In-Depth
Profiles in IT: Seven Inspirations
We talk with a handful of leaders who are making big footprints in the world of IT. They'll show you how they've inspired their staff, pulled off high-profile projects with flair and are successfully merging business with technology.
No doubt about it, working in IT is one tough job. It can also be a thankless one. It was hard enough a year ago, when money flowed relatively freely; now, you’re expected to do the same job and more, but with a severely slashed budget.
Despite all the challenges, we know that IT professionals labor quietly on, often in obscurity. We’re not talking about the top CTO at General Motors here; we’re talking about you, an enterprise systems manager, VP of Technology, maybe CIO or CTO, maybe in a Fortune 1000 company with global reach, maybe in government or education, maybe in a service provider or consulting firm or elsewhere. You’ve got a lot of tough projects to recommend, supervise, roll out and complete, on time and within budget.
In recognition of the many often unnoticed IT leaders out there, we asked our columnists and contributing editors to nominate some "IT inspirations"—low-profile executives and top-level managers who inspire their staff, who pull off amazing projects under insane deadlines, who have implemented a miraculous new customer management system that is quietly saving the company money, or are setting new standards in business and technology working together, or making strides in security, or data mining, or e-commerce.
Based on their nominations, we selected the following seven individuals and interviewed each of them at length, despite reluctance from some of them to be pushed into the limelight. Here are our first seven Enterprise Systems IT Inspirations; may we all be inspired to greater heights by their achievements.
—Linda Briggs
Molding Information
Andrew Winer, CIO, Myers Industries
The Business of IT
Darrell Zerbe, CIO, Ryerson Tull
Banking on Online
Patrick Swanick, CEO, Key Electronic Services
Change Agent
Dave Wennergren, deputy CIO for e-business and security,
Department of the Navy
Melding Business with IT
Tom Nealon, CIO, The Feld Group
Big-Time Windows
Dave Shaw, principal, Genesis ii
One Percent of the World's Data
Milton Halem, assistant director and CIO, NASA
About the Author
Bob Mueller is a writer and magazine publishing consultant based in the Chicago area, covering technology and management subjects.