Vinod Chachra

After earning his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research at Virginia Tech, Dr. Vinod Chachra served the university in many capacities. From 1972 to 1985, he successfully assumed roles of director of software development, director of computing and information systems, vice provost and then vice president for computing and information systems.

Dr. Chachra was responsible for the creation of VTLS Inc., an international leader in integrated library automation, digital imaging services and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The company provided state-of-the-art library automation systems to more than 1900 libraries worldwide. VTLS was the first spinoff from Virginia Tech and the first tenant of the CRC.

Dr. 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, 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 worked with several countries in the design and implementation of national bibliographic information resources and union catalogs. He has written two books, a chapter in a third book and numerous journal articles.