An administrator with experience in higher education and the U.S. Air Force has been named West Virginia Universitys top procurement officer, University officials announced.

Philip R. Charneskie will serve as WVU Director of Procurement and Payment Services and Chief Procurement Officer.

He has more than a decade of higher education management experience, serving as Major Acquisitions Director at the University of North Carolina, and as Director of Purchasing and Receiving at Paul Smiths College, in New York.

He has also served as a contracting officer for the U.S. Air Force, and recently completed a one-year tour in Baghdad, working as a contracts and procurement manager through an Iraqi reconstruction contract.

He is a Certified Purchasing Manager through the Institute of Supply Management, and earned a professional designation in contract management from the Air Fore Institute of Technology and the National Contract Management Association.

He earned a bachelors in Geography and Urban Studies from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from the University of Wyoming.