James Utermark is the Acting Director of SUNY CID. In this role, he will manage the operations side of the Albany-based SUNY CID institution that was awarded $29.1 million for projects in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Latin America since 2004. He will focus on staffing, budgets, administration, policies and procedures.

Prior to moving to SUNY CID, Jim Utermark spent three years as director of student programs for the New York State Senate. He collaborated with SUNY CID to launch the International Senate Fellow program in which a staff member of the Parliament of Zimbabwe spent six months working in the office of a New York State Senator in 2005. This successful program is one of several SUNY CID projects that link New York’s governmental institutions and SUNY campuses to benefit the world community.

With Masters and Bachelors degrees in political science from the University at Albany, Mr. Utermark began his service career in 1989 as a graduate fellow with the New York State Senate. Following his work public in the Legislature, he served as the assistant to the commissioner of transportation before moving to the Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform. He also worked as a senior project manager for a major multi-discipline engineering consulting firm before returning to the New York State Senate in 2003.