Mark Stephens 1970 - 2015

Monday, 29 June 2015

Mark Stephens 1970-2015

On Tuesday 23rd June we lost a much loved colleague, Mark Stephens, to cancer. Mark worked within the IT Department as Contracts and Licensing Manager.

Mark has given so much to the University in the 23 years that he worked here.  Mark started his career at the University by providing IT support at the Bulmershe campus before he moved to Whiteknights to join the User Services Group where he honed his advisory, customer service and documentation writing skills and became a well-known and popular member of the team. 

Mark went on to become the team leader of the ITS Help team where he managed many members of current IT staff at the start of their careers at the University, and dealt with staff from across Schools and Departments, helping them with their computing problems and incidents.  Following this, he became manager of the Desktop Support Team. 

Among his notable projects, Mark worked on the Student Service Desk software during the Student Services move into the Carrington Building and was also instrumental in the introduction of a new IT Service Desk tool within IT Services. 

During the reorganisation of IT in 2014 Mark moved to become the Contracts and Licensing Manager where his attention to detail and determination to do things right proved very valuable with the many contracts that he dealt with.

We will all remember Mark as a tenacious and determined individual who fought his cancer to the end and who always looked at things in a positive way and never gave up hope. He will be greatly missed.

Mark's funeral will be held on Friday 17 July at 12.15pm at Reading Crematorium. His family have requested no flowers, but donations can be made to Cancer Research. A memorial page will be set up soon.

Steve Gough

Assistant Director of IT