Dear Academy Members –
The Annual Banquet and Business Meeting this year was, once again, exceptional. During the banquet we inducted seven people into the Academy. French Hill, CEO Delta Trust and Bank, gave a great presentation on the economy of Arkansas juxtaposed to our historical strengths and new opportunities as a more diverse state.
The Business Meeting the following day included interesting and quite educational talks by Phil Mui, Chief Product & Technology Officer of Acxiom, Dr. Tingxin Yan, Asst. Professor CSCE in the College of Engineering at the U of A, and Randy Mott, Senior Vice President, Global Information Technology & Chief Information Officer of General Motors Company. In addition, Jerry Adams led a discussion on the University/Business research gap in our state with an impressive group of panelists – Dr. John English, Dean of the College of Engineering at U of A, Dr. Ranil Wickramasinghe, MAST Center, NSF/U of A Research Center and Dr. Cynthia Sides, Ignite Program at the Fulbright College, U of A.
Dr. Craig Thompson’s Capstone Class presented their projects via their Capstone Posters just before our formal business meeting. If you had a chance to view these posters or talk with the students, I am sure you would have been amazed as to their intelligence and the fact that many of the projects could lead to viable business. It really was impressive. Thanks Craig!
A very special thanks goes to Collins Andrews for leading the two-day event, as well as the CSCE staff for making it all come together (Susan Huskey, Cindy Pickney, George Holmes, Jamie Stafford and Jason Crawley). Nice job!
Action Items:
- In March, several members of the Executive Committee and invited guests held a planning session as to the future of the Academy. You can read a summary of the discussion, key take-aways and the supporting information at http://araoc.org/2014-planning-session/. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
- During our planning session, we discussed the possibility of having our annual banquet and business meeting in central Arkansas. Please take this brief survey to help us gauge membership interest. Take the Survey Now.
Please read:
- Check out the photos from the 2014 Annual Banquet and Business Meeting by visiting http://araoc.org/2014-new-members/
- Please congratulate our new members: Jerry Blackburn, Carl Frank, Eric Heil, Paula King Norwood and Alese Johnston Stroud. You can view their bios at http://araoc.org/tag/2014-inductee/. If you need an email address or phone, please contact Sue Huskey at srh@uark.edu
Below is a complete listing of our 2014 inductees and the 2014-2015 Executive Committee.
Sincerely,
Gary
Gary Dowdy
President
Arkansas Academy of Computing
gdowdy@yahoo.com
2014 Arkansas Academy of Computing Inductees:
Danielle Bunton Berry *
Jerry Blackburn
Carl Frank
Eric Heil
Winford “Joe” Miller *
Paula King Norwood
Gary Speas
Alese Johnston Stroud
* Posthumous Award
2014-2015 Arkansas Academy of Computing Executive Committee:
Tracy Black
John Chamberlin
Kim Clower
Gary Dowdy, President
John Haley
Scott Hambuchen
Charlie McMurty
Allison Nicholas
Susan Norton
Ex-officio Former Presidents
Collins Andrews
Don Hatfield
George Knight
Dan Phillips
U of A, CSCE Staff
Suan Gauch
Susan Huskey
Craig Thompson, Secretary/Treasurer