As senior vice president and general manager of DLP^® Products, Kent Novak directs the development and deployment of Texas Instruments’ display technologies and platforms. With Kent’s global expertise and experience with diverse company sizes, DLP^® Products continues the expansion of its customer breadth and expanded product portfolio.   

Kent has a long history with TI. Since joining the company in 2003, he has held leadership roles in a broad spectrum of groups, including the Wireless Infrastructure Business Unit, the High-Speed Communications Group and, most recently, he served as vice president and general manager of the Medical/HiRel organization. Appointed to his current role as head of DLP^® Products in late 2008, Kent’s wireless and medical expertise play an integral part in the proliferation of DLP display technologies and developer platforms in new and emerging markets.  

After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in industrial engineering from Purdue University, Kent began his career as a digital switching systems engineer with AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1988.  His 15 years in the telecom industry were spent with industry leaders such as Bell Labs, AT&T-Network Systems (Lucent), DSC Communications, Alcatel and Corvis Communications. He has experience in customer-oriented functions including product management, marketing and sales support. He has extensive international experience including frequent travel in Asia (Japan, Taiwan), in addition to expatriate assignments in Denmark, The United Kingdom and The Netherlands.

Bill Kleinman is a partner with the Haynes and Boone law firm. He focuses on corporate and securities law. His expertise includes public offerings and private finance (including venture capital), corporate governance, SEC/S-OX compliance, mergers and acquisitions. 

Bill also assists general counsel and corporations that have robust legal needs by coordinating service delivery, project management and budgeting across all sections of the firm. 

Bill's recent transactional matters include:

•  Represented companies in industries such as telecommunications hardware, enterprise software, wireless PCS and international distribution in IPOs, public offerings of equity and debt and 144A transactions

• Represented buyers and sellers of companies in industries such as technology, software, service, and industrial products in mergers, stock and asset acquisitions, auctions, private equity and ESOP transactions

• Represented publicly traded companies in connection with corporate governance matters, defensive measures and SEC reporting and compliance

• Represented industrial and service companies in connection with the formation of domestic and international joint ventures and strategic partnerships

• Represented start-up companies and their investors in segments such as VOIP, network processors, semiconductors, outsourcing and internet media in seed and venture capital fundings, stock option plans, stockholder agreements and strategic agreements

Bill graduated as a chemical engineer, and he has a broad understanding of the science and technology that drive today's most innovative companies. He helps companies implement technology intensive business strategies and transactions, and turn their technology advantage into competitive advantage. 

Steve Watson is the managing director of Stanton Chase International, Dallas office. Steve began his career in computers and technology, having held several senior management positions with global companies, including Burroughs Corporation, Tandem Computers and Micronyx, where he served as President & CEO.

Steve offers a unique value in understanding the requirements and needs within the demanding high-technology industry. Steve’s search experience started in 1995, when he has specialized in senior management positions within technology and industrial, in addition to CIO assignments across industries.

Steve currently serves on the board of directors for Terra Nova Financial (“TNFG”), Metroplex Technology Business Council, CEO Netweavers, Dallas Summer Musicals (Executive Committee) and Woodvale Fishing Club. He has a degree in electrical engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MBA from SMU.

Virtualization is placing new demands on infrastructure that conventional storage platforms were never designed to handle. Hie Electronics has the solution. Based in McKinney, Hie is the innovator of an emerging technology that is revolutionizing the way companies store data. 

Hie Electronics specializes in the development and implementation of dense, Blu-ray, multi-tiered optical data storage units and enterprise-class digital video recorders. Its flagship product, the TeraStack® Solution, supplies innovative data backup and disaster-recovery capabilities, video-surveillance file storage, medical data retention, architectural and engineering database file storage, high-speed paper scanning and image processing and critical e-mail backup and recovery for small, medium and large enterprises using Blu-ray optical technology. 

“We provide fully scalable computing platforms, active archive devices and services,” said Patrick Humm, president. 

Hie Electronics considers its emerging technology the next 3PAR. It provides long-term data backup archiving and digital asset management essential to any large business or governmental agency. The TeraStack® Solution supplies a "green" storage solution that can cut energy consumption by up to 70 percent and total cost of ownership by up to 90 percent. 

The digital asset management provided by the system offers critical data backup for e-mails and vital documents. The data backup archiving uses Blu-ray discs to protect sensitive files online, nearline, offline and/or offsite. The TeraStack® Solution provides users with energy-efficient digital asset management with a passive shelf-life of 50 to 100 years.

Hie’s technology solutions earned the company the 2009 North American Data Storage Technologies Green Excellence Award in Technology Innovation. See the company’s website for more information. 

The people at Smoothapps in Allen believe there’s a certain magic to making IT, and they want to help IT companies recapture it. Smoothapps is a boutique IT management consulting firm that trains leaders and develops software engineering teams in the areas of project management, agile transformation and leadership development.  

“We blend ideas from the world of organizational development and IT to help develop leaders and self managing teams at all levels of an organization. Our mission is to develop strong teams and inspire leaders to recapture the magic of making IT,” said Ravi Verma, Smoothapps founder and org whisperer.  

With more than 12 years in the industry, Verma has a proven track record of delivering multi-million dollar, enterprise-class software in the networking, telecom, wireless and security software space. He has worked with IT giants like Cisco, Avaya, Siemens and Hewlett Packard, as well as startups and mid-sized companies. Based on recurring obstacles he found in all sized IT companies, he created the “Framework for Accelerating Organizational Transformation,” a model he uses to help team avoid or overcome obstacles.  

“There are patterns of obstacles that occur whenever you put together a bunch of people with a  bunch of code,” Verma said.  

Smoothapps uses various techniques to help teams succeed, including brown bag seminars and workshops on helping teams lead change, harness conflicts, leverage personality type differences and boost motivation.  

More information is available at smoothapps.com.