Meet the Team
The CMS Campus Solutions team is comprised of individuals from the entire campus community including module leads, business analysts, subject matter experts, technical team members from the functional areas, and members from the CMS training & support team and the CMS technical team. Please take a moment to learn more about each module lead and their role on the project.
Susan Kachner - CMS Campus Solutions Project Lead and module lead for Campus Community. Susan is the Director of Administrative Computing in Information Technology and has worked at CSUF since 1980. Susan participated in the SIMS implementation in 1984 and co-led the SIS+ implementation in 1994. Susan Kachner and Maria Mezhinsky are the campus representatives to the CMS statewide SAFT committee (Student Administration Functional Team).
Nancy Dority - CMS Student Administration module lead for Admissions. Nancy has worked at CSUF since 1990, first as the Admissions Officer and as of 2005, as Assistant Vice-President for Enrollment Services. Nancy participated in the SIS+ implementation in 1994 as a lead for Admissions.
Melissa Whatley - CMS Student Administration module lead for Records/Registration/Catalog & Class Schedule. Melissa is the University Registrar and has worked at CSUF since 1997. She has overall responsibility for the Records Unit, Graduation Unit, Admissions and Records Service Center, Registration, the DARS Unit and editing/production of the CSUF class schedule.
Maria Mezhinsky - CMS Student Administration module lead for Academic Advising. Maria is IT Manager for the Admissions and Records Office and has worked at CSUF since 1980. Maria participated in the SIMS implementation in 1984 and the SIS+ implementation in 1994. Maria was also in charge of the implementation of DARS and the A&R Imaging System.
Ann Sciortino - CMS Student Administration module lead for Financial Aid. Ann is the Associate Director of Financial Aid and has worked at CSUF since 1997. From 1984 to 1997 Ann was a manager in the Financial Aid Office at Long Beach State where she participated in the SIS+ implementations in 1988 and 1991.
CMS Campus Solutions Implementation Partner Team
The CMS Campus Solutions project currently has nine implementation partner consultants from CedarCrestone focused on the CMS Campus Solutions 8.9 implementation. Each consultant is dedicated to a different aspect of the implementation. Please take a moment to learn more about each consultant and their role on the project.
Katie Baum – Technical Lead for Campus Solutions. Katie has worked with CedarCrestone as a Peoplesoft/Oracle consultant for 9 years. She has worked on five Campus Solutions implementations including four CSU Campuses. She was the Technical Lead at Sonoma State, San Jose State and CalPoly San Luis Obispo during their PeopleSoft version 8.1 Student Administration implementations. Her responsibilities have included providing technical project oversight, mentoring and knowledge transfer to campus technical resources, data conversion and data migrations between environments, providing support for campus application development and technical support for modules and technical staff as well as providing project teams with trouble-shooting support.
Ted Burkhardt - Student Financials Consultant. Ted has worked in higher education for over 19 years in a variety of administrative positions and has worked with the Peoplesoft application for 9 years. He is currently assisting with all aspects of the the Student Financials module. His experience with the CSU system includes implementations at California Maritime Academy, Humboldt State University and a fit/gap analysis at San Diego State University.
Shannon Goodman – Project Manager Consultant. Shannon has twenty years of experience in higher education, working in a variety of institutional settings. He has almost 9 years of PeopleSoft implementation experience at both public and private higher education institutions. His experience in the CSU system includes the original fit/gap work for CMS and implementations at Fresno State, Long Beach and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Al Jacobs - Senior Technical Consultant. Al brings over 15 years of PeopleSoft experience with him including data conversion, SQR/ Crystal report writing, year-end, troubleshooting, technical support, and application development. New to the CSU system, Al has worked at many government and private institutions in both a functional and technical capacity. He will lead the Security development for the campus in the various PeopleSoft modules.
Jeffrey Johnson - Student Financials Consultant. Jeff has eleven of experience in higher education, working in a variety of institutional settings. He has 9 years of PeopleSoft implementation experience at both large and small higher education institutions. His experience in the CSU system includes support at CMS central (Chancellors Office), Northridge, CSULA, and implementations at Long Beach and Bakersfield.
Melanie McClellan - Admissions and Campus Community consultant. Melanie most recently was the Admissions and Campus Community consultant for the Student Administration implementation at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Prior to that, she had been an Admissions and Campus Community consultant for two other Student Administration implementations and worked on the Fit/Gap analysis at San Diego State University. Before becoming a consultant, she was a member of the Admissions and Campus Community implementation team at Northern Arizona University and an Admissions Evaluator prior to the implementation at that campus.
Marc Pechaitis - Technical Consultant. Marc brings more than 8 years of experience working with PeopleSoft Student Administration applications in various technical roles. He has worked at many institutions, including the CSU Chancellor's Office and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Marc has implementation and production support experience in the Admissions, Student Records, Campus Community, Financial Aid and Academic Advising modules. Most recently Marc worked to build a on-line admission application for Southwestern Illinois College.
Paul Rhinehart – Student Records Consultant. Paul brings 15 years of experience in higher education administration. Supplementing his functional understanding of Student Records is Paul’s knowledge of student systems, with a specialization in PeopleSoft applications. His project leadership has positively affected several Student Administration implementations including CSU Fresno and CSU San Luis Obispo.
Laura Savage – Financial Aid Consultant. Laura is the consultant lead for the Financial Aid module. She has worked as a functional financial aid consultant at 4 other CSU campuses. Her last implementation assignment was at the University of Texas, Arlington where they went live on Campus Solutions version 8.9 in February of 2006. Prior to becoming a consultant, she was the Financial Aid module lead at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Laura has worked in higher education for ten years. She has worked on a number of implementation projects in the CSU system, including Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, California Maritime Academy, and San Jose State University. She also worked on the Fit/Gap analysis for CSULA.
Lauren Wass - Student Records Consultant. Lauren brings 13 years of experience in higher education administration. Prior to becoming a consultant, she was involved in developing student administration support systems as Assistant Director of Student Services and as Assistant Director of Technology. She worked on the implementation project for Student Records at Florida International University. At Cal State Fullerton, she will focus heavily on writing business process guides.
Tian Xin – Technical Consultant. Tian brings more than 7 years of experience working with PeopleSoft applications in various roles, including conversion, report writing, and application development. She has worked at many institutions, serving multiple roles and responsibilities, which have allowed her to develop a vast breadth of experience. She has worked on implementation and production support projects at 6 universities, including the CSU Chancellor’s Office and CSU Long Beach.
