The Thunder Data Team!
Each one of the avatars below belongs to a development expert striving to help our clients excel in their business while we strive to blaze the trail in our own. Come on into our offices and meet the person behind the ‘toon.
While we want to send the message that the TDS office is casual and fun, we want our clients to also understand that we are professionals. All of our programmers, designers, and systems specialists are degreed professionals who continuously work at learning the ins-and-outs of our world. We truly feel that we are among the best in Texas.
The People Who Make TDS Great!
Stacy Chapman helps TDS run like a well oiled machine. As our lead in both website sales and ThunderTix sales, Stacy has devoted her time to learning all aspects of this business; become our resident SEO expert, taught herself programming fundamentals, and explored new business opportunities. We just knew there was a method to her madness. Brought here on a circuitous route from her hometown of Chicago, on to University of Wisconsin – Platteville, Stacy’s degrees in both mathematics and Spanish and her past as a former educator, have helped us in defining some educational software goals. Let there be no doubt, this gal holds the office together when it is bursting at the seams and makes sure things get done!
Dawn Green specializes in total project management. As the primary contact at TDS, her work is based on learning the ins and outs of clients’ businesses to create website marketing strategies. Of greater importance, Dawn educates others about website marketing, about creating functional uses for processing data, and search engine effectiveness. Her BS in Computer Science from Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, gives her just enough programming knowledge to be dangerous but a great sense of what works on the Internet. Originally from the Boston area, in Corpus Christi for 15 years, and currently overseeing the Austin office, she brings a wealth of experience with her as well as a funny sounding Kennedy accent.
Gone but not Forgotten
As a small company, we recognize that virtually every person past and present has been vital to our growth. We like to recognize them. We loved each of them while they were here, miss them, and hold the door open just in case they want to sneak back in.
Scott Duff has been a fixture, supporter, and friend of Thunder Data since this business was a gleam in Dawn Green’s eye. While we know that Scott will always be there, it was a real loss for the TDS team (and gain for Texas A&M–Corpus Christi) when he left. A believer in, “three times and automate”, Scott automated an awful lot of “stuff” while he was here. We’re forever grateful.
Manish Ranade has moved on to Sunnyvale, California with a position at Yahoo!. During his time at Thunder Data, he contributed in the creation of Thunder-Bot (our search engine analyzer), ThunderTix (our online ticketing software), and a large number of client driven web applications still in use today.
Manasi Ranade was our Java-turned-PHP programmer who paired perfectly with her counterpart in ways that only couples can do. Unfortunately, the duo programming team, M&M has moved on to Sunnyvale, California to work at Yahoo!. She was also the recipient of the coveted, “Low Bumble Award”–the fewest programming errors of all of our programmers.
Dan Govea, our wonderful graphic artist learned that sometimes small events can have large effects; Dan found this to be true when he found out that his wife was expecting. This instance was just one of the contributing factors that lead Dan down a new path working in Austin under the parent company AMD. His artistry, creativity, and his mean game of basketball will be missed.
Jeff Wheeler was our summer intern until he went back to school (and by school, we mean high school). Jeff is a whopping 16 years old and at his age could put a large percentage of degreed computer science college graduates to shame. Jeff was worth his weight in gold as he managed to handle just about any task we tossed his way with almost no direction.
Chris Taube has moved back to his hometown, Houston, working for Exxon. We miss our Windows application expert and superb programmer. He was one of the few geeks we know who actually liked people! One day, we hope that he will come back!
Valerie Maymi was awarded her degree in Management Information Science (MIS) from Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, at the same time that she received a proposal for marriage. Valerie came into the office like a whirlwind and had papers flying from their unorganized piles until all were neatly placed. She also helped generate websites while learning Unix and Adobe Photoshop skills. We wish her and her Navy pilot fiance well in San Diego!
Niall Durham, among the initial developers for TDS, helped launch us to greater heights before leaving us for greener pastures in late 2004. Niall helped create functional software for both in-house use and our clients using his skill and attention to detail. (The bold and italics are for you, Niall! :). He has the smarts to build an excellent consumer based application–I hope he does so I can say “I knew him when…”
Sudhir Arora, an intern with Thunder Data has officially received his MS in Computer Science from Texas A&M, Corpus Christi in December, 2005. He has since landed himself a full-time position where he will be utilizing his background in Javascript and web applications.