Press Room

Become a Fusion VIP
Want to get the latest details on itSMF USA Fusion 10? Sign up for our RSS feed and stay connected to the premier event in Service Management.

For the press
As an analyst or member of the media, you are invited to participate in the industry's premier event. For information, answers to your questions, or press credentials, please contact:

Laurie Steele
970.776.1770
lauries@burnsmarketing.com

itSMF USA Recognizes Members' Contributions and Achievements at FUSION 09

December 16, 2009

This year's itSMF USA Awards Ceremony at FUSION09 honored another powerful group of industry leaders and organizations. A highlight of the annual FUSION event, called the best service management convention in the industry, the itSMF USA Awards program gives members a chance to nominate individuals and teams that have made significant contributions to the industry and the association. It recognizes those servant-leaders without whom the itSMF would not run, those who advanced the IT Service Management (ITSM) body of knowledge, and those who have led projects that changed the face of how their organizations do business.

The itSMF USA Industry Knowledge Contribution award is given to recognize vital and excellent Intellectual Capital that improves the adoption and practice of quality IT Service Management and that positively impacts the state of the art of IT Service Management. There were ten nominations for this year, all of whom have contributed heavily to the growth of knowledge within the IT Service Management Industry or who have spread information about ITSM within the business and IT community. The selection committee honored Alex Hernandez with this year's award. Alex is a recognized expert and his involvement in the industry is deep. He has a long history as a practitioner and trainer and has contributed significantly to the development and review of certification exams. In addition to his widely-read book on ISO/IEC 20000, he was instrumental in developing and launching the first MBA and Masters of Science program with a concentration in IT Service Management in the US at the University of Dallas, where he currently teaches as an adjunct professor. He also serves as co-chair of the itSMF USA Academic Committee.

The other nominees cited for their inspiring contributions are:

Previous recipient, the itSMF USA Academic Committee (Jack Probst and Alex Hernandez, co-chairs, Dhiraj Gupta, Sue Conger, John Beachboard, Suzanne von Hove, Stuart Gallup, Bill Hefley)
David Cannon, for his countless achievements as a trainer and teacher, V3 author, founding member and past president of the itSMF USA and countless other contributions
Dr. Francois Coallier, member or the itSMF Canada chapter and chairman of the joint ISO and IEC technical committee responsible for international standards in Software and Systems Engineering
The itSMF USA Forum Committee (Tess DePalma, editor-in-chief, and contributing editors: Anil Balla, Wendy Barrington, Kelli Black, Carlos Casanova, Saurah Dubey, Dhiraj Gupta, Philip Hellerman, Doug Hymel, Hank Marquis, Robyn McGregor, Silvia Siqueira)
George Gershow for his intensive, accelerated course in ITIL for security management professionals of the SANS Institute.
2007 Project of the Year recipient, the State of North Carolina Operational Excellence Program for their guidance to and mentoring of numerous public sector entities on the means and value of ITSM
Glenn O'Donnell & Carlos Casanova for their insightful book "The CMDB Imperative".
Fred Luddy and Service-Now.com, nominated by Susan Ryan of Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Minnesota for their Software as a Service ITSM toolkit

Seventeen (17) impressive nominations were received for the prestigious itSMF USA Project of the Year Award. Bestowed upon the practitioner or vendor-practitioner team that has made significant headway in implementing ITSM best practices within their organization within the prior year, nominees must submit a case study that details the project scope, the implementation timeline, and the benefits realized. The project must have been completed within the nine months prior to the nomination, and is evaluated on the extent to which the results have touched a wide scope of people and service management process areas, while leading to improvements that drove business value.

Thomson Reuter's Global Process Team, led by Roger Bennett was recognized for the integration of the two IT organizations on the acquisition of the Reuters Group by Thomson Corporation. The scope and scale of the project were likened to climbing Everest, a reference to the event's Opening Keynote by Dr. Jackie Freiberg. The team used ITIL®, Prince2®, and PMI to structure their efforts and ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 20000 to validate them. Improved performance yielded increased end-user satisfaction and was further demonstrated by an increased number of data center "green days." Masterfully executed communications both among the 2000 technology staff involved in the project globally and with the business played a large part in the success of the project.

It was a challenging effort for the selection committee to choose one recipient from among these nominees:

CIBER Global IT Services for the Enterprise IT Management Initiative
Conseco IT for their project to Improve Availability of Business Applications
Elbit Systems of America, for their Integrated Enterprise IT Management Practices
Emblem Health for the Solution Architecture Overview Initiative
MassMutual Financial for the Enterprise IT Management Plan
TechTeam Global for the Better Service Delivery Initiative
The Walt Disney Company's Transition to ITIL v3 Project.
First Data Corporation's Lynn Miller and the ITIL Implementation Team for the One Global System for IT Service Support Program, nominated by Julie Johnson of the Mid-America LIG
Ameriprise Financial for the "Go Green with Service Management" campaign, nominated by Troy Jenkauski, Minnesota LIG
The Chamberlain Group's Client Platform Services Team for their Quality Service Project, nominated by Barbara Hall, Chicago LIG
Dell Computer Corporation's Sally McCurdy and the ISO/IEC 20000 Remediation Project, nominated by Gordon Brown and Keith Butler of Plexent
National Institutes of Health Office of Research Services Information Technology Service Management Group for their Service Management Maturity Project, nominated by La Tanya Burton, National Capitol LIG
C.H. Robinson Worldwide Incorporated for their IT Service Management Revamp project, nominated by Rhett Glauser of Service-Now.com,
Unisys Corporation's GITOS Global Processing Engineering Team for their Global IT Service Management Project, nominated by Maria Metcalf, Minnesota LIG
University of Utah's IT Service Management Team for their ITSM Best Practices adoption project, nominated by Craig Bennion, Salt Lake City LIG and
The Cook Children's Health Care System for their ITSM Implementation Project, nominated by Beverly Wileman-Pratt of Pepperweed and the DFW LIG.

itSMF USA also took time to acknowledge and express their appreciation to member volunteers and teams who are the life-blood of the organization. The success of the itSMF USA is the result of the work of these people who contribute enormous amounts of time, talent, and energy to executing the objectives articulated in their mission statement.

The itSMF USA Local Interest Group (LIG) Excellence Award was presented to the Ohio Valley Local Interest Group Doug Tedder, President; Judy Sanker, Past President; Mike Gribbins, President Elect and Joan Coolidge, Secretary. They continue to deliver outstanding programs, grow membership, and promote ITSM best practices through leading edge innovation. Noted in the past for providing excellent networking opportunities, they took it to the next level this year, leveraging a LinkedIn group, newsletter BLOG, Facebook, Twitter, and an interactive message board that provides members with even more opportunities to share best practices and get advice from fellow members. They also launched a Student LIG at Indiana University with over fifty (50) students attending the kick-off meeting and several members obtaining Foundations Certificates and excitedly joining LIGs after graduation. Finally, they have served as a resource and mentor to other LIGs, offering advice and sharing best practices for LIG operations.

Also nominated for this award were:

itSMF Austin LIG, Michele Bonner, President
itSMF Houston LIG, Priscilla Smith, President

Finally, the itSMF USA Member of the Year award was presented to Dhiraj Gupta, recognizing his outstanding contributions in support of the goals and mission of the itSMF USA via consistent service, integrity, and loyalty. Dhiraj was characterized as a member who has consistently stepped-up and delivered time and time again, inspiring others to volunteer and support the mission, vision and goals of the itSMF USA. His many volunteer leadership roles have included founder and president of his LIG, Track Chair for Fusion 2007 and 2008, co-chair of this year's Academic Forum and contributing editor for The Forum.

Dhiraj was in the great company of fellow nominees:

Tess DePalma, longtime editor-in-chief of this newsletter. Tess collects the feedback from a team of contributors and edits every article you read in each issue, and
Scott Jaeger, President of the Central Virginia LIG, Fusion 08 and 09 Committee member, IG Services committee member and member of the IG presidents' council

itSMF USA President Sallie Kennedy presented the President's Award to Brent Knipfer in recognition of his support and contributions to her presidency during a very challenging time.

In a separate session, President Kennedy recognized Past President David Cannon for his four years of service as a board member and past president. She also thanked recent past and outgoing board members Richard Berg, Lisa Schlaf, Rob Stroud and Michael Cardinal for their service to the organization.

The itSMF USA wishes to thank and extends its congratulations to all it's nominees and volunteers for their service to our industry and wishes to remind members that award nominations for Fusion 10 will open in March.