2026 MacAdmins Conference: Full Schedule

The MacAdmins Conference is a premier event for professionals who deploy, manage, and support devices across the Apple ecosystem. For more than 15 years, we have delivered high-quality sessions and hands-on workshops led by trusted voices in the MacAdmins community. Attendees come together to share real-world experience, practical solutions, and build lasting connections.

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9:00am EDT

Wait, We Have to Be What? Making Sense of Compliance for Mac Admins

Thursday July 9, 2026 9:00am - 9:45am EDT

208

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One day your manager walks over and says the company needs to be SOC 2 compliant, NIST aligned, or ISO-27001. And just like that, compliance becomes your problem. If you've ever nodded along while quietly wondering what any of it actually means for your apple fleet, your team, or your organization, this session is for you. We'll map major frameworks, cut through the tool noise from GRC platforms to the macOS Security Compliance Project and give you a process that scales from SOC 2 to FedRAMP.

Speakers

Kyle Pazandak

Security Architect

Kyle Pazandak is a Minneapolis-based security professional with a career rooted in Apple platform security, compliance, and open source tooling. Drawing on experience spanning the U.S. Department of Defense, K–12 education technology, and years at Jamf, healthcare, and fintech... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 9:00am - 9:45am EDT
208 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Security & Compliance Fundamental

Tags Security & Compliance

10:00am EDT

What’s New for IT (Overflow in 204)

Thursday July 9, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am EDT

Deans Hall 2

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Join Apple to learn about the latest IT management capabilities coming to Apple platforms following the announcements at WWDC 2026. We’ll cover enhancements to Apple Business and School Manager, updates to Platform Single Sign-On and Declarative Device Management, and new deployment and management capabilities across macOS, iOS, iPadOS and other platforms. Whether you’re responsible for deploying, securing, or managing Apple devices at scale, this session will provide an overview of the latest tools and capabilities designed to help IT teams work more efficiently and effectively.

Note: This session will not be recorded.

Speakers

Apple Inc.

Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Company by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
Deans Hall 2 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Core Mac Administration Fundamental

Tags Core Mac Administration

10:00am EDT

Managing Student Media Makers

Thursday July 9, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am EDT

206

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Students in Penn State's Bellisario College of Communications produce hundreds of hours of films, journalism and podcasts every year. Almost every piece of content touches a computer running macOS. Come see how we manage (or sometimes just deal with) the applications and workflows that keep the content flowing.

Speakers

Chris Maurer

Systems Administrator, Penn State Bellisario College of Communications

It was a single Mac in a sea of PCs at a government access TV station. This G4 QuickSilver, with a Matrox RTMac card and FCP 3, was the station's first step in the 'move to digital' and the beginning of my career in Mac IT. 2 years later, with the Mac bug fully implanted in my system... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
206 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Device Management & MDM Fundamental

Tags Device Management & MDM

10:00am EDT

Transforming Asset Management with SwiftDialog and APIs

Thursday July 9, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am EDT

207

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We transformed the way we handle asset management by building zsh scripts that leverage swiftDialog, the Google Workspace APIs, our student information system's APIs, and our asset management software's APIs to allow for transactional logging and email receipts to students, faculty, and parents.

Speakers

Garrett Thorn

Systems Administrator, Oxford School District

Thursday July 9, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
207 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tools / AI & Practical Solutions Fundamental

Tags Tools / AI & Practical Solutions

11:15am EDT

The Mac Admin Playbook – From First Device to Full Estate (Overflow in 204)

Thursday July 9, 2026 11:15am - 12:00pm EDT

Deans Hall 1

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Most companies scale their Mac fleet before they build the foundations to support it, and spend years paying for that mistake. The Mac Admin Playbook cuts through the noise to give you the exact stack, in the right order, from day one, covering every critical layer of a modern Apple environment, from secure onboarding and encryption to endpoint protection, identity and remote access. Then it takes you further into decisions, tradeoffs, and pro tips that separate reactive from proactive IT teams.

Speakers

Buraq Alsmadi

Head of IT

I’m the Head of IT at uMotif and the founder of iMasters Solutions, with a passion for building secure, scalable Apple environments.
I spend most of my time working with Jamf, Apple Business, identity and access management, endpoint security, and helping organisations get the f... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 11:15am - 12:00pm EDT
Deans Hall 1 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Core Mac Administration Fundamental

Tags Core Mac Administration

2:50pm EDT

TCP/IP Networking Foundations

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:50pm - 3:50pm EDT

Deans Hall 2

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Learn the bedrock technologies of computer networking from AP's to Zoning.

Speakers

Ben Greisler

Owner, Kadimac Corp.

Over a quarter century in the tech world building, fixing, writing, training and still always learning.

John Soward

Research IT, Dataseam & University of Kentucky

John has been working in IT since 1988, spending most of it with Unix-like systems including NeXTSTEP and MacOS. He's worked in startups in the insurance, VR and film industry, and spent over 20 years in higher ed. He currently teaches computers science at the University of Kentucky... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:50pm - 3:50pm EDT
Deans Hall 2 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Core Mac Administration Fundamental

Tags Core Mac Administration

4:15pm EDT

Mac Administration and the basics

Thursday July 9, 2026 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT

207

Feedback Survey

I will give you the basics to get started in the Mac Admin scene. The tricks I have learned through the years and the mindset I use when doing Mac Administration.

Speakers

Johnny Himes

System Administrator, The Pennsylvania State University

Over 20 years in the Mac management field. Started as a K-12 administrator and grew into a larger role at PSU. I focused my career in the Mac side of administration, but work in the Microsoft side as well.

Cameron Wilkinson

IT Support Specialist, Penn State IT

I am an IT Support Specialist in the College of Health and Human Development's IT. I leverage tools like JAMF, BigFix, and the likes daily.

Thursday July 9, 2026 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
207 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Core Mac Administration Fundamental

Tags Core Mac Administration

9:00am EDT

10:00am EDT

10:00am EDT

10:00am EDT

11:15am EDT

2:50pm EDT

4:15pm EDT

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