Vinod Chachra, PhD, President & CEO

Vinod Chachra is an internationally recognized lecturer and consultant in the field of information system planning. For several years he served as the Senior Consultant for NCHEMS (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.) Beginning in 1975, he designed the original software that in 1980 became Virginia Tech Library System (now called VTLS). In 1985, in partnership with VTIP (Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties) he founded VTLS Inc., which provides state-of-the-art library automation systems to more than 900 libraries in 32 countries worldwide.

Chachra has been active in the library profession for more than 25 years. He represented Virginia in the White House Conference on Library and Information Sciences in 1979, served on the legislative committee for library networking in Virginia, and is a former member of the White House Conference on Library and Information Services Task Force. He has worked with several countries in the design and implementation of their national bibliographic information resources and union catalogs.

After earning his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research at Virginia Tech, Dr. Chachra served that university in many capacities. From 1972 to 1985 he successively assumed roles of Director of Software Development, Director of Computing and Information Systems, Vice Provost and then Vice President Computing and Information Systems.

During his career, Dr. Chachra has received many honors, including the Distinguished Information Sciences Award from Data Processing Management Association, the CAUSE Award for Exemplary Leadership (CAUSE is the Professional Association for Development, Use, and Management of Information Systems in Higher Education), and the Blacksburg Jaycees Man of the Year Award. In 1992, he was invited to be a member of the ALA delegation to Romania and to serve on the ALA International Relations Committee's Bibliotheca Alexandrina subcommittee. In 1994 the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) elected Chachra to serve on its Board of Directors.

Chachra has written two books, a chapter in a third book, and numerous journal articles.