Exploring the role of information systems within business organizations is the topic of the annual Business Technology Symposium, 1–3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 6, CUB Auditorium, at Washington State University. “Information Systems: The Backbone of Business” is a free event and open to the public and students in all majors at WSU. The symposium will be livestreamed on Zoom.
Top executives from leading enterprises will discuss how information systems — tools organizations use to collect, manage, and analyze data — are critical to business success.
“All business requires collecting, storing, processing, and distributing information,” said Robert Crossler, WSU Carson College of Business associate professor and chair of the Department of Management, Information Systems, and Entrepreneurship. “The success of a business often depends on how well it manages its information systems to improve productivity and make informed decisions.”
Symposium panelists will include:
Jasmyn Bearly is a product security engineer at Boeing. She works in development, security, and operations (DevSecOps), and secures cloud-based software development environments for government programs. She has held prior roles in DevSecOps, cloud operations, and information security at Boeing. In each role, she has focused on leveraging security, technology, and creativity to deliver security solutions that enable and protect platforms, business goals, and users. Bearly earned her bachelor’s focusing on management information systems and operations management from WSU.
Jason Mayer is an engineering manager at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. He manages a team of developers and application administrators that support SEL’s Salesforce CRM. He worked for almost 20 years in higher education, most of which was spent developing and managing enterprise software for the University of Idaho Foundation and Alumni offices. While at UIdaho, he was a member of the Technical Security Advisory Committee as well as the Ellucian Executive Advisory Committee. He has spent the last 10 years evaluating, purchasing, and implementing customer relationship management software including Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce. Mayer graduated from the University of Idaho in 2000 with a bachelor’s in business focusing on management information services.
Andrew Pirie is a principal in intelligent automation at Slalom, a business consulting and services firm in Seattle. His work leading Slalom’s intelligent automation practice focuses on strategy and delivery on a wide variety of technologies for clients like AT&T, Salesforce, and Johnson & Johnson. Prior to working at Slalom, Pirie leveraged a combination of business and data engineering acumen to pursue various professional roles as an entrepreneur, business analyst, systems integration engineer, and enterprise architect. He earned his bachelor’s focusing on international business and his MBA from WSU.
The Business Technology Symposium is hosted by the Department of Management, Information Systems, and Entrepreneurship within the WSU Carson College of Business and is sponsored by Mike (’85, ’86) and Amy Dreyer (’86) and Steven (’76, ’84) and Cyndie Tarr.
