2023 Penny Crane Award Recipient – Parrish Nnambi

Parrish Nnambi is currently serving as the Director of Endpoint Management at the University of California, San Diego and has over 28 years of IT experience in higher education. With a strong background in customer service, leadership, and technical support, Parrish continues to make a difference in the field of Information Technology (IT).

Prior to joining Higher Education, Parrish served 10 years in the Navy. During one of his last command, he discovered his interest in IT, and while he was a Navy instructor during the day, he attended night school and completed his certification in Computer Electronics Technology. In 1996, Parrish secured his first higher education job as a Help Desk agent in the Academic Computing Services – Network Operations department at UC San Diego.

As Parrish transitioned to civilian career, he was promoted to Help Desk supervisor and attended his first SIGUCCS conference in the fall of 2000 in Richmond, Virginia. This conference reminded him of the UC conferences (served as campus ambassador from 1999-2013) he had attended, but with a distinctly different atmosphere (SIGUCCS felt familiar, like family). Parrish attended the next few conferences in Portland (2001) and Providence (2002), where he began to feel more comfortable and volunteered.

Parrish’s contribution to SIGUCCS started in 2002 with monitoring the email room, and continued with roles as program publishing, paper reader, photographer, Conference Co-Chair, registration chair, Program Co-Chair, Executive Committee (x2), Exhibitor Chair, and presented on a couple of panels into 2024.

Through Parrish’s involvement, he met and worked with many talented and passionate individuals focused on making a difference for others in IT. Although he still considers himself an introvert at times, SIGUCCS has become a community where he feels comfortable and can contribute while constantly learning from colleagues and friends who are experts in their fields.

Parrish is honored to have been chosen as the Penny Crane recipient for 2024. And he attributes a lot of his success in higher education to the ‘people first’ mentality that he was able to mature through the great people of SIGUCCS.