Name: Peter D. Cyr   Title: IT Specialist Organization: USDA-ARS-MWA-PIRU Role/Crops/Team: Pete manages the information technology at the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station. His role is to insure the quality and reliability of the hardware and software for the servers/workstations and networking infrastructure at the station. He is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the computers at the station – which includes maintaining updates to security and virus protection on all servers and workstations, maintaining the firewall protection to isolate the stations network from malicious intrusion, and performing routine backups for disaster recovery. In addition he maintains an additional network, server, and workstation on an isolated network that is used by the card-key access security system for the station. Special Interests: Currently, Pete’s interests focus around development of software and hardware systems to automate the process of capturing images of accessions for archival on the GRIN system and locally at the station. He is also actively working on technology solutions for gathering data taken in the field during the growing season and/or in-situ as part of a collection expedition. Education:   M.S. Industrial Engineering, Iowa State University, 1988.   B.S. Forestry, Iowa State University, 1985. Employment History: 2004-Current: IT Specialist for the PIRU, USDA-ARS, Ames, Iowa.   2001-2004: Senior Software Developer – Team Lead, NCMIC, Des Moines, Iowa.   1995-2001: Process Information Team Leader, Valliant, Oklahoma.   1988-1995: Research Engineer, Weyerhaeuser Company, Federal Way, Washington.