GSA Technology Council

As the Carolinas/Tennessee Verizon Wireless region president, Jerry Fountain oversees the company’s sales, marketing, network operations, finance, administration, and an extensive retail footprint in South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. A 30-year veteran of the telecommunications industry, Jerry has witnessed first-hand the evolution and explosion of wireless in the US and under his leadership, helped Verizon Wireless become the largest wireless voice and 3G data network in the US.

Jerry set a solid foundation in the 1990s to make South Carolina a significant telecommunications employer and today, he manages over 4,199 employees throughout South Carolina in 60 locations, one of which is a customer care center and region headquarters in Greenville county. Jerry was also instrumental in locating a world-class interactive learning facility in Greenville for enterprise customers to experience Verizon Wireless’ newest data products and services in the company’s first Wireless Data Technology Lab. And, with 4G/LTE making a 2009 debut on Verizon Wireless’ network, Jerry is focused on all the new opportunities that will help Verizon Wireless customers Rule the Air.

Jerry Fountain speaks to the GSA Technology Council in September.

Steven Halim is an Instructor in School of Computing, National University of Singapore. NUS was placed 30th among the world’s top 200 universities – and 4th in Asia based The Times Higher Education – Quacquarelli Symonds (THE-QS) World University Rankings.

Mr. Halim teaches programming classes at the National Universotyh of Singapore, ranging from basic programming courses, intermediate data structures and algorithms classes, up to advanced competitive programming module specially tailored for programming contests. He is the coach for NUS ACM ICPC teams (International Collegiate Programming Contest) and Singapore IOI team (International Olympiad in Informatics) teams. His teams regularly qualify in the prestigious ICPC World Finals and have been medal winners in the International Olympiad for Informatics.

Dr. Steven Halim will speak to the GSA Technology Council in July

William (Bill) Brown is the Executive Director of Education Technology Services at Greenville County Schools. Greenville County Schools is the 51st largest school district in the nation with over 70,000 students and 9,000 employees and is the largest school district in South Carolina.

Mr. Brown’s position provides vision and leadership for all technology initiatives in the school district, coordinating and directing the integration of administrative and instructional technology applications. This includes establishment of district technology strategies, organization, and structure to support effective integration of technology into the classroom instructional program and to maximize service delivery to administrative offices.

Mr. Brown previously served as Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Digital-DNS, Inc., a Greenville based Managed Services Provider. Mr. Brown has over 30 years of information technology experience within the manufacturing, healthcare, financial, education, and service related industries.

Presentation: Technology for the 21st Century Student

How Greenville County Schools is implementing technology in the classroom to enhance learning, improve student achievement, and provide a stimulating and engaging experience by allowing students to visualize information.

Jeff Crume is a Distinguished Engineer and IT Security Architect on IBM’s World Wide Service Management Tiger Team with more than 25 years’ experience in the IT industry. He is the author of a book entitled “Inside Internet Security: What Hackers Don’t Want You To Know” and has written articles on cryptography, virtual private networking and identity management. He holds CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) and ISSAP (Information Systems Security Architecture Professional) security industry certifications as well as Distinguished Chief IT Architect credentials from The Open Group. Jeff lived in Beijing on assignment in 2006 where he helped architect secure infrastructures for clients in the Greater China geography. Jeff is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and serves on the NC State University Computer Science Strategic Advisory Board, the “Information Management & Computer Security” research journal editorial board and has worked with clients in nearly 40 countries across 6 continents.

Jeff Crume speaks to the GSA Technology Council in April.

Executive Director Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research

Bob Geolas joined the International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) at Clemson University in April 2004. As director, Geolas is responsible for overall leadership and management of the Clemson auto research campus. He recruits additional partners from the automotive and motorsports industries and coordinates the private and public sectors activities in an effort to create an environment where world-class education, research and business activities will flourish.

A graduate of North Carolina State University, Geolas has worked as executive assistant to the North Carolina secretary of transportation and as legislative liason for the N.C. speaker of the house. He has served on the Commission for a Competitive North Carolina, the N.C. Governor’s Task Force for Regionalism and the N.C. Governor’s Policy Council. Geolas served as top manager at the 1,334-acre Centennial Campus at North Carolina State University from 2000 until he joined CU-ICAR. In his N.C. State position, Geolas provided direct oversight for Centennial Campus and Centennial Biomedical Campus.

Bob Geolas speaks to the GSA Technology Council in March.

Peter Coffee joined salesforce.com in January of 2007, after spending 18 years as an analyst and columnist at the enterprise technology journal eWEEK (including time under its former title PC Week). Based in the Los Angeles area, he currently works with corporate and commercial application developers to build a community based on Force.com: the salesforce.com Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Peter has 27 years’ experience in guiding the adoption and management of innovative information technologies and practices as a developer, consultant, educator, and internationally published author. He has appeared on CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS, Fox, India’s Network 18 and Mexico’s Grupo Fórmula newscasts addressing a broad range of eBusiness issues. He chaired the four-day Web Security Summit conference in Boston during the summer of 2000; he has been a keynote speaker, moderator or workshop leader at technical conferences, business and academic events throughout the U.S. and in India, Singapore, Australia, China, Korea, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Spain, Italy and The Netherlands.

Peter was previously the first manager of PC planning at The Aerospace Corporation, where he also worked in space systems project management and in space-asset applications of artificial intelligence techniques. Before that, he was a Senior Engineer working in arctic project planning, chemical facility construction management, and alternative-fuels engineering for several divisions of Exxon Corporation. He holds an engineering degree from MIT and an MBA from Pepperdine University, where he also served as a faculty member for the core curriculum in IT management; he has held other faculty appointments in computer science (artificial intelligence) at UCLA and in business analytics at Chapman College. He is the author of two books, How To Program Java and Peter Coffee Teaches PCs.

Peter Coffee speaks to the GSA Technology Council in February.

Ralph Heredia is the Vice President of business development and co-founder of Zipit Wireless, Inc., in Greenville, S.C. He is directly responsible for all aspects of product development, innovation, research, marketing and customer/partner relationships. Heredia is also the inventor of Zipit’s first & second Wireless Messenger instant messaging devices for teens and pre-teens introduced respectively in late 2004 & and 2007.

Heredia has more than 28 years of experience in the consumer electronics, personal computer and multimedia industries. Prior to helping establish Zipit, he helped established the Consumer Media Systems division at Aeronix in 2002. In addition, he has also held management and product development positions with several mid-sized technology companies, including Escient/OpenGlobe and avACTIVE. Heredia was also the systems architecture manager for Cirrus Logic. Prior to that, he held several positions, including senior principal analyst for NCR Corporation and was a member of the technical staff at AT&T’s Bell Labs (now part of Lucent Corporation), where he worked for almost 14 years.

He has worked in a management, product development or marketing role on developing the technology used in many of today’s “staple” electronics products including MP3 players, DVD recorders and players and Internet radio receivers.

Heredia has had an extensive education in all aspects of electronics and computer sciences, has authored a chapter in the Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1999 and has been granted eight U.S. patents for various inventions related to the technology field. A dedicated husband, and father of two sons, Heredia enjoys music, hiking/camping with the Boy Scouts and socializing with friends.

Ralph will speak to the GSA Technology Council at it’s January 2010 Learning Lunch.

Pam Evans has responsibility for IBM Worldwide web marketing strategies, web analytics and content on Software Group customer websites in over 70 countries. A digital marketing and Globalization leader for ibm.com marketing, Ms Evans conducts workshops with sales and marketing teams on how to use the web to engage new prospects and generate leads.

Evans joined IBM in 1980 as an editor of a divisional magazine and spent 15 years in corporate communications before assuming responsibility for developing the marketing programs for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games where IBM launched its first online catalog.

At IBM she has led teams in the development of web marketing for the last 12 years, working to integrate telesales with customer websites and launch relationship marketing programs including the Gold Service program which was acknowledged as an industry leading practice by Peppers and Rogers. These marketing programs have been recognized by the Direct Marketing Association and received numerous marketing awards.

Ms Evans earned an MBA degree in marketing from Georgia State University and a BA in English from Georgia Southern University. She serves as a charter member of iDirect, Vice Chairman of the Direct Marketing Associations’ B2B Council and speaks frequently to professional marketing and sales groups.

She was named as the Marketer of the Year for 2008 by Target Marketing Magazine and one of the top 100 marketers by B to B Magazine in 2006 and 2007.

Pam speaks to the GSA Technology Council in October.

John Tully, in his 35 year career has served Michelin in a variety of management positions. He began his career in New York working in the Marketing and Sales support function. He most recently served for 3 years as the President of Michelin Development (Canada) inc. in Ontario, Canada. Prior to this assignment he was the North American Director of Community Relations for Michelin North America, Inc.

John has now been charged with directing and implementing Michelin Development in Upstate, SC . for the corporation. This is a 20 year old Michelin program that had been introduced to North America in 2006 and is now being implemented in the U.S. This program is focused on creating new quality, sustainable jobs in the 10 counties of Upstate, SC. The program will provide low cost loans and access to Michelin’s considerable in-house business expertise to disadvantaged start-up, small- & medium-sized businesses.

John has a BA degree in Journalism and Sociology from Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ. He lives in Greenville, SC, with his wife, Marianne, a K-5 teacher.

John Tully speaks to the GSA Technology Council in September