chief information officer (CIO) and assistant vice president of IT and has been at Empire State University since November 2021. Van White is a CRM architect and joined the university three years ago, though he is new to his role at ITS. Allison Bloome is the senior service desk technician, and has been at the university for two years, with the last six months being in her current position.

What does a typical workday look like for you?

Grignon: A typical workday for me has a lot of meetings. Many of these meetings are collaborating directly with ITS and SUNY Empire staff and leadership to ensure that we are working toward the priorities of the institution while continuing to maintain services that keep the university running.

One of my primary responsibilities as deputy CIO is to be involved in the executive decision process, informing leadership on the capacity and availability of IT resources and staffing. Many of my meetings involve building relationships across divisions of the university and externally with our partners, vendors, and suppliers. By building and maintaining these relationships, I can free up our IT staff to do the work that is most beneficial to the institution while I remove barriers and provide answers.

Bloome: I imagine that our workdays look vastly different from one another. For me, a typical workday involves responding to support tickets from students, faculty, and staff. We also take phone calls, live chat, and email as additional ways of reaching out. A lot of those issues range from password resets and multi-factor authentication setups to software troubleshooting—sometimes even some light hardware diagnosis and help with network issues. The Service Desk also assists with monitoring system alerts and collaboration with other ITS teams as we escalate tickets to resolve them.

White: A typical day for me involves doing support work around the CRM, which stands for customer relationship management. We think about it as student relationship management. A CRM system is a great way to take a lot of manual tasks you may do every day, whether it’s data entry or having to navigate multiple screens to find a certain piece of information … and set up processes to reduce the amount of time you spend doing mundane things, giving you the time back to build relationships with students.

So, managing data integration from our enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like Self-Service Banner, Brightspace, and others we have, such as tutoring software, and doing a lot of CRM work for Student Support and Outreach, but overall … managing the CRM strategy for the university as a whole. Looking at the Office of Admissions, the Office of Student Support and Outreach, the Office for Advancement, and saying, ‘What are the needs here? What system do we need in place to meet those needs, and how should it be programmed?’

Essentially, every CRM system is a blank slate, so when it’s adopted, the institution needs to build it out to make it work for you. A lot of my days, I have conversations like that, doing a needs analysis, testing, and then delivering a final product to an office or group of users who are looking to be more efficient.

What would you say your office’s primary goals are?

Grignon: ITS’s primary goal is to serve as a strategic partner for the institution. We do this by providing high-quality, reliable, and available technology solutions, support, and guidance to the university community. To accomplish this, we have developed our goals and tactics to ensure the work we do aligns with the strategic priorities of the institution, and reviewed our offerings and services to align with the needs of our diverse faculty, staff, and student populations. We strive to provide superior technical support, infrastructure, software, and technical solutions to meet the needs of Empire State University.

Bloome: In a very broad sense, our primary goal is to provide reliable, secure, and accessible technology that ultimately supports our academic mission for students. That includes a lot of things, which is why we have so many teams within ITS—maintaining infrastructure, cybersecurity, supporting digital learning platforms, and on my end, delivering responsive technical support to all users—not just students—which is especially important within an online university.

White: The thing I would like to add is: giving our students, staff, and faculty the confidence and empowerment to utilize the systems that we have. It’s really difficult to learn a new system … so we want users to feel empowered in their day-to-day and give them confidence to use those systems, know that they will work, and that they will help them is part of our mission as well.

What is the hardest part of your job?

Grignon: One significant difficulty in my role is working to balance the competing priorities and technical needs that are requested from ITS. Although we strive to provide the best support possible, we have limited resources that must be managed properly to ensure that the work we do is in the best interest of the institution and in furtherance of the strategic plan.

We continue to evaluate opportunities for ITS to increase operational efficiencies through process automation, defined service offerings, and continual iterative improvements. This includes our management of work in progress, as well as the intake of requests, prioritizing and triaging of issues, requests, and new technical deployments.

Bloome: The hardest part of my job is balancing a high ticket and call volume with the need to be thorough and empathetic. A lot of users … aren’t necessarily tech-savvy, so it can take a lot of patience and clear communication to guide them through the solutions that we have, especially when those issues are complex or time-sensitive.

Timeliness is oftentimes an issue when students are running up against deadlines—I think it’s important to be empathetic in that regard because a lot of times for us at the Service Desk, we are maybe one of three or four ITS people that a student will speak to in the entire time that they’re here. In a lot of ways, it’s us being one of the faces of the university for them.

White: For me, I’d say managing expectations. I’m not student-facing … I only work with staff and not too much of the faculty yet. That’ll start happening, which I’m looking forward to.

We’re used to a world where we can get things very fast … and it’s very hard for us to wait. When people request changes, or want a new process, it’s about managing those expectations for how long that’s going to take to build and what the possibilities are. I love that we dream big here when it comes to systems and what they can do, but sometimes those things aren’t possible—everything has limitations. It’s about really leaning into being solutions-focused and giving users or offices something they can use.

What considerations does ITS need to have given our status as an online university versus at a traditional, in-person campus?

Grignon: There are certainly some considerations that ITS gives in comparison to a traditional in-person campus. As we know, many of our students are taking classes while they work, raise a family, or have other priorities that are outside of their academic studies. We are aware that our students use many of our technology services outside of regular business hours. To help serve those students, we have an IT service desk that is available outside of regular working hours—Monday through Thursday, our service desk is available until 9 p.m. at night, and on Sundays we are available from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. We find that we do have a lot of support requests during these times, especially for our student population who work or have other priorities during the day.

ITS also takes into consideration the academic calendar and course deadlines when we must schedule an outage or maintenance to our systems. This is critical to ensure that we minimize disruptions in our services for faculty, staff, and students.

SUNY Empire also has a very geographically dispersed workforce, and our IT support staff are continually working on improving our ability to provide remote support to our faculty and staff, wherever they are working from.

Bloome: As a largely online university, a lot of things that we consider and prioritize include remote accessibility, platform reliability, and ultimately cybersecurity, speaking of Cybersecurity Month.

Unlike a fully physical campus, students and faculty rely entirely on the digital tools that we provide. So, downtime or access issues can cause really severe disruptions not only to teaching, but to learning. That rolls into needing to provide support for a wide range of devices, which adds complexity to troubleshooting. We recently launched our Chromebook initiative, which added another rung on the ladder of support for us.

White: When we’re evaluating new technologies … we always look at ourselves as an outlier because we don’t need a lot of traditional things that a system may have for in-person students like athletics and dorms—some systems tend to have functions or processes pre-built for things like this.

Being in our position, we always have to consider our students being non-traditional and what that looks like. It’s about how to create a system that works for us. It’s about finding that balance where we still build things that are truly meant for the SUNY Empire student, or SUNY Empire faculty … but making it scalable so that it makes sense and is very easy to support.

What do you wish people understood about the work that you do?

Grignon: IT is not some magic black box. Sometimes people think, ‘We’ll just send it to IT and they’ll handle it,’ and a lot of times we do that. Not many people outside of IT understand what it may take to develop automations or customizations including those in our Self-Service Banner student information system.

There are a lot of things that go into analyzing what has to be done—programming changes, testing the programming, testing the application… But on top of all that building and creating, there is a huge layer of keeping the lights on and supporting what we currently have—the maintenance, time and effort that go into ensuring that our services stay up to date with patching, upgrades, and monitoring all systems.

There are a lot of folks here in ITS, a lot of administrative tasks that have to be done. Believe it or not, even in IT, there is a lot of manual work—we can’t automate everything. I think everybody should spend a few days at the Service Desk and really understand what it means to answer those questions, and understand the breadth of knowledge that our Service Desk staff have.

I started with desktop support, client support, so I lived that life … we have a smallish staff that does that, but the impact to the institution is large, and I’ll never stop selling that.

Bloome: I wish more people understood that at the Service Desk, tech support isn’t just about fixing things. It’s about enabling learning and, in some cases, for faculty and staff, enabling productivity. Behind every resolved ticket is a student that gets to attend class or a professor who is now able to teach. It’s the kind of role that requires consistent learning and a lot of multitasking from us.

White: It goes back to those expectations about what is possible. For me, if I had a dream state, everybody would know how a database is structured, how that data talks to each other, and how it’s configured in a system, because that would inform folks on what is possible or not. When you have an understanding of how data is set up or structured, you have a better understanding of how it lives in a system.

I’d also say that some people look at CRM and tracking student interactions through a lens of ‘Who’s looking this up? Who wants to know about this?’ It’s less about this Big Brother feeling and more about providing centralized, holistic support to students that all faculty and staff can see in one place. If a student ever spoke to somebody here, whether it was 1Stop Student Services, the Office of Financial Aid, Student Accounts, or their student success coordinator, everyone will have this bird’s eye view of what their situation was. It prevents the student from repeating themselves.

SUNY Empire Spotlight: October 2025

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The latest news on research efforts, awards, grants, and media appearances from Empire State University faculty, staff, and leadership.    

Alan Belasen, professor, published “Clutch Leadership: Harnessing the Qualities of a Gamechanger,” with Routledge.

Luis Camacho, assistant professor andacademic coordinator of the Spanish BBA, was interviewed by Telemundo 47 about Hispanic entrepreneurship in New York and the Spanish BBA program.

Empire State University’s Spanish BBA Program was featured on Univision with an interview by SUNY Chancellor John B. King on October 18.

Gloria Kramer, assistant professor and TESOL coordinator, published “It’s Raining Fish,” a children’s book, a culturally responsive resource for educators and families focused on teaching compassion and kindness.

Mindy Kronenberg, visiting assistant professor, was featured in a poetry anthology about books and censorship, published by Moonstone Arts Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She will participate in a virtual reading on October 5.

Joseph Lawless, adjunctprofessor, was featured in WalletHub’s piece about Unsecured Credit Cards for Bad Credit.

Ian Reifowitz, SUNY distinguished professor, appeared on The New Republic’s “The Daily Blast” podcast to provide insights into recent topics surrounding President Trump including crime and the military, as well as his early life in Queens. He was interviewed on Anthony Scaramucci’s podcast, “Open Book,” regarding his recently published book, “Riling up the Base.”  

Noor Syed, assistant professor anddirector of CAARES, has been named a trustee at Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.

Liv Thygesen, bilingual disability specialist, was selected for and attended the SVA Leadership Conference in Washington D.C.

Melissa Wells, assistant professor, appeared on the EdUp Experience podcast to discuss online learning, AI practices, and more.

Huiting Qi, assistant professor, was selected for “Examining the Usability and Efficacy of GenAI Tools,” a project sponsored by the SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants (IITG) program.The project looksacross six SUNY campuses to explore how pro versions of ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude can be used to design meaningful learning experiences, and to examine their impact on teaching and learning outcomes.  

Five-Minute Feature: Kevin Bane, Lead Digital Media Specialist

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Get to know the Empire State University community through this rapid-fire interview series that bridges professional accomplishments and personal interests. What makes Empire State University exceptional? The unique people behind the work. Five minutes—starting now!

What led you to your career path?

I’ve been one of those people with a wandering career path.  I originally graduated from college with a biology degree and worked in research with a couple of organizations studying entomology (insects).  After deciding that was a little limiting, (and getting tired of the mosquito bites, bee stings, and occasional clothing infestations), I began a period of trying different jobs in different fields, from construction to physical therapy. Computers became much more prevalent at this point (’90s), and I gained an interest in the “new” technologies evolving. Then, the company I worked for (which used a very antiquated mainframe system) scrambled to put in a new, extremely user-unfriendly system for Y2K. It was so frustrating I was determined I could do better. I went back to school as an adult student and studied computer science, gaining another degree in IT. Though my first job in IT was in market research (corporate), the fact that I come from a long line of educators, and my positive experiences as an adult student, pushed me to find a position where I could support education through a non-teaching IT role. This led me to SUNY Empire 18 years ago.

What is your favorite thing about SUNY Empire?  

I find SUNY Empire very supportive and accessible for students of all different ages, cultures, and walks of life.  I feel it is a very positive attitude in education, one that can help many more people than just the traditional students at traditional educational institutions. Oh, and Blue—she’s a trip!

What’s one moment in your career you’re especially proud of?

Early on in my career at SUNY Empire I configured, installed, and implemented the first dedicated ticketing system on a virtual server array for the initial IT help desk/service desk. With the help of some very talented colleagues, we customized and tweaked the system to meet SUNY Empire’s changing needs at the time. While this was replaced later by more advanced systems, it was a big start on improving and shaping the IT technical support system we have today.

Imagine you won a lifetime supply of one completely random item—what do you hope it is?

Rice-a-Roni, “The San Francisco Treat”—for all you Gen Xers…

What invention do you wish existed right now?

I really enjoy travelling, especially to foreign places outside of the US.  However, I’m just not built for air travel, and the long flights are nearly unbearable. Though I’m not really a Star Trek nerd, I’d like to see teleportation invented so I could be beamed across the globe in an instant.

Adjunct Professor of Accounting Elizabeth Cortés Pérez Reflects on the Spanish BBA

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One year into her role at Empire State University, Elizabeth Cortés Pérez, adjunct professor of accounting, reflects on her involvement with the Spanish BBA program. A Puerto Rico native and current resident, Cortés Pérez holds a doctorate in finance and teaches that subject matter along with accounting, and management. She has taught at the University of Puerto Rico at Arrecibo, and brings that experience with her to SUNY Empire.

A lifelong Spanish and English speaker, Cortés Pérez considers learning more than one language “a great opportunity to meet and communicate with people from different countries.”

Since her student days, Cortés Pérez has always found herself drawn to numbers. Analyzing them is something she always felt passionate about, and she went on to dedicate her academic career to doing so. “I also love the challenge of identifying discrepancies or differences in accounts,” says Cortés Pérez, showing a true aptitude for her field.

Eventually, she pursued a career in education. “The art of teaching is a great challenge, and I am passionate about having the opportunity to impact lives,” she says. The Spanish BBA, which has been designed to boost economic mobility in Hispanic communities of New York and beyond, aligns with Cortés Pérez’s desire to help students transform their lives through learning.

“Knowledge is power and will contribute to your professional development,” are her words of encouragement to prospective students who are on the fence about pursing their BBA in Spanish. She sees the program as a great opportunity for Hispanic degree-seekers, and believes in its capacity to impact communities. “Take advantage of the opportunity,” Cortés Pérez counsels.

“Accounting in Puerto Rico is governed by the same principles and regulations that govern accounting in the United States,” she explains, noting that her expertise, in a way, encompasses both American and Hispanic standards. Her perspective as an educator in the Spanish BBA is shaped by the island’s political and economic context as a United States territory. While it shares certain regulations and practices with the national umbrella it falls under, it is wholly distinct in terms of culture and customs.

Upon graduating, “Students may have the opportunity to work in any administrative area of a company, as the curriculum of the Spanish BBA includes courses that allow them to train in different aspects and areas of administration,” explains Cortés Pérez. She sees obtaining a degree via this program as a versatile asset for students seeking to explore which facet of business administration they are best suited to. A degree from the United States, particularly one that can be earned with flexibility, and that accommodates the native language of Hispanic students, is well worth considering.

Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Cybersecurity Andrew Hurd: From the Field to the Classroom

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This excerpt is taken from “A Deep Dive with Andrew Hurd, Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Cybersecurity.” Read the full version.

Andrew James Hurd has been an assistant professor in the information technology (IT) and cybersecurity graduate programs at Empire State University since 2021. Hurd aims to be a support figure for anyone who needs it and to empower learners to take initiative in their pursuit of knowledge. For Cybersecurity Month, he discusses his trajectory in the field and shares insights on engaging with one’s passions, education, and internet safety.

Irigoyen: Can you tell me about your upbringing? What were some early interests and passions?

Hurd: One of my early passions and interests is playing “Dungeons & Dragons.” I’ve played since 1980.  I have a large group of friends that I have played with over the years … My other major passion is giving back to my community. I was a Scoutmaster for close to 18 years and now I joined the Lions Club in Ballston Spa. I do a lot of community service work.

The biggest thing with board games is problem-solving skills. At a very young age, I learned how to solve a Rubik’s Cube … If you’re not into problem-solving, you probably don’t get into IT.

When I went into the industry, I wanted to build things that millions of people would use—I didn’t want to do computer games, I wanted to do software.

I got my two bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science, stayed in school and got my Master of Teaching in mathematics. My best friend and I had the thought that we would go back to our high school—he’d be the math teacher, I’d be the computer science teacher—and when we got down to graduation I said, ‘I can’t teach from just book knowledge, I really need some experience to teach.’ So, I decided to go into the industry for a while.

Achieving the title of software engineer was a big deal for me back then, it showed a level of dedication … it was a sign of prestige and hard work. I was part of the team that made the Palm Pilot 3.01, which is now the backbone for all smartphones—it’s the first touch screen, and I was part of the team that wrote that software. I see someone grab their iPad and stylus and start writing, and I just smile because … that technology goes all the way back to that team I worked on.

I lift up the stylus and tablet I was taking interview notes with, and Hurd gestures towards the screen, saying, “There you go!”

Irigoyen: Those are historic technological milestones. You see the world we live in today and wonder, when did it all start? To know that you were there for some of those things is very cool.

Hurd: When my daughter was really young … she asked, ‘Dad, what do you do?’ I say, ‘I work with computers, Abby.’ She goes, ‘Can you hack computers?’ I said, ‘Just know that your father has some unique skills, and yes, I can do some phenomenal things with computers. But I never do anything bad.’

There are things that students have to learn so that they can know how to defend. I use this phrase all the time: “with great power comes great responsibility.”

When you go into cybersecurity, the biggest issue is that hackers aren’t constrained. They have all the tools available to them, and most of them are free. The people trying to defend it—network administrators, cybersecurity specialists—are constrained by processes.

He explains the purpose of a course he teaches called “Ethical Hacking.”

Hurd: The concept is that students learn what they call the attack vectors—how people would first try to get into a company.

Irigoyen: You’ve talked a bit about your trajectory so far, can you tell me more?

Hurd: I went to a community college, then ended up going to SUNY Potsdam and graduated with a master’s degree. I went into the industry, worked for the federal government, wrote some radar software that is still on bomber aircrafts today, I’m excited to say. I was at Hudson Valley for 15 years and finished my doctorate. Education is something that can’t be taken away from you. I won the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2012, which is one of the highest honors you can win as a professor.

He describes hearing about SUNY Empire’s job opening and applying.

Hurd: Long story short, in 2021 I got hired. I proposed the Master of Science in IT program while interviewing … and it’s been one of the fastest-growing degrees at the university.

I love getting emails from former students that give me an update on what they’re doing in their career … I got an email from a student who wrote the controllers for the Mars Rover’s tires. He said, ‘I started in your programming class.’

I had another student email me saying he wrote the pressure control drivers for the San Francisco geothermal tunnel. Another said he wrote the mobile network communications for military flak jackets.

Irigoyen: Can you share what the most challenging thing about your work has been?

Hurd: Communication. Now, with everything dealing with artificial intelligence, I hear tons of my colleagues say, ‘I don’t know if this paper is written by AI.’ I say, ‘Have a conversation.’

What I’ve been mentoring faculty on is trying to get students to buy into their education. If I give you a valid reason why you shouldn’t be using AI, that there’s some technique or deep-down learning I need you to understand so that when you go into the field … you can be successful, I need you to buy into that.

Irigoyen: What is your proudest accomplishment?

Hurd: There are a lot of ways I could take this question. I’m proud to be a father of two successful adults. I’m proud to be a husband of 29 years. I’m proud to be the first member of a family of 160 grandkids to get their master’s and doctorate. I’ve been extremely proud to take one generation removed from poverty to upper-middle class.

I’m a cancer survivor. I’ve bowled a perfect game … but I guess my proudest accomplishment is to be that person in my friend group, in my community, that people look for if someone needs guidance, words of advice … being a good member of my community and family.

Irigoyen: In our technologically connected world, what is your best advice to stay safe on the internet?

Hurd: Awareness. Understand what’s happening around you. Microsoft will never call you and ask you for your password. Your bank’s never going to call you and ask for your account information. They have that. They know that.

Irigoyen: What’s something you wish more people knew?

Hurd: The ‘you don’t know what you don’t know philosophy’ that drives people to ask more questions and have the fortitude to follow up on them. So, if someone gives you an abrupt answer, that you have the fortitude to say: ‘I really don’t understand what you’re saying, can you please explain that?’

Cybersecurity didn’t exist when I got into IT. When criminals started hacking, people didn’t know how to defend themselves, so everybody was very easy to hack. If people become educated, it gives us a bigger defense.

A Deep Dive with Andrew Hurd, Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Cybersecurity

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Andrew James Hurd has been an assistant professor in the information technology (IT) and cybersecurity graduate programs at Empire State University since 2021. Hurd aims to be a support figure for anyone who needs it and to empower learners to take initiative in their pursuit of knowledge. For Cybersecurity Month, he discusses his trajectory in the field and shares insights on engaging with one’s passions, education, and internet safety.

Framed by a Microsoft Teams background of rolling hills at dusk with hints of snowy peaks in the distance, his glasses catch glints of the computer screen’s light.

Irigoyen: Can you tell me about your upbringing? What were some early interests and passions?

Hurd: I’ve learned so much from my siblings, what to do and what not to do. Going to Camden High School, every teacher I had would say “Which Hurd are you?” I am very passionate about my family. I have a wife and two kids that are both very successful. I couldn’t be prouder as a father.

One of my early passions and interests is playing “Dungeons & Dragons.” I’ve played since 1980.  I have a large group of friends that I have played with over the years, and those are some of my closest friends because we’ve spent so many hours together. When we get together 20 years later at a wedding, we sit around, joke, and laugh because we all remember the stories. It’s led me into a passion of board games—all my family are really into board games … our collections are extremely large. I think our board game collection downstairs has over 300 games in it.

Besides that, I’m a sports fanatic—a Mets fan and a Miami Dolphins fan, so I’ve had a lot of misery over the years. My other major passion is giving back to my community. I was a Scoutmaster for close to 18 years and now I joined the Lions Club in Ballston Spa. I do a lot of community service work.

Irigoyen: I can see how your current role pulls from all those elements in some way or other.

Hurd: Yeah. The biggest thing with board games is problem-solving skills. At a very young age, I learned how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. When I went to school in third grade and everyone got one for Christmas … I was the kid in class that would solve them. It’s just a pattern. If you’re not into problem-solving, you probably don’t get into IT.

Irigoyen: Can I throw in a bonus question and ask what your favorite board game is?

Hurd: My two favorite games right now are “Zombicide”—all versions of it—and a game called “Too Many Bones” by Chip Theory. “Dungeons & Dragons” is still my first favorite.

Irigoyen: There’s something to be said about the strategy and the problem-solving skills that you need to have to navigate the worlds of those games.

Hurd: Not only navigate those games, but life itself. I find that in high-pressure areas, I’m cool and calm because I can come up with a plan to survive it and get through it successfully. That’s really helped me in my career.

Irigoyen: Have you always been tech-oriented?

Hurd: When I decided to go to college, I had three trajectories. One of them was computer science, one was culinary arts, and another was to be an airline steward because I love to travel, I love to cook, and I found computers fascinating at the time.

I grew up in a poor household … I used to play a lot of early computer games. My brothers and I would do a lot of things with a computer that we saved up all our extra change and purchased—and Santa brought some parts of it—and I really enjoyed the idea of creating things on a computer. That was one of the things that drew me into the IT field when I went to college.

I remember being in a computer lab the day the internet went live. When I went into the industry, I wanted to build things that millions of people would use—I didn’t want to do computer games, I wanted to do software.

I got my two bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science, stayed in school and got my Master of Teaching in mathematics. My best friend and I had the thought that we would go back to our high school—he’d be the math teacher, I’d be the computer science teacher—and when we got down to graduation I said, ‘I can’t teach from just book knowledge, I really need some experience to teach.’ So, I decided to go into the industry for a while.

Achieving the title of software engineer was a big deal for me back then, it showed a level of dedication … it was a sign of prestige and hard work. I was part of the team that made the Palm Pilot 3.01, which is now the backbone for all smartphones—it’s the first touch screen, and I was part of the team that wrote that software. I see someone grab their iPad and stylus and start writing, and I just smile because … that technology goes all the way back to that team I worked on.

I lift up the stylus and tablet I was taking interview notes with, and Hurd gestures towards the screen, saying, “There you go!”

Hurd: In the 1990s, we wrote the first online grocery store out in Boston, called Tolume—I was the team lead for that. We wanted a menu that swooshed out—things that just didn’t exist in the world of Windows. And we wrote it, we made things that dynamically slid out, which was unheard of back then. No one heard about anything like this until COVID, when stores put groceries in your vehicle for you. I did that back in ’96, ’97.

Irigoyen: Those are historic technological milestones. You see the world we live in today and wonder, when did it all start? To know that you were there for some of those things is very cool.

Hurd: One of the other funny things is when my daughter was really young and I was in the process of writing one of my first lab manuals that I published. She asked, ‘Dad, what do you do?’ I say, ‘I work with computers, Abby.’ She goes, ‘Can you hack computers?’ I said, ‘Just know that your father has some unique skills, and yes, I can do some phenomenal things with computers. But I never do anything bad.’

Irigoyen: To know how to defend, you must know how to attack and what those entry points might be, right?

Hurd: That’s why I like writing lab and hacking manuals. There are things that students have to learn so that they can know how to defend. I use this phrase all the time: “with great power comes great responsibility.” If I’m teaching them how to write a virus so that they can learn how to combat a virus, they shouldn’t go around and release the virus that they wrote.

When you go into cybersecurity, the biggest issue is that hackers aren’t constrained. They have all the tools available to them, and most of them are free. The people trying to defend it—network administrators, cybersecurity specialists—are constrained by processes, doing it the right way, so they document everything they do. If you’ve got hackers doing things at light speed, and you’re doing things at a snail’s pace, who’s going to win?

Irigoyen: It’s hard to beat the immediacy of a hack.

He explains the purpose of a course he teaches called “Ethical Hacking.”

Hurd: The concept is that students learn what they call the attack vectors—how people would first try to get into a company.

Irigoyen: You’ve talked a bit about your trajectory so far, can you tell me more?

Hurd: I went to a community college, then ended up going to SUNY Potsdam and graduated with a master’s degree. I went into the industry, worked for the federal government, wrote some radar software that is still on bomber aircrafts today, I’m excited to say.

I took a job with Seneca Foods in Rochester, and they never had a software engineer, they didn’t know what a software engineer could do. When I interviewed, I asked, ‘what work do you have for a software engineer?’ They pulled out a list. I looked at it and thought, ‘Wow. It’s going to keep me busy for years.’

Hurd comments that he was eventually let go due to budget restructuring. He was given much positive feedback on his work, which he completed in a six-month period—half the time that was initially projected.

Hurd: I went home, and my wife was freaking out … I told her we were going to have a picnic, so we went out to Niagara Falls that day and I said, ‘Maybe this is the time I look for a teaching job.’ I had seven or eight years of experience in the industry … so, that Sunday night I wrote up cover letters and revised my resume.

On Monday Morning, ITT Technical Institute called me, they’re like, ‘can you be here tomorrow?’ It wasn’t even a job interview, they said: ‘we have four classes that start in two weeks.’ I say, ‘Wait a minute. I didn’t say yes … give me a couple days.’

As I was walking out of the interview, Hudson Valley Community College called me for an interview for the next day. That’s the trajectory of my teaching … I was at Hudson Valley for 15 years and finished my doctorate. Education is something that can’t be taken away from you. I won the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2012, which is one of the highest honors you can win as a professor.

He describes hearing about SUNY Empire’s job opening and applying.

Hurd: Long story short, in 2021 I got hired. I proposed the Master of Science in IT program while interviewing … and it’s been one of the fastest-growing degrees at the university.

Irigoyen: It’s rare that someone has so many moments in their career where they see they’re making a tangible impact. I can imagine that’s a very fulfilling thing.

Hurd: It is. I love getting emails from former students that give me an update on what they’re doing in their career because I know I’ve had a hand in that. I got an email from a student who wrote the controllers for the Mars Rover’s tires. He said, ‘I started in your programming class. I would never have been able to do any of this without your tutoring and leadership getting me through my degree.

I had another student email me saying he wrote the pressure control drivers for the San Francisco geothermal tunnel. Another said he wrote the mobile network communications for military flak jackets, so when they go out into the field, each of the flak jackets becomes a wireless node for network communication.

Irigoyen: Can you share what the most challenging thing about your work has been?

Hurd: Communication … making sure everybody’s on the same page. Now, with everything dealing with artificial intelligence, I hear tons of my colleagues say, ‘I don’t know if this paper is written by AI.’ I say, ‘Have a conversation … I told you that if you were going to use AI, you had to cite it in the paper. It looks like you’ve extended that a bit. Why don’t you give me another attempt at this? Why don’t you try it without the use of AI?’

What I’ve been mentoring faculty on is trying to get students to buy into their education. If I give you a valid reason why you shouldn’t be using AI, that there’s some technique or deep-down learning I need you to understand so that when you go into the field … you can be successful, I need you to buy into that.

Irigoyen: What led you to Empire State University?

Hurd: There’s a big difference working with professionals, working adults, and working with freshmen. It was enticing for me to think that I would be able to work the majority of the time with working adults.

Irigoyen: What is your proudest accomplishment?

Hurd: There are a lot of ways I could take this question. I’m proud to be a father of two successful adults. I’m proud to be a husband of 29 years. I’m proud to be the first member of a family of 160 grandkids to get their master’s and doctorate. I’ve been extremely proud to take one generation removed from poverty to upper-middle class.

I’m a cancer survivor. I’ve bowled a perfect game … but I guess my proudest accomplishment is to be that person in my friend group, in my community, that people look for if someone needs guidance, words of advice … being a good member of my community and family.

Irigoyen: What advice do you have for those who are interested in this field?

Hurd: If there’s something that interests you in IT or cybersecurity, there is so much to do here—and you can come from anywhere … you don’t have to be a techie, because we need people to do project management, we need people to be writing policies.

Irigoyen: In our technologically connected world, what is your best advice to stay safe on the internet?

Hurd: Awareness. Understand what’s happening around you. Microsoft will never call you and ask you for your password. Your bank’s never going to call you and ask for your account information. They have that. They know that.

One of the things I do is give talks at the Lion’s Club—I gave a talk at the Malta Senior Center about AI and cybersecurity on how to protect that generation.

Irigoyen: What’s something you wish more people knew?

Hurd: The ‘you don’t know what you don’t know philosophy’ that drives people to ask more questions and have the fortitude to follow up on them. So, if someone gives you an abrupt answer, that you have the fortitude to say: ‘I really don’t understand what you’re saying, can you please explain that?’ There are lots of things I could go on about, but I wish for people to have the fortitude to ask questions and gain the knowledge they wish they had.

Cybersecurity didn’t exist when I got into IT. When criminals started hacking, people didn’t know how to defend themselves, so everybody was very easy to hack. If people become educated, it gives us a bigger defense.

Adjunct Professor Jorge Martín Diez on Full-Circle Moments, Sharing, and the Spanish BBA

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It feels natural that Adjunct Professor of Marketing Jorge Martín Diez would find himself teaching for Empire State University’s Spanish Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) program given his lifelong core values of sharing and community. The program—and Empire State University at large—are built upon a similar foundation: that knowledge is empowerment, and thrives the most when accessible to all. “The act of sharing is fundamental to human life. Knowledge cannot flourish if you don’t share it,” says Diez.

Born in Mexico City, Diez holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and two master’s degrees, one in spatial economics and the other in education. His doctorate is in education with a focus on neuroscience. “My specialization is a bit eclectic. I’ve mainly devoted myself to market research,” comments Diez. Though neuroscience may seem like an outlier among his academic specializations, it closed a circle that his initial interest in biology had opened many years before.

Following the presentation of his thesis, his then-vice rector unexpectedly invited Diez to teach at the university, claiming he believed that Diez was suited to the profession. “He said to me, ‘Welcome, colleague.’ And he offered me a class,” tells Diez. At the time, he hesitantly accepted. “I realized that he was right—I love teaching. He dedicates much thought to the act of teaching: “I don’t just transmit information, I shape the academic formation of students in this field,” he explains.

Eventually, Diez pivoted into the private sector to gain business experience that would give depth to his teaching. He delved into companies, universities, and government work, but ultimately decided to found a market research group, which is now managed by his daughter. “You can transmit that experience in addition to technical knowledge,” he comments about the impact of this work on his role in the classroom.

“English is already the universal language,” he says. “Globalization has led us to choose one.” Given this industry standard, particularly in the business world, Diez believes adding English to one’s repertoire is an asset. Hence, bilingual learning opportunities such as the Spanish BBA, which allows students to take course materials by means of their native language but exists in the larger context of a U.S. university, provide a competitive edge.

At the core of Diez’s teaching philosophy is sharing. “Sharing is fundamental in human life,” he says, “we survived as a species because we shared.” He sees the Spanish BBA as a pivotal opportunity for Spanish speakers because of the transformative power of education. “If students receive this degree training, it will provide them with more tools … this bachelor’s degree is the beginning of an ongoing process. It opens doors for you,” says Diez.

In his life, he has circled back to his passions despite years-long departures in other directions. He sees these shifts in focus as opportunities for growth. “It’s never too late,” Diez says, “life can bring you back to what you’re passionate about.”

Five-Minute Feature: Cathy Coffinger, Technical Support Coordinator

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Get to know the Empire State University community through this rapid-fire interview series that bridges professional accomplishments and personal interests. What makes Empire State University exceptional? The unique people behind the work. Five minutes—starting now!

What led you to your career path?

I started using a computer in 1995 when I was in high school. This is back where computers had no hard drive to save to; you had to save your data on audio cassettes and reload it back whenever you turned it on. It had a whopping 5 KB of RAM, but I was hooked. At the time I was working shelving books at my local library in Las Vegas.

Over the years I became a power user and wanted to switch to the IT department, but they said I was too valuable in the position I was in—at that time I was in purchasing. So, I left the library and moved to the purchasing department at the City of Henderson. After a year, I was able to transfer into IT as a help desk analyst, and I have been in IT ever since.

What is your favorite thing about SUNY Empire?

My favorite thing about SUNY Empire is the people. Everyone here is so kind and focused on the goal of educating adults. It is wonderful to work someplace with so many people sharing the same values.

What’s one moment in your career you’re especially proud of?

I had not been working long in IT when my boss’s supervisor asked me to essentially lie to someone. I honestly don’t remember the details of the issue anymore. I went back to my desk and stressed about it for a while before going back into his office and telling him I would not go against my personal value of honesty. Not only did he back off on the request, but he also apologized, and said he respected my integrity.

Can you share a recent initiative that’s helping keep our university community safe while online?

CloudFlare WARP is a web application firewall which also does DNS filtering (technical terms for keeping our equipment and data safe). The IT department has been using it since June and reporting back on any issues that have come up to make it as seamless as possible for our end users. We have been gradually putting the WARP client on the end users’ computers. This replaces our old VPN (virtual private network), safeguards institutional data, and ensures we are in compliance with all security requirements.

Here is your chance—disprove one cybersecurity myth: 

Myth: “Security through obscurity” is the myth that someone is not important enough or their business is too small to be targeted.

The truth is everyone is targeted. The bad actors often do go after celebrities, CEOs, and political figures, but that doesn’t mean you are safe. Hundreds of thousands of phishing emails are sent every day. It only takes one person thinking the email is legitimate to click on a link (thinking they are going to a trusted site and putting in their credentials) to infect the entire network.

People must be skeptical of their email. If something seems off about an email (spelling, someone requesting something unusual, or receiving an email from someone new when you aren’t in a public-facing position) then the user should contact the alleged sender, using something other than email, to verify the email is legitimate. It is a 5-minute process that could save hours of time and a lot of money. Once the cybercriminals have your credentials, they also have access to your entire address book, and they can send more phishing emails to your contacts through your account. Also, you should never use your SUNY Empire password for other websites. Then, they might have access to your bank account, or your shopping accounts. They could run up your credit card shopping as you.

And it can happen to anyone; it has happened to me. So, it is important that if you do click on a link that you think is suspicious, you should change your password right away and contact the Service Desk at 518-587-2100, option 5.

Some Streams Connect Us All: Meet Adjunct Professor for the Spanish BBA Cristian Salazar

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If anything speaks to the reach of online learning, it is the rich diversity among faculty members of the Spanish BBA—among them, Adjunct Professor Cristian Salazar, who has helped shaped the program’s course offerings in Information Systems for the past year from his home in Valdivia, Chile.

Salazar, who has over 25 years of teaching experience spanning undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs, is a civil engineer with a specialization in computer science and information systems. “I didn’t arrive at college teaching by chance. Rather, it became my dream halfway through my undergraduate career, and something I propelled myself towards,” he says.

“My teaching expertise is in information systems, workplace technology, and organizational and consumer behavior,” explains Salazar. He believes online education is a transformative force in the hands of disciplined, dedicated students such as those at Empire State University. As for bilingual approaches to education, Salazar comments: “being bilingual allows you to explore worlds and cultures that would be impossible to explore without that second language.” The Spanish BBA, which rests on these two pillars, is sure to be a meaningful pathway to a business education as relevant abroad as it is in the United States.

Having studied technostress—the health impacts brought about by daily use of technology—in depth for his doctorate, Salazar is suited to the medium of online teaching and endeavors to help students navigate technology in a way that is helpful and sustainable while earning their degrees. “One must always have technological empathy,” he states, explaining that much of the technology we rely on for work or school has not yet been fully developed, and as such, can pose challenges to users.

From his office window in Valdivia, Chile, Salazar can observe the lush green of the world, and in the distance, a smooth river. “To me, this river is like the links between information. It connects my wish to work online with the ability to share learning experiences,” he says. Salazar’s unique background represents a facet of the business administration landscape of Latin America—one of many that the Spanish BBA students will learn from.

Salazar believes that the program generates real opportunities for its graduates, priming them to confidently integrate into their labor markets — “This degree aims to build competencies to manage organizations in difficult times,” he says, highlighting the double-edged sword of innovative technology, which is replacing human labor in some areas and yielding new businesses to develop in others. Salazar’s involvement in the first Spanish-language educational endeavor of the SUNY system is a career development he finds fulfilling.

“Information technology and artificial intelligence are key skills that every person must master in today’s society,” Salazar replies when asked what advice he has for incoming students. He welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the academic development of international students through accessible higher education in the Spanish language.