2020 Newsletter Editions

SCOTT SPRADLEY, EVP and Chief Technology Officer, Tyson Foods WORKING @ HOME: If that’s not what we’re all thinking about, then for sure it’s the context for whatever is. To shed some light on the subject, along with a large dollop of experience, advice, and prognostication about where this moment may lead us, we turned […]

MEET DANIEL MARTIN Age: 34 Hometown: Youngstown, Ohio Apprenticeship: GlaxoSmithKline MY BACK STORY I spent my childhood in northeast Ohio, in a suburb of Youngstown, an old rust belt town between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. As far back as I can remember, I loved computers. My dad was an early adopter—he had the original Apple and

WHILE MOST OF us continue to shelter in place, the wheels of progress keep turning. I’m pleased to report that the state of Arkansas has been awarded a U.S. Department of Labor grant for $2 million, to be distributed over four years. The grant—entitled “Apprenticeships: Closing the Skills Gap”—became effective March 1, 2020, and is

FIRST, WE HOPE you’re all well and staying that way. The coronavirus has created a whole new meaning to the term “March Madness.” Most of us in the Tech world are planners, and we generally have a backup plan if our original plan fails. COVID-19 has pushed us past our backup plans to a new

** MEET CAITLYN HALLETT Age: 23 Hometown: Vilonia Apprenticeship: First Orion ** MY BACK STORY I’m actually the first in my family to graduate college. We moved around a lot but I mostly grew up in Vilonia with my mother and spent my summers in Delaware, which is where my dad lives. So, I’m 80

DATA SCIENCE, PLAN B. How today’s quick adaptation to COVID-19 mirrors the teaching of data science itself Stephen Addison, Ph.D.Dean, College of Natural Sciences and MathematicsUniversity of Central Arkansas AT UCA, WE are primarily a face-to-face campus, so transforming ourselves to an online university for the coronavirus is a big change for us. One thing

CEO, Forge Institute LEE WATSON’S LINKED-IN page lists his occupation as “serial entrepreneur/innovator,” and indeed he has tended to be wherever the action is, be it as CEO of his own software company, Founding Champion of Startup Arkansas, co-founder, director, and former head of the Venture Center, or as a member of Governor Hutchinson’s State

YOU CAN’T MANAGE IT IF YOU CAN’T MEASURE IT How data helps our clients avoid marketing’s great black hole Jordan Smith, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, iProv I DIDN’T START out as a marketing guy. My degree is in history with a minor in political science, and I planned to teach American History in

** Chris McNames Age: 39 Hometown: Bentonville Apprenticeship: WhyteSpyder ** MY BACK STORY I was born in Wyoming and raised out west, until I was 15. The part of Wyoming we lived in looked like Mars. We moved to Arkansas in 1996 because my father wanted to get into contract work building houses. We settled

** EVP Policy/Chief Privacy & Security Officer, First Orion ** AS THE FIRST “Chief Privacy Officer” in the U.S., at Acxiom, Jennifer Barrett Glasgow has been wrestling with questions of data and privacy and innovation longer than most of us have known there were even questions. Now at First Orion, she says that the reason