University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: September 14, 2006

By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer

In the years since Ray Volpe took the helm of UBMicro IT Support Services as program director in 1990, the on-campus, not-for-profit computer and software retailer has grown from a one-room operation into an enterprise serving campuses SUNY-wide, with annual sales of close to $10 million.

Ray Volpe has taken UB Micro, the on-campus, not-for-profit computer and software retailer, from a one-room operation to an enterprise serving campuses SUNY-wide, with annual sales of close to $10 million.
PHOTO: NANCY J. PARISI

Through its mission to provide affordable computers and software to the campus community, UBMicro helps students access the latest technology, which enables faculty members to integrate it into their classrooms, says Volpe, who received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service this past spring.

"We want to make sure students are prepared to go into the marketplace and utilize these tools," he says.

Another goal of the program is to help contain IT support costs campus-wide by encouraging the acquisition of quality products from vendors of good repute. A significant portion of the cost containment UBMicro provides to the university community comes from aggregating software acquisitions into site licenses. One example is the Microsoft Campus Agreement—a software-site licensing program that Volpe helped to negotiate in 2000. There now are 29 campuses SUNY-wide that participate in the program, he says, plus three more that plan to sign on shortly. The agreement allows the campuses—and their students, faculty and staf—to purchase Microsoft software at drastically discounted prices.

Additional agreements he spearheaded with Adobe and Macromedia (now part of Adobe) provide product discounts SUNY-wide of as much as 60 percent.

Moreover, during this semester, UBMicro IT Support Services will assume responsibility for PC workstation and printer repair services campus-wide, consistent with UB 2020 and CIT goals to create capacity and consolidate services.

"We will be the PC workstation repair service on campus," Volpe explains. "It's a huge growth process we're going through right now. We're doubling our technical staff to support it.

"At the same time, we're rapidly growing our licensing and media duplication business statewide," he continued. "We're growing in several areas."

The continuous growth that drives UBMicro is a reflection of its director—Volpe's career illustrates a lifelong commitment to self-education and entrepreneurship. In fact, he says, the part of his job that most challenges and fascinates him is the constant and rapid changes in technology.

"The applications of IT technology continue to grow," he says. "The challenge today is the integration of this technology across a broad spectrum of products and uses."

Volpe joined the UB professional staff as a technical writer in University Computing Services in 1970. He worked at the time on the Ridge Lea Campus to produce software-application manuals for faculty and students who worked with one of the first mainframe computers on campus. There were no user manuals back then, and UB needed someone with technical experience who could translate "geek talk" into everyday language and concepts, he says.

"I had the skills, but I had never even seen a computer up to that point. I taught myself computing by talking to the technical staff who supported it."

His interest in electronics goes back to his childhood as a ham radio operator, recalls Volpe. His high school job at a music store involved phonograph and electric organ repair, he adds, with formal electronics education obtained while serving as a guided missile technician in the U.S. Navy.

He enrolled in UB during at the height of the turmoil of the 1960s, but decided after a couple of semesters to pursue his degree part-time since his path as a student took him "from Dean's List to Spectrum editor and political activist," and he had new responsibilities as husband and father to a ready-made family with three children. He earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from UB in 1975.

As a technical writer, Volpe produced more than 40 publications for UB. He soon learned enough about computers and programming to join the user services consulting staff as a programmer analyst. While taking graduate courses, he developed content-analysis software for small group research and later taught programming courses at Millard Fillmore College for several years during the late 1970s.

About the same time, Volpe took on a free-lance consulting job with the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce to create membership and accounting software for the chamber's new minicomputer system. "From that I learned some new [business] skills," he says. His success started to attract further commissions and he founded Volpe CompuSystems to provide software solutions to chambers of commerce and consumer credit-counseling services nationwide.

His nights and weekends during the 1980s and early 1990s were occupied with the operation of his business. The decision to close shop on the enterprise came after continued professional growth in computer services at UB brought him to his current leadership position, he says.

Volpe obtained development funds from Apple Computer to establish UBMicro in 1990 and he says it has become one of the top 10 campus resellers nationwide. In the years since the program relocated from a single room in the Computing Center to the Commons in 1991, he notes it has grown tremendously—now occupying close to 7,000 square feet of retail space and employing 23 full-time regular and 15 part-time student employees.

For the past six years, Volpe also has served as program director of SNAP (Students Needing Assistance Program), which loans computers to financially eligible students. He says the program is "ahead of the curve" compared to similar programs on other campuses because students benefit from a free computer during their entire UB career. SNAP currently supports about 1,200 students on campus.

The opportunity to interact with students and professors is one of the best elements of his work at UB, says Volpe. "It's exciting to work in higher education. Through computing and UBMicro, I've been introduced to folks I never would have met if I were in other types of work at the university."

An avid sailor and secretary of the Youngstown Yacht Club, Volpe enjoys spending his free time on the water. He first learned to sail on a 14-foot day sailor he built while an undergraduate. Last month, he and his wife, Judith Adams-Volpe, director of university and external relations for the University Libraries, sailed the length and breath of Lake Ontario and cruised the Thousand Islands.

In addition, both are ardent UB sports boosters and have traveled to Cleveland to watch the Bulls play in the Mid-American Conference basketball playoffs.

The couple resides in the Audubon neighborhood near the North Campus, and Volpe is known to ride his bike to work some mornings.