Haas Chief Information Officer Lyle Nevels was given the Chancellor's Outstanding Staff Award, the highest honor bestowed on staff by the chancellor, at a ceremony April 23 on the Clark Kerr campus.
The award is presented to individuals and teams who, in addition to performing all their normal job duties with excellence, demonstrate exceptional initiative in contributing to the UC Berkeley campus community.
Nevels oversees the computing and media services operations for 2,200 students, 250 staff, and 175 faculty at Haas. He recently added the responsibility of head of facilities for Haas to his position, overseeing 234,000 sq. ft. of space on campus and 21,000 sq. ft. off campus, as well as capital improvements. Last month, he was named interim associate chancellor for information technology and CIO for UC Berkeley.
"Lyle is deserving of this recognition for his outstanding contributions to both the Haas School of Business and to UC Berkeley," says Haas Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Chizuk. "We are fortunate to have a leader who is not only talented but is also so giving of his time wherever it is needed."
Nevels also has contributed to the broader campus community. Serving as initiative manager for the campus Operational Excellence IT work stream, Nevels and his team designed a transparent, inclusive process that ultimately resulted in seven design documents outlining efficiency and cost-related savings.
In addition, Nevels is a member of UC Berkeley's IT Governance and IT Shared Services implementation teams and was recently asked to lead an external review of the Cal Athletics Information Technology organization. Nevels and a Pac-12 university peer provided a final report with overall findings and recommendations, and Nevels continues to work with Cal Athletics to determine priorities and next steps.
Nevels also has demonstrated leadership and a cool head in emergency situations. When the campus email system experienced outages in November, he immediately responded to a request to set up emergency email system for the Chancellor’s Office and other critical campus staff. Also in November, Nevels helped preserve UC Berkeley's reputation through his quick actions that helped prevent a student carrying a loaded firearm at the Haas School from harming any innocent victims.