2009 NonStop Availability Award: Visa
Joe Ramos, accepted this year’s coveted NonStop Availability Award on behalf of Visa. It was certainly an honor and privilege to present this award to Joe alongside Winston Prather. Joe has unparalleled NonStop expertise and he is one of the most compassionate people in Connect.
Connect 2009 Volunteer of the Year: Jill Bourman
This month's featured Chapter Leader is Jill Bourman, from the Connect Minnesota Chapter. Currently, Jill works for the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the largest public school district in Minnesota. Jill and her technology staff assist the school techs in overseeing approximately 18,000 computers in 40 schools and 10 remote locations in 13 metro cities. Network staff manage the data networks at all schools/locations while providing support for local and wide area networks. In addition, they manage and support all the file and print services including 50 + Microsoft servers, IIS, SQL, Exchange, and numerous application servers all running on HP hardware. She has been with Anoka-Hennepin School District for 13 years.
As a Connect member, she serves at Chair of the Minnesota Chapter. The Minnesota Chapter provides its members networking opportunities and promotes exchange of technical information. The group meets quarterly and has had meetings and speakers present on HP SAN Health Check and Best Practices, SAN Configuration Mgmt, HP Storage updates, What’s New/Blades, Virtual Connect, Server Virtualization, HP SIM, HP Education Classes and more. The Minnesota Chapter also fosters active dialogue between HP and the Connect community Minnesota. Connect programs and offering are often spoken of within the member community.
This year, as the Connect Minnesota Chapter Leader, Jill stated she would like to "work towards continuing growth and membership with the MN Chapter, promote more networking and an environment where participants can share their experiences and knowledge with each other. We strive to promote a learning environment where we can bring in more resources, training, speakers, and contacts to help the group. We would also like to learn who our local HP resources and contacts are within our region, they are here to help us out.”
HP Employee Recognition: Deborah Nelson
Deb is responsible for worldwide marketing of HP’s services, software, servers, storage, and networking. She leads marketing across five global business units to deliver technology solutions that help medium-size and enterprise organizations achieve better business outcomes.
Deb has been a user group fan for years. She understands what happens when HP customers gather to get educated on technologies, become aware of new products and partner offerings, network with one another at local-regional-national events and in an online community, and when a customer’s positive influence helps drive positive change within HP. It’s not what you think. It’s not that they become more loyal HP customers. It’s because they become more successful at what they do. Deb gets it!