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Henry Chace
Chief Information Officer
Burns & Levinson LLP

Henry Chace is the Chief Information Officer of the law firm of Burns & Levinson LLP in Boston, Massachusetts.  Henry joined Burns & Levinson in February of 2003 and is responsible for strategic planning for information technology for the firm.  Burns & Levinson is a full service firm focused in business law, litigation, intellectual property, employment law and private client services with offices in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Previously Henry was the Director of Information Technology at Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar in Boston, Massachusetts.   Henry had been with Hutchins since 1993 and was responsible for the planning, implementation and maintenance of automated systems for the firm.   Prior to coming to Hutchins, Henry was with Gaston & Snow for thirteen years.  Henry served for five years on the Board of Directors of the International Legal Technology Association (“ILTA), formerly known as LawNet, Inc.  He has served as Secretary, President and Executive Vice President.  http://www.iltanet.org.

Henry is also a regular contributor to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly column “TechnoLAWgically Thinking” and has contributed articles to other publications.
 

Dawn Dillon
Senior Vice President – Division Head
Technology and Bank Operations
Salem Five

In May of 2000, Dawn Dillon joined Salem Five from Alltel Information Services, where she was the On-site Account and Enterprise Network Services Manager for Citizens Financial Group. She had direct managerial responsibility for a staff of over 100 with direct responsibility for the distributed computing environment and integration services. While there, Dawn assumed management responsibility for the Distributed Systems Y2K remediation project and all acquisition integration initiatives, performing nearly a dozen acquisition conversions. On a day-to-day basis, she was responsible for the health and development of the entire distributed computing environment – which covered New England and the East Coast offices.

Prior to working at Alltel, Dawn was the Senior Vice President, Distributed Systems and Self-Service Banking for Bank of Ireland, First Holdings, Inc. Dawn has been in banking since 1985 when she joined BankEast. Prior to that she worked within the technical & programming departments of companies in several industries, including insurance, non-profit and defense.

Bill Benz
Vice President MIS
J. & W. Seligman & Co. Incorporated

Bill joined Seligman in May of 1997 as the systems manager responsible for Financial Accounting systems at the firm. Over the last 10 years Bill has worked with business managers to define solutions to meet a changing marketplace. He is currently responsible for the technology needs of the Sales and Marketing company within Seligman as well as several corporate strategic products.

Prior to Seligman, Bill spent several years at Merrill Lynch & Co. as a Senior Manager in Financial Systems. Prior to that, Bill worked as a technology consultant for over 13 years for a number of Fortune 100 companies.

Ellen Christy
Director of Information Technology
Harbour Vest Partners, LLC.

Ellen joined HarbourVest in June 2000 as Director of Information Technology and provides management and strategic oversight of information systems and technology for U.S. and non-U.S. operations.   Ellen has over 16 years of experience working within the information technology space.  Prior to joining HarbourVest, Ellen was Assistant Director of Information Technology for a large Boston law firm.

In April 2001, Ellen founded the Private Equity CTO Network (PECTO), an international peer support group of 100+ members focused on the technological challenges that face private equity organizations today. The PECTO Network is comprised exclusively of technology professionals on staff at venture capital, private equity, and leveraged buyout firms. The members manage their firm’s information technology, infrastructure, and telecommunications initiatives. Three chapters have been formed: Boston, the founding chapter; New York; and West Coast, represented by the Venture Capital Information Technology (VCIT) group, as well as additional members throughout the U.S. and Europe.

William D. Danuloff (Bill)
Vice President & Chief Information Officer
Gorman-Rupp Company

36+ years with Gorman-Rupp, all in the information technology field. Responsible for all information technology strategy, including development, deployment and support of hardware and software, voice and data communications, data management, networks and Internet strategy for the Corporation.

Jim Murphy
Director of Information Technology/Security
City of Quincy

Jim Murphy is the Director of Information Technology/Security for the City of Quincy. He is responsible for managing all aspects of the City of Quincy's Information Systems, Telecommunications, city-wide Institutional Network, Access Control Systems and development of security polices and standards.

Jim has over 15 years experience in the Information Technology arena, serves on the State of Illinois Wireless Data Interoperability panel, and is a member of the International and Illinois GMIS. He attended Illinois State University's Undergraduate and Master’s program in Applied Computer Science.

Tom Dunnigan
Chief Information Officer
South Carolina Student Loan Corporation

In April 2007, Tom Dunnigan joined South Carolina Student Loan as its Chief Information Officer. With over twenty years experience in software engineering, project management, operations, and executive management roles, Tom has assumed responsibilities for both business operations and information technology management.

Previously, Tom has performed in leadership roles with several companies and on large-scale development programs at Verizon, NCR, BlueCross BlueShield, HP/Knightsbridge, Amerada Hess, and MBNA Information Services among others, where challenges involving data quality, system performance, time to market, business process improvement, and international business partnerships were effectively addressed.

Niel Nickolaisen
CIO and Director of Strategic Planning
Headwaters Inc.

Niel Nickolaisen is the CIO and Director of Strategic Planning at Headwaters, Inc. He has held technology executive and operations executive positions; typically in turnaround roles. He has developed a strategic and tactical alignment model that significantly improves returns on technology and business initiatives (by both improving the benefits and reducing the costs and risks). He holds a MS in Engineering from MIT and a BS in Physics from Utah State University. He writes the "Practical CIO" column for the CIO Leadership Network and a "how to" column for Search CIO. He is the author of an Addison Wesley book on Agile Leadership scheduled for release in 2009. He is one of the founders of Accelinnova, a think tank focused on improving organizational and IT agility.

Jim Williams
Director, Information Services
A&W Food Services of Canada Inc.

For the past 13 years, Jim has been directing the Information Services group for A&W Food Services of Canada Inc. A&W has been viewed by the Canadian Franchise community as a leader in the profitable use of technology.

Prior to joining A&W, Jim directed the Information Systems group for a North American packaging and paperboard producer with over 25 facilities. In its day, the company was the largest folding carton manufacturer in Canada, supplying all major Canadian consumer good companies.
 
A founding Board member of the CIO Association of Vancouver in 1997, Jim was President from 2001 to 2005, guiding the association in membership growth, strategic alliances and establishing a positive financial position. A founding Board member of the newly established CIO Association of Canada, Jim brings his experience to the task of building a national association of senior information technology executives.

Ross Bagley
Chief Information Officer
Consolidated Systems, Inc.

Ross Bagley joined CSi in June 2006 where he is responsible for all information technology strategy and business alignment.  Ross oversees all development, deployment and support of software and hardware as well as telecommunications infrastructure and security.

Ross has over 20 years of experience in the information technology field and has 14 years of professional services experience in many industries such as Manufacturing, Oil and Gas, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Retail, Pharmaceuticals, and Insurance both in domestic and international based companies.

Ross received his MBA from the University of Texas and serves on the advisory council for the Salvation Army in Columbia as well as the advisory council for technical development at the University of South Carolina.

Dr. Steve Chen
Chief Information Officer
University of Texas at University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College

Dr. Steve Chen is the first CIO at University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.  He has previously served as the first Vice President of Information Technology at South Texas College of Law, the first Chief Information Technology Officer and Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs at Utica College of Syracuse University; and the first campus-wide director for computing and educational technologies at City College of New York.  He has been recognized and given a status as a Senior Fulbright Specialist (2003-2008). 

Committed to building strong communities, Dr. Chen formed the "Great Lakes Academic Computing Consortium" that facilitated communication among universities and colleges in the Chicago and northern Indiana areas in 1993.  In 1999, Dr. Chen founded an E-society Club in NY City to help many e-business dreamers, and served as vice president for Sino-American Association.  He worked with the Governor of Indiana to initiate and implement the Access Indiana statewide network project and was elected Vice President for the Access LaPorte County Council.  The Council was the first- grant recipient from the State to implement Internet connections throughout the County in 1994.  With support from NY State Congressmen, city officials and organizational leaders, he helped host the first Bridging the Digital Divide Conference in New York City, August 21, 2000.

Dr. Chen came to the US in 1985.  He received his MS and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Dr. Chen’s doctoral research focused on information technology’s impact on human cognitive development, artificial intelligence in software design, human interaction with computers; and early web and portal development.  He was the First Place winner in the CBT Directions 1991 Screen Design Competition in Boston, and won the Doctoral Thesis/Project Grant Award from the UIUC.  His software titled “Linking Different Cultures by Computers” was used by the Indiana K-12 school system.  Currently, Dr. Chen served as a member of The University of Texas System IT Strategic Leadership Committee (SLC) and is the member of UTB Strategic Planning Committee member and the Provost Council.

Dr. Chen was named as Honorary Professor by Beijing Electric Power College, China, 1994 and Honorary Professor by College of Computer Science, Xiamen University, China, 2001. He helped South Texas College of Law establish a new international legal educational center in ShanDong University, China, 2005.