News Service

8-29-05

Iowa State alums return to Ames to discuss the future of business and technology

AMES, Iowa -- Some of the nation's foremost experts on the future of business and technology -- including three ISU alumni -- will discuss globalization, new technologies and public policy during a free panel discussion Sept. 2 on the Iowa State University campus.

The event will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the Memorial Union Gallery. Students, staff, faculty and the business and technology community are invited to attend the panel discussion, sponsored by ISU's College of Business and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Iowa State University President Gregory Geoffroy will give opening remarks.

Lloyd Taylor, retired corporate vice president and chief information officer of Cargill Inc., Minneapolis, will moderate the panel discussion. Taylor also served as CIO at Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif. He's a member of the management information systems (MIS) advisory council for ISU's College of Business.

Joining Taylor are:

• Doug Troxel, founder, chairman and chief technology officer, SERENA Software, San Mateo, Calif. Troxel founded the company in 1980 to do contract work at Bank of America in San Francisco, then expanded SERENA's focus into software development in 1982. As the original developer of the SERENA Comparex® product, Troxel established it as the industry standard for the mainframe. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Iowa State in 1967.
• David Kingland, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Kingland Systems Corporation. Corporate offices are in Clear Lake and Ames; Rochester, Minn.; and Longmont, Colo. Kingland Systems provides technology solutions for government agencies and the financial services industry. Kingland created the company when regional banks began to enter the retail brokerage business and required robust compliance and trading systems to support their geographically dispersed operations. He holds a bachelor of science degree in industrial administration (1980) from Iowa State, as well as numerous NYSE/NASD securities brokerage licenses.
• Jeff Townsend, chief of staff, Cerner Corp., Kansas City, Mo. Cerner, with offices in seven U.S. cities and 10 countries worldwide, is a leading supplier of healthcare information technology solutions. Townsend joined Cerner in 1985, left in 1987 to assume a management role in a family-owned business, and returned to Cerner in 1989. Prior to becoming chief of staff, Townsend served as chief engineering officer, where he oversaw product development of Cerner Millennium, a unified IT system that helps health professionals measure, manage and improve the quality of care. Townsend received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Iowa State in 1985.
• Carl Chang, professor and chair of computer science at Iowa State since 2002. Chang is immediate past-president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a technical professional association of more than 365,000 members in 150 countries. Chang's research interests include requirements engineering, software architecture and net-centric computing. He has published extensively in these areas.

Panel participants plan to cover a wide array of topics and welcome audience interaction. They'll discuss the skills today's graduates need to compete in the business and technology arena, the expertise required to start and lead large technology companies, and the impact of outsourcing IT jobs overseas.

More information about the conference is available at www.las.iastate.edu/businesstech.

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Quick look

Three ISU alumni are among panelists who will discuss new technologies and public policy on campus Sept. 2.