POSSCON Speakers
Keynote: Stephen K. Wiggins
EVP & CIO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of SC
Employing more than 11,000 people, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina has been meeting the health insurance needs of South Carolinians for 60 years. Today, more than a million South Carolinians are covered by BlueCross. But BlueCross is much more than just an insurance company. As a major government contractor, BlueCross also serves more than 21.5 million more people across the country by processing more than 52 percent of all Department of Defense TRICARE claims worldwide and by handling numerous regional claims-processing contracts as one of the nation's largest Medicare contractors. BlueCross also offers a complementary package of products and services through its family of subsidiaries -- Companion Life Insurance Company, Companion Property & Casualty Insurance Company, BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina, Companion Benefit Alternatives (managed mental health care), and Companion Information Management Resources (specialized information systems management for the health care administration industry).
Under the direction of its CIO, Steve Wiggins, BlueCross operates one of the most advanced and sophisticated data processing centers in the United States, processing more than 6 billion online health care transactions and 600 million claims each year. In 2006 BlueCross' data center operations subsidiary, Companion Data Services, won part of a 10-year contract from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the agency's new enterprise data center, which is the hub of the CMS IT Infrastructure moderation for the next decade.
As CIO, Wiggins is in charge of all corporate systems strategic planning, development, programming and enhancements for BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina. His responsibilities include all information technology (IT) related projects and processes, and are not limited by organizational structures or geographic boundaries within the corporation.
Wiggins earned the designation of Certified Systems Professional in 1985. He has been employed with BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina since 1979. Previously, he was with Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in Dallas, Texas. Wiggins graduated with honor from Clemson University in 1976.
Under his tenure as CIO for BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, the company has won numerous national awards related to technology: finalist in A.M. Best's 2004 and 2005 e-fusion Insurance & Technology Awards; two 2005 World Wide Web Health Awards; Best of Blue Award for Electronic Media and Interactive Programs (Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association); Most Wired Innovator 2000 Award (Hospitals & Health Networks magazine); 2000 Web Business 50/50 Award (CIO magazine); 2000 World Wide Web Health Award (The Consumer Health Publishers Association); 2000 CIO-100 Award (CIO magazine); 2000 eHealthcare Leadership Award (eHealthcare Strategy & Trends); 2001 E-comm Innovator of the Year Award (Network World magazine); and 2002 eHealthcare Leadership Award (Forum for Healthcare Strategists).
In addition, Wiggins recently served on the Governor's Commission on Management, Accountability and Performance (MAP). The commission was created by South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to assist in restructuring state government.
Greg DeKoenigsberg
Senior Community Architect for Red Hat, Inc.
Creating Value Through the Open Source Development Model
Greg DeKoenigsberg is a senior community architect for Red Hat. The community architecture team is responsible for Red Hat's strategy for building vibrant open source communities, and for aligning Red Hat's community policies with its business objectives. Greg is the founding chairman emeritus of the Fedora Project Board, which is the ultimate decision making authority for the Fedora Project. He has been with Red Hat since 2001.
It is a well accepted fact that open source software products are frequently more flexible, more robust, and more cost-effective than their proprietary counterparts. Learn more about how the open source development model works, and how you can take advantage of this model to achieve your own goals more effectively.
Dr. Lynn Keane
PHD Professor, University of South Carolina
Why Not OpenOffice? Product Demonstration
Dr. Lynn B. Keane is a faculty member in Technology Support and Training Management and director of Business Education in the College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Dr. Keane holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary and Special Education and a Master of Science degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Pace University, and a doctor of philosophy in Business Education from New York University. Dr. Keane has 20 years of experience working with technology, training and learning in corporate and academic environments. She has authored and coauthored four books on computer applications. Dr. Keane is the 2007 recipient of the Paul S. Lomax Award for Doctoral Scholarship and Service from the department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology at New York University, recognized for her dissertation. Her research interests include learning in community, service learning, and new technologies to support learning and collaboration.
During this session, Dr. Keane will pose the question, "Why Not OpenOffice?" We will explore the practicality of implementing a cross-platform office application suite. Each component of OpenOffice.org (OO.o or OOo) will be demonstrated using a common office task, such as writing a business letter in Writer and creating a presentation in Impress. Suggestions and resources for using and learning OpenOffice.org will also be shared.
Jason Dew
Senior Developer, SC Budget & Control Board Office of Research & Statistics
What's so great about Ruby?
Jason is a senior web developer for the SC Budget and Control Board's Office of Research and Statistics where he is fortunate to be able to develop web applications using Ruby on Rails on a daily basis. Jason received his Master's degree from USC in 2005 and teach Statistics during Spring and Fall semesters.
Paul Drake
IT Development Manager for HealthPort, Inc.
As IT Development Manager, Paul Drake leads the development of HealthPort's Electronic Medical Records product as well as the company's Web-based products developed in Columbia. Prior to his current role, Paul managed IT Development at Companion Technologies for over 15 years.
Paul has extensive knowledge of open source tools and their application from a practical standpoint. Paul's responsibilities include evaluating the pros and cons of the features, functions and support in using these tools and estimating the cost savings that can be realized when properly integrated into HealthPort's software environment and offerings.
HealthPort's use of open source tools has expanded over the past few years. In its production environment, it utilizes PostgreSQL. This database solution currently runs 300 plus instances and contains approximately 5.2 terabytes of customer data. HealthPort employs Jasper Reports for custom and integrated reporting in several products. HealthPort has also incorporated Mantis as its defect-tracking tool. The flexibility of this application in capturing project-specific data elements enables the QA team to easily produce testing and statistical reports.
David O'Berry, CISSP-ISSAP, ISSMP, MCNE, CSPM
Director of Information Technology Systems and Services The SC Dept. of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services
Mr. O'Berry and his team have developed an SOA based Offender Management System (OMS) which is evolving to take various streams of data such as GPS monitoring technology to better manage the life-cycle of offenders and to enhance the organization's overall effectiveness in providing services to the community.
Prior to joining SCDPPPS, Mr. O'Berry served as Network Manager at the Department of Juvenile Justice. During the past year, he has co-led the effort to adopt a state-wide security policy achieving that goal with a unanimous vote in December of 2007 while substantially progressing the initiative to establish comprehensive baseline security standards for South Carolina Agencies.
Mr. O'Berry was just recently elected to the Executive Board of the National Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) and has been involved over the past few years with ISSA as the Membership Director for the Midland's Chapter, the group's Director of Corporate Relations, and currently serves as the President for the chapter. O'Berry is also a member of the National Association of State CIO's Security and Privacy Sub-Committee as well as the Enterprise Architecture Committee and currently serves on the Legislative Committee for the MS-ISAC. Recently he was Honorable Mention Technologist of the Year for 2007 and was named Technologist of the Year for 2008 for the South Carolina IT Director's Association, and works in the industry via publications and organizations like the Trusted Computing Group and ISC2 to further the goals of education and standards-based network security.
Mr. O'Berry holds an honors degree from the University of South Carolina Honors College as well as numerous professional certifications including CISSP-ISSAP, ISSMP, MCNE, CNE-I and CSPM.
Kurt Hamm
Director of Information Technology at Time Warner Cable
Kurt Hamm is the Information Technology Director for the South Carolina division of Time Warner Cable, Inc. In his current position, he has responsibility for all TWC IT operations, equipment, and software for the state of South Carolina.
Prior to joining TWC, Mr. Hamm served as the VP of Technology Services for US Xpress Enterprises, Inc., the third largest privately-owned truckload carrier in the nation. With over 20 years of IT experience, he has held a number of senior positions in the Columbia area with organizations like RBMG, Laidlaw Environmental Services, Safety-Kleen Services, and Palmetto Health.
Mr. Hamm holds a B.S degree in Finance from the University of South Carolina.
Mr. Hamm is currently overseeing a project to substitute Open Source applications to reduce overall licensing costs for his organization. He has implemented Linux-based servers for specific applications as well as substituted Open Office, where appropriate, as a substitute for Microsoft Office. Time Warner Cable has demonstrated a strong willingness to explore alternatives to conventional commercial software and seeks to reduce overall licensing costs considerably though this effort.
Aaron Myers
IT and Production Director for DigitalDerm, Inc.
Aaron Myers has direct experience with a wide range of open source projects including OpenOffice, MySQL, Apache web server, Bugzilla and many others. As a part of on going operations, Aaron also works on server implementation and maintenance; requirements gathering; specifications development; database schema and design; product testing; user interface design; and product support software. Aaron's current project is a repurposing of the SugarCRM Community Edition to handle patient tracking, scheduling and billing. He is currently a member of IEEE and ACM.
Calhoun "Reb" Thomas
Calhoun "Reb" Thomas practices IP law as the Thomas Law Firm in Columbia, SC. He and his associate are both registered patent attorneys and he is a Circuit Court Mediator. The firm focuses on assisting clients with patents, trademarks, copyrights and related licensing matters, especially with respect to software transactions. Mr. Thomas has represented clients on software and related IP matters for more than 21 years.
Prior to opening his own firm in 2000, he was in-house counsel for a large software company for 13 years. This in-house practice focused on licensing, outsourcing, joint ventures, and third party administration transactions as well as trademarks, patents and related corporate and tax matters. Prior to corporate life, he was an associate at a large law firm for a couple of years after obtaining a degree in Economics from UNC-Chapel Hill, a law degree from USC and an LLM in Taxation from Emory.
Mr. Thomas's most recent speaking engagement was as a panelist at the annual ABA Intellectual Property Law Conference in DC for a presentation entitled "Methods and Madness - Drafting and Negotiating Software Licenses in the Virtual World."
Dr. Philip Moore
Director of the Research and Computing Center
USC College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Philip Moore, Director of the Research Computing Center, discusses open source systems and research applications. He stresses the importance of providing a learning environment for students interested in gaining practical experience with open source software.
OSS References
POSSCON Release 8/6/2008 
(107 KB)
POSSCON Release 7/25/2008 (104 KB)
Open Source Reference Sheet (1.8 MB)
