Donald J. WelchPrior to his arrival at Merit, Dr. Welch was the Chief Technologist and leader of merchandising systems development at H.E. Butt Grocery Company in San Antonio, Texas. While there he established enterprise architecture, significantly increased the security profile, moved technology standards to the next generation and introduced Service Oriented Architecture.
He went to work at H.E.B. after serving 25 years in the U.S. Army and attaining the rank of Colonel. His last position in the Army was Associate Dean for Information Technology (Academic CIO) and Professor of Computer Science at West Point. As such he was responsible for the computer operations and infrastructure used to educate future Army officers. He built West Point’s wireless network which was the recipient of a Computerworld “best practices in mobile and wireless” award for security. He has been active in information assurance and software engineering research with over 25 publications and a dozen invited talks in those disciplines. He is also a recipient of the Apgar award for innovation in teaching.
His other Army assignments include serving as the Chief of Software Engineering for the Army’s counterterrorist unit, Delta Force at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There he oversaw the integration of numerous applications into an enterprise database, developed Global Position System and 3-D Visualization applications.. He has also been the senior human resources manager for the Army’s professional information technology workforce, where he helped to reshape the officers to better meet a changed approach to information technology. He has managed information technology support for the Department of Computer Science at West Point and a branch of the Army Human Resources Command. He has taught computer science, information security, information technology, and international relations at the undergraduate level.
Prior to focusing on information technology and education he commanded two light infantry companies and three infantry platoons.
He has a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point, MS in computer science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and the Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland College Park.