Mark Cottrill

Mark Cottrill was born in Beckley WV and grew up in Charleston. Upon graduating from high school in 1975, Mark came to WVU to pursue his goal of becoming a Certified Public Accountant. During the Spring semester of 1976, he took Computer Science 1 (CS1) taught by fellow Distinguished Alumni, Dr. Wayne Muth (2001). From that point on he was hooked, deciding in the summer of 1976, to pursue a double major in accounting and computer science. Dr. Malcolm Lane (Distinguished Alumni – 1999) played a significant role as a teacher and mentor driving Mark’s creative thinking and enthusiasm for technology. Mark was one of the first WVU students to follow this double major path, graduating Magna Cum Laude in December of 1979, with both degrees.

Upon graduation Mark began his career in February of 1980, on the audit and tax staff in the Charleston, WV office of Ernst & Whinney (now Ernst & Young). Ernst, along with the other large international accounting firms, was just beginning to develop their IT consulting practices with the Charleston office forming theirs in 1981. Mark became the second member of this new practice in February of that year. During the next 5 years Mark worked on a variety of consulting and programming engagements in West Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as being selected to work on projects at the national level. He passed the Certified Public Accountant exam in 1981 and has been continually licensed in either West Virginia or Pennsylvania (some years both) since that time.

In 1985, while working on a consulting engagement for The Hillman Company, the privately held investment holding company for the Hillman Family and Foundations in Pittsburgh, PA, Mark was offered the opportunity to help build the company’s IT department from the ground up. He accepted that challenge in July of 1985, becoming the Assistant Director of their new Management Information Service group. Mark became the Director of this group in 1988, and over the next 19 years built the IT infrastructure for The Hillman Company that included the development of groups for application development, networking, data analytics and reporting, security, disaster recovery and facilities management on a wide area network which at one point included more than 45 locations throughout the United States.

In 2006, changes in Hillman’s investment and business strategy led to reducing the number of locations and staff. The change allowed Mark to explore new opportunities, and that search led him back to where it all started, Morgantown and WVU. In February 2007, he accepted a position as the West Virginia University Foundation’s Chief Information Officer. The Foundation was beginning the implementation of their first fund-raising CRM (Blackbaud) and associated systems, which had been selected as the result of an evaluation and selection study performed by the Charleston office of Ernst & Young! Mark spent the next 17 years building the IT infrastructure for the Foundation that included the development of groups for application development, networking, data analytics and reporting (including AI), security (including the Foundation’s first Chief Information Officer), disaster recovery and facilities management. In addition, Mark helped develop several working agreements (Memorandum’s of Understanding) with WVU covering data exchange, financial reporting and facilities usage and management.

During his tenure with the WVU Foundation he held the positions of Chief Information Officer, Chief Information Officer & Director of Facility Services (after assuming the responsibility of managing the Foundation’s active real estate assets), Chief Operating Officer, Vice President, Technology and Facilities and Vice President, Infrastructure & Advancement Solutions the position he held when he retired in December 2023. The Foundation’s fund-raising efforts grew during this time from $61.2 million raised in the fiscal year ending in June 2006 to a record $282.6 million for the fiscal year ending June 2024.

Mark and his wife Kelsey (Smith) were married in January of 1980, and live in Morgantown. They have 3 adult children and two son-in laws, all WVU alumni, and 3 grandchildren.