GSA Technology Council

Earlier this year Senator James H. “Jim” Ritchie, Jr. (R-13), Majority Whip, introduced a joint resolution in the South Carolina Senate to create the nation’s first statewide universal wireless network. S. 465 establishes the South Carolina Wireless Technology and Communications Commission to develop a public-private partnership aimed at creating the nation’s first “Wi-Fi” covered state.

Senator Ritchie and Senator Gerald Malloy (D- 29) also introduced S.464. in an effort to create the iAm laptop program for all eighth graders in South Carolina.

Join us as Senator Jim Ritchie discusses these initiatives and his goals to give the state “competitive advantage in the knowledge based economy.”

About our speaker

Jim Ritchie was elected to the South Carolina Senate in November 2000. In his first term, Ritchie was instrumental in developing and securing passage of legislation such as the South Carolina Education Lottery Act and the deregulation of broadband technology. He was also the author of the South Carolina Venture Capital Act and… more…

GSATC Learning Lunch

Topic: SC Senate Initiatives for Tech Competiveness
Presented by: Senator Jim Ritchie
Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Location: Crowne Plaza (Map: I-385 at Roper Mtn.)

Agenda

11:30 - 11:55 Registration, Networking, Lunch
11:55 - 12:10 Announcements
12:10 - 12:50 Presentation
12:50 - 1:00 Door Prizes, Adjourn

This meeting features easy access from I-385, plenty of free parking, ample networking opportunities, a great presentation, and door prizes. Plan to attend.

Lunch is $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

RSVP Online

Online registration is now closed. Please register at the meeting.

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Join us for our August meeting as Russell Cook, of SC Launch! explains how SC Launch engages with entrepreneurs across the state to build the companies of tomorrow. Russell will explain the SC Launch programs, tell what they are looking for and how they can help. In the days leading up to our meeting, SC Launch will be announcing a number of major steps forward taken by local technology companies that are positioned for real growth. Be sure to come to our meeting to learn how these companies worked with SC Launch!

About our speaker

Russell Cook is the Program Director for SC Launch!, an SCRA collaboration. SCRA leads the Knowledge Economy in South Carolina and the nation by successfully advancing applied research and technology through collaboration. More…

GSATC Learning Lunch

Topic: What is SC Launch!?
Presented by: Russell Cook
Date: Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Location: Crowne Plaza (Map: I-385 at Roper Mtn.)

Agenda

11:30 - 11:55 Registration, Networking, Lunch
11:55 - 12:10 Announcements
12:10 - 12:50 Presentation
12:50 - 1:00 Door Prizes, Adjourn

This meeting features easy access from I-385, plenty of free parking, ample networking opportunities, a great presentation, and door prizes. Plan to attend.

Lunch is $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

RSVP Online

Online registration closed. Please register onsite.

Downloads

Not yet available.

Join us for our July Learning Lunch as local security expert Mark Funderburk will review the latest technology risks, threats & exploits for business and home users. Mark will explain the techniques used by hackers and will offer strategies you can use to protect your computer and identity.

About our speaker

Mark Funderburk is the Director of Project Automation for the Fluor Government Group. Mark has served as the Director of Information Security for Fluor Corporation and Tyco Fire and Security. Mark is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), an advisory board member of the Innovision Technology Awards, and a member of the SC InfraGard and the SC Electronic Crimes Task Force.

ps: In addition to our regular fabulous prizes, Mark will be giving away an iPod Shuffle!

GSATC Learning Lunch

Topic: Hacker-Proof your Life (at work and home)
Presented by: Mark Funderburk
Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Location: Crowne Plaza (Map: I-385 at Roper Mtn.)

Agenda

11:30 - 11:55 Registration, Networking, Lunch
11:55 - 12:10 Announcements
12:10 - 12:50 Presentation
12:50 - 1:00 Door Prizes, Adjourn

This meeting features easy access from I-385, plenty of free parking, ample networking opportunities, a great presentation, and door prizes. Plan to attend.

Lunch is $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

RSVP Online

Online registration is now closed. Please register at the event.

Downloads

Mark’s Presentation (pdf)

Expert Doug Hubbard will give us a sneak preview of key ideas in his upcoming book about how to measure things usually considered “immeasurable.” In the last ten years, Hubbard has quantified such things as the value of the public health benefits from better information management at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the method the U.S. Marine Corps uses to forecast fuel for battlefield operations. He asserts that the idea that some things are immeasurable is based on a set of misconceptions about statistics and measurement in general or, in many cases, a lack of a clear definition of what the proposed “intangible” really is. Whatever is relevant to business must have observable consequences. The presentation will include:

• The three reasons why anything is ever (incorrectly) thought to be immeasurable
• Quick and simple methods for measuring any uncertain quantity
• Interesting examples of where “impossible” measurements had clever solutions

GSATC Learning Lunch

Topic: How To Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business
Presented by: Doug Hubbard
Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Location: Crowne Plaza (Map: I-385 at Roper Mtn.)

Agenda

11:30 - 11:55 Registration, Networking, Lunch
11:55 - 12:10 Announcements
12:10 - 12:50 Presentation
12:50 - 1:00 Door Prizes, Adjourn

This meeting features easy access from I-385, plenty of free parking, ample networking opportunities, a great presentation, and door prizes. Plan to attend.

Lunch is $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

RSVP Online

Online registration is now closed. Please register at the meeting.

The GSA Technology Council and Greenville Tech’s Buck Mickel Center are proud to present a monthly series of meetings with some of Upstate South Carolina’s celebrated entrepreneurs. Meetings are the 4th Thursday of January through May 2007. Meetings are from 6 PM until 8 PM at the Buck Mickel Center.

This final event in the series features Joe Erwin, Peter Waldschmidt, and William Bradshaw. 

To attend this event, please RSVP by calling 864- 250-8800.

 About our speakers:

WILLIAM BRADSHAW

William Bradshaw was born in Dublin, GA., in 1950, the second of four children. His childhood was spent in Macon, and at the age of 19 he married Annette, his wife of 38 years in 1969.

During his last year at college he was approached by one of his instructors about interviewing for a position as Office Manager of a local Chevrolet dealership. He secured the position. As a result of that position William knew early on in his automotive career that he wanted to become an automobile dealer. When a small Oldsmobile-Cadillac dealership in Greer, SC, became available to purchase, William and Annette sold their home and along with his employer’s support, both morally and as a financial investor, he was able to purchase his first dealership in 1979.

That first dealership employed 15 people and total sales that first year were $9,408,967. Today Bradshaw Automotive Group has approximately 400 employees and total sales for 2006 exceeded $235,000,000.

Since 1979, William has purchased Buick, Chevrolet, Acura, Honda and Infiniti dealerships. He was also awarded Saturn franchises for Greenville and Spartanburg, SC, Asheville, NC and Athens, GA and the HUMMER franchise for the entire upstate SC area. He has most recently purchased a Pontiac and GMC franchise for the Greer, SC area.

William is the immediate Past-Chairman of N.A.D.A., a national organization made up of over 20,000 New Car Dealers, and he and his wife are very active in support and development of the Children’s Museum in Greenville. He is also a major sponsor of Greenville Children’s Hospital’s Upstate Safe Kids program and has found the time to become a leading advocate of child passenger safety initiatives. William recently hosted the largest child-seat inspection event in the history of the state as part of N.A.D.A.’S Child Passenger Safety Month.

William has won numerous awards, including South Carolina Dealer of the Year, Time Magazine Quality Dealer, Greenville Magazine’s Business Person of the year and member of the Greenville Tech Entrepreneurs Forum.

Peter Waldschmidt

Peter is an entrepreneur with a love for innovative technology. He co-founded TetraData Corporation in 1997, serving as its Chief Technology Officer. While at TetraData, he and his team designed an analytical software platform that enabled school administrators to gain insight into their strengths and weaknesses ( i.e. business intelligence for schools). During this period, he and his partners grew the company nationally becoming the market leader for educational analytics. In 2004 they raised venture capital to fund their continued growth and eventually sold the company to Follett Software Corporation in 2006.

Peter’s desire has always been to research innovative ideas and build businesses from the most promising ones. In February of 2007, Peter left TetraData to found Gnoso Inc., a technology incubator company that researches ideas and commercializes them. The first product is an innovative tool that helps software development teams maintain code quality by reporting metrics on the effectiveness of their automated tests. Several other projects are in the works.

While at TetraData, Peter served on the technical board of the Schools Interoperability Framework Association (SIFA), a standards body that produces interoperability standards for software in the education industry. During this period, Peter co-chaired the SIFA Technical Board, the Data Warehousing Workgroup and the Web Services Task Force. He also authored the SIF Web Services Reporting specification, and the SIF Extended Query specification.

Before starting TetraData, Peter designed and built software for Geerdes International that modeled global commodity trade-flows. He also created motion control software for various robotics and factory automation projects at Carolina Motion Controls and worked on the control software for the 3D modeler built by BPM Technology.

Peter holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Bob Jones University with a focus on Math and Computer Science. He has also partially completed an MBA from Clemson University. Peter’s hobbies include woodworking and high performance automobiles.

Joe Erwin

Entrepreneur Joe Erwin is the founder of Erwin-Penland Advertising, which represents national and regional clients including Verizon Wireless, Wachovia Bank, Michelin, Firehouse Subs and BMW. Founded in 1986 with one account and one employee, EP is now one of the largest marketing firms in the Southeast, with more than 140 employees and over $140 million in billings annually. The agency was named to Elliott Davis’ “Fastest Growing Companies” list in 2002, and in 2003, received the Greenville Chamber’s “Family Friendly Workplace” award. A graduate of Clemson University, Erwin began his career at Leslie Advertising in Greenville. He was soon recruited by an agency in New York, where he worked on the Corning Glass Works and Quincy’s Family Steakhouse accounts for several years before returning to Greenville with his wife Gretchen to open Erwin-Penland.

Erwin is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner, was inducted into Greenville Tech’s Entrepreneurs Forum in 2000 and is a Member of the Clemson University Entrepreneurs’ Roundtable and the Board of the Upstate Alliance. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce, and was a member of Governor Jim Hodges’ Commission on Teacher Quality.

Learning Lunch: Connect with the FBI’s InfraGard Security Program

InfraGard is a public-private alliance between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector. 83 of the top 100 firms in the Fortune 500 have an InfraGard representative. The nation�s critical infrastructure systems and services are owned and operated by private industry. Any attempt to harm or destroy these resources would directly impact the security of the United States and its citizens. InfraGard is the critical link that forms tightly-knit working relationships across all stakeholders-including the government, private sector, law enforcement, academic institutions and concerned citizens. By using the talents of expertise of the InfraGard network, information is shared to mitigate threats to our nation�s critical infrastructures and key resources.

GSATC Learning Lunch

Topic:� FBI’s InfraGard Program - How you can get involved.
Presented by: Ann Middleton
Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Location: Crowne Plaza (Map: I-385 at Roper Mtn.)

Agenda

11:30 - 11:55 Registration, Networking, Lunch
11:55 - 12:10 Announcements
12:10 - 12:50 Presentation
12:50 - 1:00 Door Prizes, Adjourn

This meeting features easy access from I-385, plenty of free parking, ample networking opportunities, a great presentation, and door prizes. Plan to attend.

Lunch is $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

RSVP Online

Online registration now closed. Please register onsite.

Bob DeGarmo came to Greenville 30 years ago with Daniel International where he was a Vice President of the company and President of Daniel Industrial Services. After merging with Fluor, he became a Senior Vice President of the combined companies for Strategic Planning and Corporate Development. Since leaving Fluor he has served in senior management positions in several large companies followed by ten years with Tatum Partners as Managing Partner for South Carolina. His most recent venture, Entrepreneurial Resources, LLC, provides strategic management and financial services to entrepreneurially managed companies.

At our March meeting, he will discuss how technology service companies can build more effective organizations and how IT departments in larger companies can more effectively deliver information to the enterprise.

GSATC Learning Lunch

Topic: Gigabytes of Data and No Information
Presented by: Bob DeGarmo

Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Location: Crowne Plaza (Map: I-385 at Roper Mtn.)
Agenda

11:30 - 11:55 Registration, Networking, Lunch
11:55 - 12:10 Announcements
12:10 - 12:50 Presentation
12:50 - 1:00 Door Prizes, Adjourn

This meeting features easy access from I-385, plenty of free parking, ample networking opportunities, a great presentation, and door prizes. Plan to attend.

Lunch is $15 in advance, $20 at the door.