Twenty years later, and many jobs behind her, Kathy Bergsma, UF information security manager, is proud to be a University of Florida employee. March 10, 2006, was Bergsma's twentieth anniversary with the state.

Bergsma moved to Gainesville in 1978 to study horticulture at the University of Florida and earned her Bachelors of Science in 1981.

While working on her degree, and five years following graduation, she was employed by West Farms, Inc. managing their greenhouse and interiorscape businesses.

In 1986, Bergsma accepted a job at the University of Florida as a Biological Scientist in the Postharvest Physiology lab of the Horticultural Sciences Department. During her time in the Horticulture Science Department, Bergsma developed an interest for computers and decided to pursue a master.s degree integrating computer technology and horticulture. Her thesis was titled, .An Expert System for Diagnostic Chilling Injury on Tropical Fruits and Vegetables..

In 1993, Bergsma graduated with a Masters of Science in horticultural sciences and accepted a job with the Statistics Department at UF where she was introduced to UNIX administration and network management.

In November of 1995, she accepted an offer from the Animal Science Department where she had the opportunity to expand her server administration skills to include Novell's Netware.

In April of 1999, Bergsma started working as UF's first dedicated IT Security Coordinator, working at Network Services, part of the Northeast Regional Data Center and the Office of Information Technology. The UF IT security team has since separated from the network services department, but remains under UF's Computing and Networking Services.

As UF IT Security Coordinator, she implemented a campus-wide network intrusion detection system, organized and chaired the committee that wrote the UF IT Security Regulations, supervised the development of the UF IT security website, built an incident response team, and organized many security training events including UF Information Technology Security Awareness Day (ITSA Day). She is also an active member of Educause, an organization that focuses on IT security in higher education.

In July of 2003, she was promoted to UF Information Security Manager, UF's highest ranking dedicated information security technical position. In this position, Bergsma strives to further improve UF IT security.