Associate Professor William R. Devenport, Interim Chair of the Department of Information Management Systems (IMS) in the College of Applied Sciences and Arts (CASA), has been named permanent chair of the Department effective May 1.

“Professor Devenport has served with distinction as interim chair of the department since January, 2003,” said CASA Dean Paul D. Sarvela, “so we’re very pleased to welcome him as the permanent chair. His experience and record as an educator, university administrator and established IMS consultant in the private sector, make Professor Devenport a very valuable individual that we’re pleased to count among the college’s impressive array of assets.”

Devenport, a certified electronics technician, began his teaching career at CASA in 1982 as a graduate assistant. He is a broadly recognized expert in automated production programming and his book Industrial Control, co-authored with M. Hebel, is currently in its second edition. Experiments for Industrial Electronics, authored solely by Devenport, is in its fourth edition.

Devenport holds a BS in industrial education from Illinois State University and an MS in vocational education from SIUC.

He is a member of the Greater Egypt (Southern Illinois) Regional Planning and Development Commission and the Carbondale Science Center Advisory Committee.