Where IT Leaders Connect

SIMDFW FELLOWS

Dr. Jack Becker

Nellson Burns

NELLSON BURNS
Managing Partner, Destination IT, LLC

Most of Nellson Burns’ career has been focused on downstream oil and gas, but Nellson spent the last 4 years in consumer product manufacturing and distribution. He began his career as a management consultant focusing on SAP and M&A activity, and in 2007 he was hired to lead Holly Corporation’s IT organization, his first CIO job.

Nellson is by nature a problem solver and he loves to build things and people. He built the IT organization for Holly from the ground up, and he has transformed the IT function for Dal-Tile, North America’s largest ceramic tile manufacturer. Nellson is married with two beautiful children, ages 6 and 8. Nellson believes that you can have an incredible career and engaged family life, and he coaches most of his children’s sports teams.

Nellson graduated with honors from Texas A&M University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies. Nellson continues to be active in A&M’s “other education” mentoring current students on leadership and life in general. Nellson has two Big Green Eggs and he loves to cook for others; he also loves the outdoors, including spending time on the water at Cedar Creek Lake.

Kevin Campbell

Kevin Campbell
IT Senior Executive and Chief Information Officer (retired)
Independent Executive IT Advisor and Coach

From 2001 to 2018 Kevin Campbell was the Senior Vice President and the Chief Information Officer of Hunt Consolidated, Inc. – the privately held corporate holding company of the Hunt family of companies. He retired from that position in May, 2018. In that position he was responsible for formulating and guiding worldwide technology strategy. His goal was to ensure that the company’s technology foundation provided for transacting business in a global economy delivering computing technology in a form and of a method that would be easily usable by all of the Hunt lines of business across the globe which includes the oil and gas division, LNG division, commercial real estate division, capital investments division, and the farming and ranching divisions.

He began his career with the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) where he spent more than 20 years serving in a wide variety of management roles as part of the company’s High Potential program. He completed his tenure with the organization as the Director of Global Technology Planning when British Petroleum acquired ARCO in 2000.

He has been a member of the Executive Board of the American Petroleum Institute’s Information Management and Technology Committee and has served as Chairman of the committee. He has held executive board positions on the National Executive Board of the Society of Information Management, as well as past president of the Executive Board of the Dallas/Fort Worth Society of Information Management. He currently serves as Chairman of the Industry Advisory Board for the Information Technology and Decision Sciences Department of The University of North Texas as well as an active member of the Texas Christian University, Neeley School of Business, Business Information Systems Advisory Board. He has been a member of the Distinguished Advisory Board for the Engineering, Management, Information, and Systems department of the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering of Southern Methodist University where he chaired the CIO Executive Continuing Education committee and led its first program. Mr. Campbell received the Information Technology Executive of the Year award presented by the Dallas/Fort Worth area chapter of SIM in 2005 and was elected as one of the Founding Fellows of the chapter in 2013. He served as the first Chairman of the Fellows until 2015. In 2018 he was a finalist for the CIO of the Year award from DallasCIO.

Mr. Campbell currently provides individualized coaching for professionals new to the executive level CIO and CTO position. His “Basics to Board Room” approach highlights the proven methods and finer subtle points of being successful in one of today’s most demanding roles. Additionally, he provides confidential one-on-one sessions for Directors and Board Members answering their questions and explaining subjects of interest from the broad spectrum of technology related topics faced in today’s business world.

Mr. Campbell earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Texas A&M University, Commerce, Texas. He is a lifetime member of the BSA National Eagle Scout Association.

John Cole

Chris Feola

Christopher J Feola

Christopher J Feola is the Founding Partner of Privacy Chain, which replaces traditional communications and Enterprise Information Technology with a distributed architecture built on a Blockchain foundation. His background and experience have always been at the intersection of information and technology. He has been granted four data architecture patents and has two more pending, and led IT teams to Number 13 on the InfoWorld 100; the The RealWare Award – Best Enterprise Content Management Application; among other awards. He has been named a Fellow by the Society of Information Management Dallas/Fort Worth chapter. He was the founding director of The Media Center at American Press Institute, one of the industry’s major think tanks, and taught at the graduate level at Columbia and Indiana universities, among others. Previous positions include Vice President/Technology, Belo Interactive, Executive Vice President/CIO of askSam Systems, and President, nextPression, inc. Technology industry leadership positions include membership on the CIO Magazine Executive Programs Advisory Board; Editor, The Society for Information Management’s SIMNews; member, STARTech Early Ventures Industry Advisor; and chairman, Marketing Committee, SIMPosium 2006.

Feola was named one of the 50 most influential people in new media by Online Journalism Review. He has appeared as a new media expert on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS and Talk of the Nation on NPR, been written up in Business 2.0 and The New York Times; and addressed a joint session of the World Newspaper Congress and the World Editors Forum in Kobe, Japan.

Feola has been a member of the adjunct faculty at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, the IUPUI School of Journalism, and Miami (Ohio) journalism department, teaching new media and computer-assisted reporting. He has worked at seven papers in 18 states and five countries on a couple of continents, including a two-year stint covering Asia as a foreign correspondent for Stars & Stripes. He has more than 4,000 published articles and 6,000 published photos to his credit.

Blake Holman

Blake Holman,
Chief Information Officer, BBG Real Estate Services

Blake Holman is currently Chief Information Officer at BBG Inc., a Commercial Real Estate Appraisal and Assessment Firm, in Dallas, Texas.

Blake has over 30 years of experience leading Information Technology Strategy, Development and Operations for several public and private companies in the Consulting, Telecommunications, Electrical Manufacturing, Financial Services, Real Estate Services and Non-Profit Healthcare industries.

Blake holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, a Strategic IT Management Certificate from the Scandinavian International Management Institute and a Master of Science degree in Information Security and Assurance from Western Governor’s University. Blake has achieved a number of industry security certifications including C-CISO, CISM, CISSP, CDPSE, CEH and CHFI.

In 2011 and 2012, Blake’s efforts as CIO of Ryan, LLC were recognized in the InformationWeek 500 listing of the most innovative business technology companies in the United States. In 2011, Ryan was ranked 130th, and in 2012, Ryan’s ranking rose to 98th. In both cases, Ryan was the highest ranked corporate tax services firm on the list.

In December 2012, Blake was named by Computerworld magazine as one of its 2013 “Premier 100 IT Leaders.” The Computerworld Premier 100 IT recognition is an international lifetime award that shines a spotlight on technology and business leaders from a broad range of organizations.
In November 2017, Blake was recognized by the Austin Chapter of the Society for Information Management as the Public Sector IT Executive of the Year in Austin, Texas.

In October 2017, Blake co-authored the second edition of “What Every Engineer Should Know About Excel”, a work that was originally published by his late father, Dr. Jack Holman, a world-renowned professor of Mechanical Engineering at SMU. In 2018, Blake published his second work, “Information Security JumpStart Guide for non-profit organizations” aimed at providing non-profit organizations guidance on the vital first steps to initiating an Information Security program.

Outside the world of Information Technology and Security, Blake is a retired Rugby player and a hobby Beekeeper.

Andrew Jackson

Andrew C. Jackson, President, BravoTECH

Andrew Jackson is an entrepreneurial leader who has been managing and building technical and IT staffing companies for more than 30 years. He is co-founder and president of BravoTECH, a leading IT staffing firm based in Dallas, TX.

BravoTECH has maintained a record of profitable growth under Jackson’s leadership and serves clients throughout the U.S. including many Fortune 500 companies. The company is a four-time recipient of the Inc. 500/5000 fastest growing firms award and a three-time recipient of the SMU Cox Dallas 100 award. BravoTECH also received the Dallas Business Journal Mid-Market 50 award.

Jackson currently serves as Chair Elect for the national board of TechServe Alliance an association of 300+ IT staffing firms. He is a past member of both the national and DFW SIM boards. He is a past chairman of the Executive Connections Tech SIG and a past chairman of the Dallas and Fort Worth chapters of The Texas Association of Business, The National Multiple Sclerosis Society and The National Kidney Foundation.

Jackson received the Partners in Professionalism Award from the Association of Information Technology Professionals. He was inducted into the Illinois State University College of Business Hall of Fame, honored as a Healthcare Hero by the Alliance for Healthcare Excellence and nominated for the Metroplex Technology Business Council Tech Titans award.

Jackson founded the DFW Technology Invitational charity golf tournament in 2012, which raises thousands of dollars annually for STEM education and veterans pursuing IT careers. He serves on the ITDS Advisory Board for the University of North Texas College of Business and is a past associate board member of the SMU Cox School of Business.

Jackson has a BSBA from Illinois State University.

Debbie Jowers

Debbie Jowers, CPA

Debbie is the Vice President, Ambulatory IT Services for Texas Health Resources (THR) in Arlington, Texas. Her responsibility for support spans Texas Health Physicians Group (250+ clinics with 1,100 providers); Texas Health Breeze Urgent Care Clinics (currently 15 and growing to 35); THR’s Consumer organization; Enterprise Architecture; THR’s Salesforce platform and support for several THR ambulatory joint venture facilities. Debbie has held many positions during her 25+ year tenure at THR and has been focused on health care for her entire career.

Debbie is a 2009 winner of the CIO Magazine Ones to Watch award. She is an active member of the Dallas-Ft. Worth SIM chapter and has the honor of serving as past president of the chapter, as well as several other board positions. She is a DFW SIM Fellows member. She also served 3 years on the SIM National Management Council as the National Conference Director. She is also a member of HIMSS and attended the CHIME CIO Boot Camp in 2008. Debbie is a 2003 graduate of the SIM RLF program. Debbie received her bachelor’s degrees in accounting and MIS from the University of Missouri. For fun, Debbie enjoys traveling; reading, gardening; and cooking.

Leon Kappleman

Leon Kappelman, PhD

Leon Kappelman, PhD has been a SIM member since 1995, served as primary investigator of the SIM’s annual IT Trends Study from 2013 through 2021, and was founding chair of SIM’s Enterprise Architecture and Y2K Working Groups. He is also a SIM Research Fellow and a SIM DFW Chapter Fellow. He served as Professor of IS in the G. Brint Ryan College of Business at the University of North Texas (UNT) from 1990 through 2921 and as Chair of the Information Technology and Decision Sciences Department from 2017 through 2021. He is Director Emeritus of the Information Systems Research Center at UNT.

Dr. Kappelman has assisted many public, private, government, not-for-profit, and other kinds of organizations with their IS-related management activities. These advisory services to centered on the management of IT in organizations and included software development, structure and governance, budgeting, strategic planning, system and software architecture and design, enterprise architecture, software project management, continuity of operations and disaster recovery management, operations management, service delivery and service quality, change management, performance measurement and metrics development, workforce planning, IS-related legal and ethical issues including intellectual property matters, and development, and high-tech and public policy concerns like privacy, security, and software quality.

Leon has lectured and conducted seminars and workshops on these and other management, business, and technology topics in North America, Europe, and Asia, conducted research studies about and written articles on these and other IS-related topics, and testified before the U.S. Congress on technology-related legislation and IS management practices. His pro bono work includes testifying on high-tech issues several times before the U.S. Congress, serving on the program committees for and speaking at two United Nations (“UN”) global IS conferences, participating in White House industry round tables, serving on the American Heart Association’s IT Expert Panel, editing five books for a not-for-profit IS executive professional association, founding and leading several IS industry working groups, serving on committees of high-tech industry trade and professional associations, conducting research studies for professional societies and trade associations including North America’s longest-lived study of IS management practices and leadership (i.e., SIM’s IT Trends Study) , and founding and serving as a member of the steering committee of a U.S., UN, and World Bank sponsored volunteer corps to assist developing and less technically advanced countries deal with software- and computer-related problems. He published over 125 scholarly articles and contributed to and edited several books including the SIM Guide to Enterprise Architecture (CRC Press, 2010) and Year 2000 Problem: Strategies and Solutions from the Fortune 100 (International Thomson Press, 1997). The latter was a deliverable of the SIM Y2K Working Group.

Over the past 20+ years, Dr. Kappelman has served as an expert witness in over two dozen matters involving software and IT management practices. These engagements centered for the most part on software concerns such as intellectual property (e.g., copyright, patent, trade secrets), quality, project management, and software development and engineering practices.

Janis O'Bryan

Dr. Ulrike Schultze

Caren Shiozaki

CAREN SHIOZAKI, CGEIT, CEDS, CDPSE, LPEC

Caren Shiozaki is Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer for TMST, Inc., a mortgage company based in Santa Fe, NM. In addition to her technology business leadership responsibilities, she also performs forensic data analysis in support of litigation projects.

Prior to TMST, Ms. Shiozaki was Vice President and CIO for Belo Corp, one of the nation’s largest media companies with a diversified group of market-leading television, newspaper, cable and interactive media assets headquartered in Dallas, TX. At American Express, she was responsible for the “Manage My Card Account” web interface, serving over 10 million registered cardholders across the globe. She administered the multi-billion dollar technologies project portfolio for the American Express global CIO.

Ms. Shiozaki formed her own LLC to provide consultancy to small and medium sized organizations on technology and business strategy and risk management. She is an executive advisor for the Next Era Transformation Group, providing guidance to their clients in risk management and corporate governance. She is also a Senior Fellow with the DivIHN Center of Excellence focusing on governance, digital risk and business ethics.

She has served as an advisor to venture capital groups and served on the board of a startup technology company.

Ms Shiozaki has a number of philanthropic pursuits. She is Chair Emeritus of the Board for SIM, an international association of technology executives. She leads their Digital Risk Special Interest Group, as well as their national program to address issues of diversity/equity/inclusion in the technologies profession. She serves as technology advisor to the CEO of Girls Inc. of Santa Fe, and is the leader of their Risk Management committee. She is on the board of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, serving as chair of the Risk & Compliance Committee; and is a member of the Finance & Audit and Investment committees. She is the Board Chair for the Santa Fe Animal Shelter.

She has a degree in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley. She holds professional certification in corporate governance, data privacy, ethics and compliance, and is a certified e-Discovery Specialist.

Mark Snyder

Mark Urbis

Peter Vogel

Peter S. Vogel is Of Counsel at Foley & Lardner LLP in the Litigation Section and a member of the Privacy, Security & Information Management Team, the Technology Transactions & Outsourcing Team, the NFT Task Force, and the Blockchain Task Force

Before practicing law he worked as a systems programmer, received a Master’s in Computer Science, and taught graduate courses in information systems.

Peter has had trials around the US on software implementations, misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement, software patent infringement, and Internet eCommerce disputes.

For 12 years Peter served as the Founding Chair of the Texas Supreme Court Judicial Committee on Information Technology which is responsible for helping automate the Texas court system and creating the Texas eFiling System.

Peter has taught courses at the SMU Dedman School of Law for more than 25 years including courses on eDiscovery and the Law of eCommerce.

Many of Peter’s topics are discussed on his Internet, IT & eDiscovery blog www.vogelitlawblog.com.