Debra Fitts

Associate Director, Data Center Operations, Division of Information & Technology Services, Rochester Institute of
Technology

In academia, all corridors lead to the network Data Center – the central technology hub where email, business and financial data, and student records are managed. At RIT, the Data Center has been home to Debra Fitts for more than 27 years. She started as a data entry operator, then a data controller, and moved on through several key management positions to her current job as Associate Director.

In that role, she recently coordinated the outsourcing of the RIT mainframe. She continues to supervise this essential resource, from a distance, freeing up her data center staff to focus on the administrative operations specific to the departments and colleges at RIT. Another current project for Debra is leading a team to build a separate data center for campus partners who would prefer to have their own servers, but have limited funding for building separate environments.

Debra was also part of the Student ID Replacement Project (SIRP) that won the RIT Staff Council Excellence Award in 2006. The project transitioned all major database systems from using Social Security Numbers as primary identifiers for
students, faculty, and staff – a particularly demanding effort for the data center where the majority of vital records reside.

For the past 15 years, Debra has coordinated the ITS Adopt-a-Family effort during the holidays. She has rallied the ITS staff to donate food, clothing and household items for local families. Outside of RIT, Deb and her husband, Curtis, are active in their church. Both have coordinated men’s and women’s groups, taught several of the children’s classes and look forward to the day when they can attend one of the
church’s mission trips.

Whether coordinating the intricacies of an outsourced network mainframe or watching her four grandchildren on Saturday mornings, Deb brings warmth, humor and ease to the many facets of her work and personal life.