Features

It’s been more than 90 years since brothers Loren and Dale Decker founded their company with a Model B Ford truck. They began by hauling items, including canned goods, plumbing fixtures, gypsum products and even windmills, throughout Iowa and adjacent states. From those beginnings in 1931, family-owned Decker has grown into three divisions—Decker Truck Line, […]

No matter what the calendar says, it’s pest season somewhere. Maybe it’s termites munching on wood-frame houses in the Southeast or mice setting up squatter’s rights in the northern buildings they entered when the mercury plunged last fall. There being 176 species of skeeters in the United States alone, they’re likely everywhere. All such vermin […]

There’s something exciting about taking up responsibilities at an essential company during a pandemic. Especially when the company is one of the nation’s seven largest railways, a Class 1 operator with revenues exceeding $12 billion. “High demand, high pressure,” is how Gary Eppinger describes his roles as vice president of IT technology and chief info-security […]

The clock over the Bertucci’s Italian Restaurant brick pizza oven strikes 7:30. It’s smack in the middle of the usual dinner rush and you’re standing with a handful of receipts, trying to close out table checks for servers while also accepting payment for to-go meals. At that moment the point-of-sale system decides to go kaput. […]

Don’t only talk infotech with Geneviève Bertrand. She’ll be the first to acknowledge the people she oversees are better versed in its nuts and bolts, but that’s only half the business. Just as important is recognizing where IT is needed and applying it to enhance operations. That’s what she does as senior vice president of […]

It’s easy to picture the stereotypical IT department. It’s filled with computers, servers and tech tools, and the only sounds are the clacking of keyboards and sporadic digitized beeps. It’s a quiet environment where staff are a little nerdy, but supposed geniuses. Oh, and they’re all men. Gina Ehrlich’s department at AHEAD does not look […]

With a sudden burden placed on nursing homes, food banks, homeless shelters and schools, the COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on what it means to be essential. But it’s not just frontline employees who’ve been burdened. IT departments, too, have shouldered more responsibility, particularly as employees have transitioned to remote work in massive numbers, […]

Greg Allarding began his career in tech by flipping burgers. Well, actually, he’d advanced from the grills and fry vats at a McDonald’s to become an 18-year-old manager burdened by reams of paper detailing restaurant operations. It was the mid-‘80s and in those days, even if Matthew Broderick was hacking his way into U.S. Department […]

Newly hired as CISO of Seattle Children’s in March 2019, Gary Gooden was asked to give the hospital board a 90-day assessment. Members had to be concerned with his observations. There were shortcomings on the technology front, he reported, and serious catching up to do. He also told them that infotech security should be viewed […]

The team at California-based women’s online clothier, LuLaRoe, was on to something when it developed its entrepreneurial-based sales model back in 2013. Seven years later, and even during a pandemic, its network has more than 10,000 retailers and is keeping stride with increased sales through that network, says Chief Technology Officer Guillermo Lopez. As he […]