Nashville Technology Council

NASHVILLE TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL ANNOUNCES 2010 TECHNOLOGY AWARD WINNERS

Last night, the Nashville Technology Council announced the official winners of the 2010 “Feel the Beat” Technology Awards at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel. The awards acknowledge individuals and companies whose success has helped grow Greater Nashville into a nationally recognized hub for technology.

In addition to the category presentations, special recognition was given to Chris Beck and Patrick Vondette of HP for their Diamond level sponsorship support of the Nashville Technology Council.

2010 “Feel the Beat” Nashville Technology Award Winners:

CIO of the Year — Gary Seay, Community Health Systems

CTO of the Year — Eric Harrison, Community Health Systems

CISO of the Year — Bill Dieringer, Ardent Health Services

Innovator of the Year — Tim Smith, MyWerx

IT Student of the Year — Matthew Lefavor, Belmont University

Volunteer of the Year — John Kepley, teknetex

Social Media/Blogger of the Year — Scott Gordon, Vaco Technology

Software Programmer/Engineer of the Year — Nicholas Williams, PureSafety

The Green Award — LetterLogic, Inc.

Start-up Company of the Year — Taigan

Lifetime Achievement — Tom Stephenson, HMS

Technology Organization of the Year — Ardent Health Services

Bill Dieringer is the AVP, CISO for Ardent Health Services. He is responsible for all aspects of Ardent’s information security program including: vision and strategy; conducting/directing IT audits; ensuring compliance with applicable federal, state, and local regulations; implementing information security policies and supporting technology solutions; and managing security operations across the Ardent enterprise.

Prior to joining Ardent in May of 2009, Mr. Dieringer was the inaugural Director of Information Systems Security for Vanguard Health Systems. In this newly created role, he was responsible for designing, developing, and implementing Vanguard’s information security program.

Prior to joining Vanguard in October of 2003, Mr. Dieringer was the Americas Regional Security Officer for Deloitte, Touche, Tohmatsu (DTT). As a member of DTT’s Global Information Security Office, he had responsibility for information security activities in DTT’s North, South, and Central American member firms spanning some 45 countries.

Bill started his civilian career with Deloitte in 2000 after receiving his honorable discharge from the United States Air Force where he served for 11 years in the Communications and Intelligence communities. During his service, he received specialized training at the US Air Force Information Warfare Center in San Antonio, Texas in order to protect and defend our national technological interests.

Mr. Dieringer has over 20 years of experience in information security. He holds numerous certifications including: A+, CISSP, CHSP, CHS-IV, CCNA, and MCSE. He serves on Metro Nashville’s Information Security Advisory Board, Nashville’s annual Infosec Conference steering committee, and is a founding member of Tennessee’s CISO Roundtable.

The Nashville Technology Council’s Board of Directors supports two technology funds to help the community grow.

“The use of technology in business and our personal lives is growing dramatically.  Unfortunately, our community is not producing enough technology graduates to meet the technology needs of the future,” said Andy Flatt, CIO of HealthSpring and Board Chair for the Nashville Technology Council.  “Our hope is, by establishing these funds, we will able to encourage more students to pursue degrees in technology and be able to support local community efforts for years to come.”

Technology Scholarship Fund
The Technology Scholarship Fund was established by the Board of the Nashville Technology Council, an organization devoted to helping the Middle Tennessee technology community succeed by leading in education, innovation, exposure and connections to the technology community. The Fund will endow permanently, one or more scholarships benefiting Nashville high school seniors, entering two or four-year degree programs in pursuit of an education in fields related to the creation, innovation, installation or maintenance of technology.

Eligibility – Eligible applicants are high school seniors from Nashville high schools who are entering two or four-year degree programs in fields related to the creation, innovation, installation or maintenance of technology.

Technology Community Fund
The Technology Community Fund will support charitable projects and initiatives to improve and enhance technology in Middle Tennessee. Grants from this Fund will be used to support the work of local nonprofit organizations as they broadly educate, inform and equip the community of Nashville and its citizens for the technological needs and opportunities of the decades ahead.

Jeffrey Boyland is a graduate of Tennessee State University with a B.S. in Computer Science. A native of Memphis, TN, Jeffrey, is a first-generation college graduate. His first interest in technology came at the age of 16, when his parents purchased the household’s first computer, a Pentium running at 75MHz, with 32MB of RAM and a 650MB hard drive. When the computer broke down, he took it upon his liberty to fix it. Since then, Jeffrey has always tried to discover new technologies and try to apply it to enhance the lives of his family and neighbors. He has a dream to build a robot that will assist the elderly with their day-to-day activities and let them lead an easier self-sufficient life.

The Nashville Technology Council hosted the annual Fall Golf Outing for 100 golfers at Legends Golf Course in Franklin, TN, on October 14, 2010.  The weather was spectacular and the golf was pretty amazing as well. Special shout out to our luncheon sponsor, Ciber, for the great BBQ and to all of our hole sponsors for participating!

Here are the results:

1st Place – Team HealthSpring
Mike Mirt
Sonny Terrill
Ben Flatt
Dylan Waters

2nd Place – Team Ciber
Mike Strom
Chuck Minor
Dwayne Collier
Stephen Petricca

3rd Place – Team Peak 10
Drew Fassett
Steve Roadman
Kevin Watford
Phil Reissig

Long Drive – Drew Fassett – Peak 10

Closest to the Pin – Ram Hari – Emdeon

Congratulations to all! It was a very fun day and we hope to see you again next year!

Eugene Batsuk is a triathlete who loves to run at Percy Warner Park, bike on Natchez Trace, and swim at Maryland Farms in the Nashville area.  He is an active member of the community with numerous volunteering activities meeting the needs of the homeless, ministering to pre-teens, and working with the United Way of Metropolitan Nashville. Eugene works as a Sr. Microsoft SharePoint Engineer in Global IT at Willis Group Holdings and enjoys resolving complex business problems thru technology.

Personal Biography:

I am a senior at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, currently pursuing a double major in Computer Science and Philosophy. I have supported Dr. Joan Lind (UT Knoxville) in her research on the relationship between space-filling curves and the solutions of the Loewner differential equation; the program I helped create has even been used by graduate-level researchers at Washington State University. I have also presented work to the Belmont community on algorithmic grammar induction. This summer, I completed a 12-week internship program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. I worked as a data analyst for Sample Analysis at Mars, an instrument currently in development for the new Mars rover (Mars Science Laboratory), scheduled to launch next year.

After getting a Ph.D., I hope to become a college professor and researcher. I am convinced that theoretical research is one of the surest ways to advance the tech world at its very foundations. Furthermore, I have been blessed with incredibly caring and attentive professors at Belmont, and their example has convinced me that the most important effect I can have the world of technology is by shaping the minds of its future pioneers.

Apart from my work with technology, I am an avid student of the humanities, especially 19th-century philosophy. I have presented at several undergraduate philosophy conferences, and I am currently completing an undergraduate thesis about the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard.

Josh Crews, 29, is from Auburn, Alabama and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2003.  Josh came to Nashville first as a book salesman for the Southwestern Company.  In Nashville, he fell in love with web development and the Ruby programming language.  

As a consultant, he built the site of a Nashville music-business startup, Musikpitch.com.

He now works for Swingpal.com, a golf-coaching startup in Green Hills and leads the Nashville Ruby on Rails meetup group.

Josh is dedicating to building the Ruby community in Nashville, helping young men get started as Ruby developers, and helping Nashville businesses find developers for their Ruby projects.

Creating computer programs has intrigued John Boyter since early childhood.  Today, software development is both his job and his passion.  In 2007, John joined Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) as a junior programmer.  Over the past four years, John has advanced in rank and responsibility – including his most recent role as lead programmer for the reengineering of one of BMI’s flagship products, the royalty statement system.  As a programmer, John uses C# .NET to develop, implement, and maintain new and existing software for various BMI departments.  Most software on which he works interfaces with Oracle and IBM DB2 databases.  In his job, John continually seeks to incorporate new technology and ideas in the software when possible.  Although John originally hails from Winston Salem, North Carolina, he has called Tennessee home for the past 13 years.  He earned his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Computer Science and Music Liberal Studies at Austin Peay State University.  When John isn’t programming, he enjoys spending time with his wife, building and upgrading computers, playing piano, and participating in various activities at his local church.

Dan Ryan- Principal, Ryan Search & Consulting

In his role as Principal at Ryan Search & Consulting, Dan provides Retained Executive Search, Leadership Consulting and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) work for his clients. Dan’s search work focuses on mid-to-senior level leadership while his consulting work includes Executive Coaching, Organizational & Leadership Development, and Outsourced Leadership Consulting. His primary market segments include Engineering, Construction, Architecture, Technology, Life Sciences, and Healthcare.

Dan has earned a MEd. from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, an MBA from Tennessee State University, and a BS in Engineering Physics from Murray State University.  He has also served as an adjunct faculty member for Belmont University.

Dan is a member of the Nashville Chamber, Tennessee Biotechnology Association, Society of American Military Engineers, Franklin Breakfast Rotary Club, Middle Tennessee Workforce Investment Board, Natchez Trace District of Boy Scouts of America, and he is a Board Member of Leadership Middle Tennessee.