“Everyone has a methodology. Ours drills down to a level that few people ever see.”
“Relationships, experience, teamwork. That’s what makes Blue Slate click.”
“Clients have so much invested in their legacy systems. So we work within those systems wherever possible.”
“Even when automation is the obvious solution, business analysis has to come first.”
“This is the closest team I’ve ever worked with. And that’s good. Camaraderie makes better collaboration.”
“Sometimes the immediate problem isn’t the root problem. Our job is to see the root and fix it.”
“How on earth can an insurer handle 300,000 new members all at once? We face this type of problem all the time.”
“We’ve always found it better to focus on a few industries that we know exceptionally well.”
“If you come to work at Blue Slate, you’ll learn like crazy.”
“The client could go to an offshore supplier. But we get the contract every year.”
“The more complex the problem, the more enthusiasm our people bring to it.”
“We leverage best-of-breed solutions and our experience to come up with a new idea for every client.”
“How do you manage next year’s growth with last year’s system? That’s the kind of thing we do.”
“Each client is slightly different. Each solution should be too.”
“When you write a purge function that shrinks a client’s database by 60%, you know you’ve done something.”
The diversity is extraordinary. It shows in their solutions.
Blue Slate's professionals have spent years solving intractable problems in IT and business process. The ingenuity of their solutions comes partly from the breadth of their perspective. Besides their experience in our core industries—health care, insurance, financial services—they have also taught school, led libraries, and sold cheese, among other pursuits. In all, they have also lived amid diverse cultures on six continents. Read about them here.
Shanil joined Blue Slate Solutions in 2009 as a Lead Consultant. Shanil brings over 6 years of experience in IT governance, risk and compliance, project management, and advisory services with financial services, energy, manufacturing, and healthcare clients. Shanil has worked with clients, helping to manage business process and IT components of internal controls, readiness and attestation projects, developing risk assessments and conducting process re-engineering and outsourcing/off shoring activities to generate cost efficiencies. He also brings a high level project management skills to bear on all his projects, spanning from project initiation through project close out. Before joining the Blue Slate team, Shanil worked as a manager for Enterprise Risk Services practice at Deloitte & Touche LLP. At Deloitte, Shanil led various initiatives in providing consulting, project management, audit, IT governance (including Sarbanes Oxley) and advisory services to clients. His contributions involved developing risk assessments, managing business process & IT components of internal controls readiness & attestation projects and conducting process re-engineering activities to generate cost efficiencies. This included projects that included performing walkthroughs, developing process flows, analyzing the design and operating effectiveness of processes, performing gap analyses, and assisting in the implementation of recommendations made to generate value and cost efficiencies. He has also led Sarbanes-Oxley 404 and SAS70 engagements across various industries, with an emphasis on financial services, energy (utilities) and health care. Shanil is a 2002 graduate of Virginia Tech where he received his Bachelors of Science in Business Information Technology - Decision Support Systems. Shanil currently possesses his Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) certifications. At A GlanceSkills
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Jayanath Amaranayake joined Blue Slate Solutions in 2009 as a Lead Consulting Software Engineer. Jayanath is an experienced Java/J2EE developer and a PegaRules Process Commander system architect. His background also includes more than six years experience in object-oriented (OO) analysis, design and programming. Jayanath has served as a software consultant for multiple clients in the records management, finance and printing industries while working for Virtusa Corporation. During this time, Jayanath worked on several long term projects where he gained valuable experience in numerous technologies including Java , J2EE and PRPC. Jayanath has designed and developed Java/J2EE modules for a web-based auction application that handled printing jobs for a large printing corporation. He also helped to design and develop a Java based environment certification application for a leading records management company. Further he has designed and developed validation and web services integration modules using PRPC for a loan origination application. He also helped to design and develop a hotel reservation application, also leveraging a business process and rules management platform. Moreover he has configured and managed complex Unix-based development, serving in roles that include QA and pre-production environments. Jayanath is a 2004 graduate of the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka and is certified as a system architect for PegaRULES Process Commander, Sun Certified Web Component Developer as well as being a Sun Certified Java Programmer. At A GlanceSkills
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Since joining Blue Slate Solutions in August 2005, Andrea has been involved in multiple client engagements, providing leadership and support to resolve difficult production issues, implementations and training. Andrea has worked on a varied set of projects that range from call center solutions, claims processing, policy service administration projects and underwriting applications. In each of these projects, Andrea has been involved in all phases of the system design and project management lifecycle. Andrea has managed a project for a major healthcare payer undergoing the conversion of their claims processing system, overseeing the production support as well as managing new releases. As project lead on a service level support agreement for a regional health care payer, Andrea oversaw the closure of enhancements, defects and new project implementations across multiple workflow applications, while maintaining a strong working relationship with a diverse group of clients. Ultimately, she helps business units migrate to more optimal process models, increase efficiencies, enhance performance metrics and reduce turn around time for customers. Andrea has also been heavily involved in end-user training, quality assurance and individual technical training. Prior to joining Blue Slate Solutions, Andrea spent seven years as a business process workflow architect for a national insurance company, thus bringing to Blue Slate significant subject matter expertise and experience working on both technical and business analysis teams. Andrea has also worked with insurance company internal business units to define current processes, utilizing best practices to re-define and streamline procedures and automating and removing redundancies where appropriate. Andrea earned her Bachelor of Science in Management Studies from the European Division of the University of Maryland. At A GlanceSkills
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Vikram joined Blue Slate Solutions in 2009, bringing a diverse technical skill set and valued experience in software design and development. Most recently Vikram participated in design and build phase of a proprietary data masking software application which masks all the sensitive information in clients where personal health information (PHI) must be highly protected. He has also participated in the design and build phases on multiple business rule driven workflow applications. Prior to joining Blue Slate, Vikram worked with Syntel India Limited where he developed modules with Core Java, J2EE components and SQL Server and was an active participant in a re-engineering project for porting an application on ATG DYNAMO to a J2EE Server. Vikram then went on to serve as a developer on a CASE project for SUNY ESF and O’Brien & Gere. Utilizing ASP .NET, Silverlight, WCF, and IIS technology, he designed and developed a Web application in Silverlight which reads a set of parameters for a specific interval from a database and displays it on a webpage in the form of dynamic graphs. Working collaboratively with the project team, he leveraged a data acquisition system ‘IFIX’ – which collects environmental data and dumps it in a SQL database – to enable the data collected to be visible from a remote location. Vikram further cultivated his technical acumen working as a Teaching Assistance for an internet programming class hosting sessions to discuss designs and interactively resolve implementation problems. He also worked on a number of academic projects, providing hands on exposure to and application of a number of technologies including C , J5EE, ASP.NET, .NET, while exploring areas such as the database design and development, remote software, and code analysis. Vikram holds a Bachelor degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai and a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University. At A GlanceSkills
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Anton joined Blue Slate in 2008, bringing a successful track record in object-oriented design and programming across a wide variety of tools and languages. Since joining Blue Slate, he has continued to hone his ability to put technology solutions into practice and was promoted to Lead Consulting Software Engineer in 2009. While at Blue Slate, Anton has worked on a variety of projects including a large-scale workflow application for a national healthcare payer using PegaRULES Process Commander. He has experience in every part of the software life cycle and has done extensive design work using UML and workflow modeling using Microsoft Visio. He has also developed an important reporting tool for workflows within a business process management (BPM) software platform, and worked on a web service-assisting form of middle-ware in Java that facilitates interactions between phone systems, IVR systems and the BPM platform. Prior to Blue Slate, Anton served as a Senior Software Engineer with LAANCOR where he co-developed three core Web applications using Java, Apache/Tomcat, SQL, JSP, Javascript, CSS, HTML and AJAX techniques, while successfully modifying open source systems. His technology career began as a quality assurance intern with Kodak Electronic Imaging where he tested new imaging software, built computer systems using Unix and network servers, and created and managed a web application using PHP and MySQL. Anton further cultivated his technical acumen working as a data structures teaching assistant (TA) and as a consultant with the University's IT services faculty help desk. As a TA, he taught students data structure design through programming projects in C. As a help desk consultant, he tested Web software for University use, as well as designed an Access database with ASP pages for storage and maintenance of articles for technology concerns. Anton holds his Bachelor degree in Computer Science with Applied Mathematics from University at Albany, and is currently working on his Master's in Human Computer Interaction at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as he sincerely enjoys creating ways to make it easier for people to use technology. At A GlanceSkills
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Poonam Bijlani began working at Blue Slate in October 2004 as a Consultant, and has since been working on project teams to define, design and implement solutions to solve our clients' complex business problems. Her knowledge of varied technologies enables her to create highly useful customized solutions. Poonam is highly experienced in the entire software design and development cycle right from business requirements definition to end user training. She uses the best practices and modular design to implement scalable and easily maintainable workflow solutions. She has also standardized Web and work flow development across client applications. Poonam has been a valuable resource in training Blue Slate's offshore teams on workflow design and configuration. She has also worked with and managed offshore resources to build, implement and test workflow solutions. Since joining Blue Slate, Poonam has been involved in a number of key projects. She architected several claims and correspondence workflow applications at a major healthcare client to streamline and unify operations across departments. In this role, Poonam led the team, which entailed training and providing guidance to other team members, while maintaining a strong working relationship with the client. Her responsibilities included requirements analysis, solution design, build, test, deployment and defect management along with providing end user training. Poonam has also worked with a healthcare client providing change management and production support on a legacy application. Her responsibilities included working with business users to reengineer and improve their business processes and to make corresponding workflow changes. Prior to Blue Slate, Poonam worked with Internet eBusiness Solutions, Inc. in Florida as a Software Consultant. She was responsible for gathering business requirements for implementing the smooth integration of business processes with Microsoft customer relationship management (CRM). She was integral to the entire software development lifecycle including application design, database design, development, implementation, customization, and testing. Poonam holds a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and earned her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Mumbai. At A GlanceSkills
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Stephanie Burgard joined Blue Slate in May 2004 as a Senior Consultant. Stephanie has over 8 years of workflow architect experience and over 12 years of Project Management experience across several industries including healthcare, banking, and financial services. She also has expertise in requirements gathering, design, configuration and testing. These competencies along with her Project Management Professional certification enable her to work with clients across functions to develop solutions that the client can use. Since joining Blue Slate, Stephanie has worked on a number of key client projects. For a financial institution client, Stephanie's contribution reduced mail time, approval time, and errors, when she worked documenting use cases and developing the elaboration document for a financial institution. Her work helped the client aid its branches throughout Canada to initiate, approve, and report on material change items. For a financial institution in the Midwest, she was responsible for the conception and elaboration documentation as well as aiding in the initial deployment of the Smart Adjust application and testing coordination. On another project, she managed the testing function for a Smart Dispute project, testing all functionality prior to going to user acceptance testing for a Canadian financial institution. She was also responsible for coordinating the testing effort with project team as well as making defect assignments, testing fixes and generating testing reports. Prior to joining Blue Slate, Stephanie worked at a large national bank where she was a project manager for the planning and implementation of a national consolidation of operation centers. In addition, Stephanie also worked as a consultant and project manager for a business process management technology company. She holds a Master of Science from the University of Texas Dallas as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Marketing and Spanish from Texas Christian University. At A GlanceSkills
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Since joining Blue Slate in 2006, Erica's experience and expertise in operations, strategic business planning, and project management has made her an essential member of our team. Her dynamic background and breadth of knowledge is especially well leveraged in the banking and healthcare industries. At Blue Slate, she has worked on a variety of long term projects. As project manager she led a multi-faceted team implementing an organization-wide workflow system for a national healthcare payer. This included working directly with the business users, business consultants, IT developers, corporate offices and the executive steering committee to provide direction, project forecast, business development and project execution. For the payer appeals department of a national healthcare payer, Erica led the implementation of a paperless workflow system. This included working with end users, developers, and managers from the requirements phase through the system implementation and training. She also participated in a requirements-driven tool selection process for enterprise content management, workflow, and rules systems for a major mutual fund company. Prior to joining Blue Slate, Erica worked for Blue Rock Innovation, a strategy and innovation consulting company. While at Blue Rock, Erica was charged with developing a market-driven strategy and business plan for a start-up medical device firm resulting in successfully raising $300K in funding. Previous to her work at Blue Rock, Erica worked in marketing and sales at a local gourmet food producer. Erica started her career at JPMorgan Chase (formerly Bank One), managing the cash management service teams. She advanced from project manager to as an Assistant Vice President of Operations on such projects as merger integration, Y2K system conversions and the development and implementation of disaster recovery protocol for three national call centers in the middle market line of business. She earned her Bachelor of Science from Vanderbilt University. Erica also holds a Master in Business Administration from the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is also an alumna and participating coach of Program Apollo. This program, implemented by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, utilizes a strategy lab format to help administrators and physicians think strategically about managing hospitals for economic performance in the challenging and complex healthcare system. At A GlanceSkills
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Laura Cooler began working with Blue Slate in June 2005, bringing seven years of workflow architect experience spanning several industries including healthcare, banking, and financial services. A background in communications and retail banking help her to relate to the challenges and business needs of our customers. An expert business analyst, Laura's primary roles involve working with people at all levels within a customer's organization, from senior management to end users to define current business processes and understand goals and objectives. Laura then utilizes best practices to design solutions that streamline processes to position clients towards higher efficiency. Since joining Blue Slate Laura has leveraged her experience in full life-cycle design and development, applying flexibility and attention to detail. She has gained experience in many areas beyond design and configuration to include project management, testing, quality assurance, training, and production support. Key projects include process engineering a paperless referral system for one of the nation's largest healthcare payers. There, she also configured the solution, tested interfaces, and worked on testing and debugging of application. As a Workflow Architect, Laura has designed screens and workflow conversion for a branch and telephone retail banking system from a PL/1 to a C++ Pegasystem, and designed a web-enabled customer service system in PegaREACH for a pilot group of retail banking centers that leveraged the new graphical system for capturing data and carrying out the legacy functions. Prior to joining Blue Slate, Laura was a Senior Consultant with PegaSystems, working on key client implementations in the financial services and healthcare industries. Prior to that, she was a Client Representative with IBM, performing solution sales to mid-market healthcare organizations. Laura began her career as a Management Associate in retail baking at NationsBank and as a Resource Coordinator with solutions firm Consultec, Inc. Laura received her Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Florida. She has had numerous and ongoing training on workflow and business process management applications such as PegaWorks AIM (Advanced Implementation Methodology) training, and AIM/Pegasystems Project Management training. Laura is also certified in PegaREACH. At A GlanceSkills
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Patrick joined Blue Slate in 2009 as a Blue Slate Infrastructure Intern, quickly demonstrating his capacity for a larger contribution to the company and its clients. His hard work, exceptional customer service skills and hands on commitment to improving Blue Slate’s users experience added immediate value to the Infrastructure Squad and he was hired to perform desktop support immediately following his internship.
Most recently, Patrick reached for excellence and the next level by passing the SCJP 1.6 (Sun Certified Java Programmer) exam positioning himself for client engagements that leverage his programming and information systems analysis skills. While pursuing his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and a minor in Business Administration from College of Saint Rose, Pat was awarded “Outstanding Senior” and held the following positions:
After successfully completing his Bachelors, Patrick enrolled and graduated with his MBA from College of Saint Rose. At A GlanceSkills
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Robert Dunie joined Blue Slate in May 2004, bringing a highly cross-functional skill set that spans the gamut from technical to business expertise. A software developer by trade, he also has experience in industry and market analysis, strategic analysis, and group facilitation. He has successfully acted in leadership roles in several projects by leveraging his highly proficient technical ability and his rich experience across the software design and development life cycle. Robert currently leads Blue Slate's PegaRULES Process Commander (PRPC) practice. In this role, Robert provides architectural and design oversight across all PRPC client engagements within the organization. When he's not specifically working on the architecture or design of a system, Robert develops and actively maintains Blue Slate's design and coding standards, as well as best practices, patterns and idioms for the PRPC platform. During his tenure, Robert has developed complex mission critical enterprise solutions leveraging a number of technologies including business rules engines and workflows for a variety of industries, including healthcare, financial services, education, and travel. On the business side, Robert has focused on requirements analysis and business process benchmarking and optimization while working with organizations in the financial services, healthcare and logistics verticals. Robert has also served as the technical lead in the migration of major legacy applications, including the transparent retirement of a multi-terabyte transaction archive for a large financial services organization. His responsibilities included requirements analysis, solution design, build and test, and defect management along with performance analysis and optimization of the application. He has worked with a financial services software provider on user interface remediation, and at a national healthcare payer he has served in multiple roles including senior system architect, where he also executed system performance analysis and the subsequent implementation of enhancements to improve the system. Robert earned his Master of Business Administration from The Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he studied two concentrations, Marketing and New Product Development as well as Strategy and Technological Entrepreneurship. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, also from RPI. At A GlanceSkills
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As a Blue Slate Solutions Program Leader, Paul brings several years of Java enterprise development (since 1997), and PRPC development experience (since 2003) to client engagements, including a wide-array of other technologies. Paul currently oversees the various internal technology centers-of-excellence here at Blue Slate, ensuring that quality standards, best practices, and learning materials are being developed and leveraged by our technical delivery team. Paul has been with Blue Slate since 2001 and started out working on the technical delivery team, mainly designing and programming Java and PRPC-based systems. Over the years Paul has amassed a wide array of wisdom and knowledge that he now puts to use providing leadership across technology for both client and internal projects. This also includes working with HR to build our team, coordinating training for new team members, and working with project management teams to create timelines and staffing plans. Paul has led technology teams at several healthcare and insurance companies to integrate solutions for call centers, claims processing systems, and policy systems. He is particularly adept at leveraging enterprise tools such as workflow and rules engines to enable clients to maximize previous technology investments through legacy modernization. Although Paul is a technology leader at Blue Slate, his passion is for programming, and learning about technology. He keeps his skills sharp and current by always writing code and reading books on technology in his spare time. At A GlanceSkills
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Michael joined Blue Slate Solutions in 2007, bringing extensive experience with financial operations and procedures within insurance and real estate markets as well as expertise in sales and marketing. Blue Slate's clients benefit from his ability to take a leadership position and manage multiple objectives while building relationships based on respect, understanding and trust. Throughout his career in the financial services industry, he has leveraged critical thinking, quantitative analysis, creativity and quick thinking to reach increasingly higher goals. Since joining Blue Slate, Michael has also completed further training to better serve clients, earning multiple certifications in financial services software. He has worked on a number of projects for Blue Slate. For small to midsize money management firms, Michael has completed data conversions, installed and configured portfolio management systems, and also provided on-site client training. He also completed budget modeling for a nonprofit, examining and auditing the client's fringe benefit model and making recommendations based on the system audit on how to improve the accuracy of their forecasting. Over the past several years, Michael has held senior level positions in which he developed expertise in negotiating high-risk programs for Fortune 500 companies and international operations. Michael most recently served as the Vice President/Partner for Phoenix Business Properties in Manchester, VT, where he provided mergers & acquisitions and valuation consulting services for buying and selling clients. He began his career working as a bond underwriter with Aetna and Continental Insurance Co. His problem solving and interpersonal skills coupled with demonstrated initiative resulted in rapid advancement at the global brokerage Alexander & Alexander in New York. Michael holds a Master of Business Administration from the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and completed his undergraduate studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio receiving a Bachelor of Science in Finance. He has also completed graduate level coursework at the American Institute of the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters Society. At A GlanceSkills
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Ryan Gingrich joined Blue Slate Solutions in 2006, bringing knowledge and experience in both IT and business processes. He serves clients in essential technical roles, in particular developing scripts to automate system processes, which provide reporting and maintenance checks to the client. With an expertise in optimizing queries, debugging, and workflow management tools, Ryan helps clients to streamline their overall system management, mainly in the healthcare and insurance industries. He has also established a high standard in customer service for long-term engagements through service level agreement (SLA) with Blue Slate's key clients. Since joining Blue Slate, Ryan has supported a major healthcare payer organization via a SLA that ensures expedient responsiveness in maintaining operational and production stability on systems originally developed by Blue Slate and its partners. The extended engagement of this project allowed Ryan to work on many areas for the client. He debugged the claims processing system, isolating and remediating root causes of system defects, performed database reporting and analysis through the use of Unix query scripting, and developed an automated script using procedural language SQL (PL/SQL) and Korn Shell for deleting old claims from the client's claims processing system. His creation and performance in functional and performance test cases have improved Blue Slate's overall approach to software project execution. Prior to his role as a Consulting Software Engineer at Blue Slate, Ryan was in the Blue Slate intern program. While interning, he developed a fully automated unit test for a Java-based GUI using the code coverage tool Cobertura and integrating it with Apache Ant. Ryan graduated from the College of Saint Rose with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems and a Minor in Business Administration. At A GlanceSkills
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Neil Gurwitz brought expertise in data warehouse design, workflow design and implementation, and project management to Blue Slate Solutions when he joined the Blue Slate team in 2002. Neil has worked with a number of clients to design, develop and implement strategic solutions. He has an in-depth knowledge and skill in technical issues, which he combines with an outstanding leadership and management ability to achieve consistently successful results. Neil also has significant healthcare and financial services industry expertise. Most recently, Neil led the creation of a proprietary software program designed to mask and protect sensitive data, and enable our healthcare payer clients to meet federal compliance laws around the protection of PHI during software testing. Neil’s experience with data management, project leadership and healthcare, enabled the success of the Blue Slate team. He also launched and participated on a project for a national Medicare Administrative Contractor to incorporate workflow software into their audit department processes. Previously, Neil has provided hands-on leadership during the execution of Blue Slate’s five-year service level agreement with a regional healthcare payer. His team was responsible for defect resolution and enhancement requests for five workflow applications, meeting and exceeding all delivery targets. He possesses competence in BladeLogic data center management software and has managed numerous development and implementation projects, from the upgrade process of a major server for a large pharmaceutical corporation’s data center to a workflow application that automated the communication process of a regional healthcare payer. He also managed the development of an enterprise data warehouse project for the tax division of a multinational manufacturing company focusing on comprehensive data stores for tax-sensitive information in business transactions. Neil has designed workflow and database queries for a healthcare client to automate adjustment processing and pending claim resolutions which significantly improved quality, reduced costs and increased productivity. Prior to Blue Slate, Neil worked for the Nabisco division of Kraft Foods as a systems developer and project manager for an enterprise sales reporting system. Neil began his career at Continental Insurance where he was a COBOL mainframe and Powerbuilder developer. There, he grew from a junior to senior developer while developing a policy management system. Neil earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). At A GlanceSkills
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Dennis brings a deep understanding of financial analysis and wealth management to Blue Slate Solutions since joining the team in 2006. Clients benefit from his analytic thought processes as well as his ability to leverage his experience and creative thinking to drive expedient execution of strategic initiatives. Dennis holds certification and expertise in portfolio management software, positioning him as a leader within Blue Slate’s projects involving implementation of financial services software. For an international bank that had expanded product offerings to include investment management, Dennis conducted functional user training for the newly installed portfolio tracking software for the back office administrative staff as well as technical maintenance and troubleshooting for the IT staff. He facilitated a smooth transition to the new product and workflow, and left the staff with the ability to successfully use the new platform for their own clients. He has also helped clients to prepare data for inclusion into a new financial services system. For a large family office with over five years of transaction and performance history, Dennis performed a transaction history data conversion. With a project team, Dennis also analyzed and converted over 350,000 individual transactions. Before joining Blue Slate, Dennis was a Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch. There he provided comprehensive financial planning solutions to individuals, businesses and nonprofit organizations. Dennis was responsible for addressing a vast array of client needs and developing long term strategies to meet their individual circumstances. Working with both individual clients and institutions, Dennis coordinated cross-functional teams of specialists to provide comprehensive solutions. Dennis also participated in establishing a wealth management team at Merrill Lynch. His primary responsibilities included tactical portfolio recommendations, individual retirement planning, and utilization of wealth management software to generate client reports and detailed financial plans. Dennis earned his undergraduate degree at Providence College with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a minor in Business Studies. He actively participates in community services. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees of the Upstate New York Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and LaSalle Institute Alumni Association. At A GlanceSkills
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David joined Blue Slate Solutions in 2007, bringing five years of technical development and business analysis experience. David was promoted to Lead Consultant in 2009 after many successful client engagements. He addresses the significant data management challenges that Blue Slate’s clients face, specializing in automating data extraction, transformation, loading and validation through a variety of techniques to streamline business processes. At Blue Slate Solutions, he leverages his expertise on projects demanding collaboration, strategy development, and data management. He has developed an Access\Excel based solution for desktop process management of quarterly research grant funding reconciliation for a major state university system. For the development of an entity management data model for an international Fortune 10 company, he executed data modeling, transformation, and validation logic. For a front-end web client he implemented an open source solution utilizing JasperSoft. This project included the development of multidimensional modeling within Mondrian Schemas and delivery through OLAP connections. David’s business acumen came into play when he worked with the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory to develop a strategy for a technology park to drive technology commercialization and promote economic development. David is highly skilled in MySQL, Microsoft SGL, Oracle, JasperSoft and Microsoft Access and Excel for database management, administration, modeling and reporting. He has also designed and used a Microsoft SharePoint Server to deploy business requirements for team collaboration and document management. Beginning his career at SoHo Technical Consulting, David worked as a network infrastructure architect designing Windows based client-server solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses. During this time, he developed hands on technical skills in computer operating systems, network design, and troubleshooting. Additionally, he worked with clients to develop custom industry specific computing environments consisting of hardware, software, and business processes. He holds multiple Microsoft and CompTia professional certifications and is a member of The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI). David has his Bachelor of Science in Information Technology and Science & Technology Studies as well as a Master of Business from the Lally School of Management, all from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. At A GlanceSkills
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A founding member of the Blue Slate team since 2000, John Jaster is a senior network engineer with a broad range of experience that stretches far beyond network engineering. His key skills include network infrastructure design and implementation, server and client operating system engineering, large-scale application deployment, internet security, business requirements and all phases of the software development lifecycle. John's expertise is leveraged at client engagements to address critical business needs with a wide variety of technology solutions, both in design and implementation. Most notably, John excels at trouble-shooting in the integration and improvement of databases and Web software. His experience spans Fortune 50 companies, including major banks and healthcare payers. After helping to lay the broad technical foundation at Blue Slate, he went on to be a crucial part of numerous projects for clients. As one of the key developers for a claims and payments management solution, he eliminated payment inaccuracies and decreased inventory for a regional healthcare payer. Working on an extensive national call center for a healthcare client, he improved speed and eliminated defects in the call management system by designing a solution utilizing HTML, JavaScript, and a workflow application. For another healthcare client he significantly improved workflow productivity by overseeing the design, implementation, test and support of a claims adjudication system--the client's core business function. This role involved communication with stakeholders, intense problem solving and defect management. Among his many other projects, John has re-engineered a network for a regional ISP, integrated Web and client/server application with a single sign-on (SSO) system, and implemented a commercial portal platform. John also has significant experience supporting clients via long-term service level agreements (SLAs), troubleshooting technical issues and performing basic software development and configuration. Prior to Blue Slate, he worked with fellow Blue Slate co-founders Joe Raiti and David Read for Integrated Partners, a consulting firm, where one of his major projects was conducting vulnerability assessment for a New York State government agency. He started his career at GE Energy, where he worked for 12 years as a network engineer and security software developer. At GE, John single-handedly built a wide-area network with enhanced user authentication, while working in the central IT department. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Albany. At A GlanceSkills
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Chris joined Blue Slate in 2003, bringing significant workflow architect experience. His range of knowledge not only allows him to be a proficient asset to the team, it helps provide back up support for the client - a key advantage for any company. Chris strengths lie in configuration management, implementation and design of business process management (BPM) solutions. In addition to his technical skills, Chris is a skilled business analyst who works with clients to understand their current workflow and translate gaps and inefficiencies into problem statements ready for solving. This means identifying, prioritizing and solving sometimes complex business issues with blended process and technology solutions. Since joining Blue Slate, Chris has been engaged in diverse client engagements across the insurance, healthcare and financial markets. He has acted as the technical lead for the implementation of a business rules engine across multiple departments for a major health benefits administrator. He has worked in-depth with workflow tools, acting as a resource, providing technical development, implementation, and training to partners and clients After a tour of duty with the Navy, Chris spent eight years in the nuclear power industry performing quality assurance analysis of engineering systems and ensuring proper configuration management with system changes. At A GlanceSkills
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When James joined Blue Slate in November 2008, he brought over 18 years of international experience providing IT solutions. He has a track record for successfully managing complex projects for a wide range of clients in both the private and public sectors, and delivering them under budget and on time. Since joining Blue Slate, James has worked on a number of key client projects. For a national healthcare insurance payer organization, he led a project whose objective was to identify a software tool that would streamline and automate its outgoing mail correspondence. This project entailed collaborating with cross functional teams to determine requirements and liaising with external vendors to identify the optimal tools. James successfully led a time constrained project (seven weeks) whose objective was to transfer critical and secure data from two outgoing competitors and ensure that the associates could use this information as soon as the transition was completed. This involved identifying the “must-have” data needs, validating the incoming data, liaising with the clients’ competitors to resolve data issues and verifying that the associates could use the data the minute the system became available. James has also worked as a business analyst on a claims management system for a government health provider, harvesting rules and defining system requirements. He also conducted an IT needs analysis and architectural roadmap to decrease a not-for-profit's total cost of ownership for IT hardware, software and services. Prior to joining Blue Slate, James served as the Director of Implementation for a leading Software as a Service (SaaS) company that catered to the retail sector. In this position, he developed a streamlined methodology that doubled the rate of client implementations his firm was able to execute. At Pitney-Bowes Mapinfo, James successfully directed the development and rollout of a global CRM solution to over 500 users in six countries. James began his consulting career at the Dublin, Ireland-based Fujitsu Consulting, where he program managed a number of multinational IT projects, including the development of a secure handheld wireless device for DHL and several e-commerce web sites for Gateway Computers. James has also lived in Paris, France, where he worked for the Canadian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as a regional systems manager responsible for a trade system network linked throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. James is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He graduated from the National University of Ireland in Cork with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Mathematics and a post-graduate Diploma in Computer Science. At A GlanceSkills
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Projects
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