2009 Speaker Bios

Dr. Margaret E. Crahan is the Kozmetsky Distinguished Professor and Director of the Kozmetsky Center of Excellence in Global Finance at St. Edward's University.She received her doctorate from Columbia University and has held a number of endowed chairs including the Henry R. Luce Professorship of Religion, Power and Political Process at Occidental College (1982-94), the Marous Professorship at the University of Pittsburgh (1993-94), and the Dorothy Epstein Professorship at Hunter College of the City University of New York (1994-2008). She has served on the boards of the Kellogg Institute of the University of Notre Dame, the Fulbright Program, and the Board of Trustees of St. Edward's University. She currently serves as the Vice President of the Board of the Interamerican Institute of Human Rights, as well as a member of the Board of the Washington Office of Latin America. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Latin America, 2006-08. She has received grants from Columbia University, Yale University , City University of New York, Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation among others. Dr. Crahan has published over one hundred articles and books.

Julie Gomoll, CEO of LaunchPad Coworking, is a seasoned entrepreneur with proven ability to jumpstart businesses and bring innovative ideas to profitable reality. Gomoll's heart, her passion, is in creating and serving community through innovative strategies, the latest of which is building LaunchPad Coworking, where technology, ideas, and people can meet. She has been a leader and a visionary in the fields of new media and community building for over two decades. Successful organizations she has founded or co-founded include Go Media (sold to Excite, Inc. in 1996), Austin Free-Net, and Halsoft.com. She transformed Go Media from a one-person operation in her garage into an award-winning web design and development agency. For Austin Free-Net Gomoll defined new visions and goals for supporting Internet use and education in traditionally underserved markets in Austin, creating a model that is recognized internationally as a blueprint for success in community computing. In addition, at Excite and Excite@Home, she was responsible for their entire online community strategy, growing what had been a vague notion of needing users to "participate on the site" into the highest traffic-generating suite in Excite's product line, pioneering protocols and positioning for the then unheard-of applications instant messaging, chat, message boards, groups and web-based email.

Gerry Hackett is Dell’s Vice President of Software Engineering, responsible for firmware support of Dell’s servers, OS support for all Dell computers, and International Product Support for the entire Dell product line.  She has over 30 years of industry experience, including Software VP positions at IBM and at VERITAS Software (now Symantec). She chaired the IBM Austin Women’s Networking Group, and actively mentored a large, geographically dispersed group of IBM women engineers.  Gerry founded the first Women’s Networking Group at VERITAS and began the first formal mentoring program in the company.

Maggie is Founder and Executive Director of DiscoverHope Fund (DHF), an international development nonprofit promoting abundance for women and their families living in economic poverty through microcredit and sustainable support systems. Maggie spent nearly two years living in mountains of Cajamarca developing and implementing the microcredit pilot project that evolved into DHF, a nonprofit that Maggie registered in 2006 with the state of TX and with the IRS to create a 501c3 public charity. In 2006, she was chosen as a research fellow for FINCA and FriendshipBridge to conduct grassroots research on poverty and the power of microcredit in Panajachel, . Maggie directs the day-to-day management and growth of DHF from headquarters in Austin TX and travels back to annually to work with DHF’s field-based Peru Program Manager. Prior to her international work, Maggie enjoyed six years in nonprofit management in San Diego as a Program Director, focusing on program design and evaluation for youth development programs for peace after completing her MA in Communication. Maggie is a member of the Texas Association of Nonprofit Organization’s 2009 Class and will receive her certificate in Nonprofit Leadership & Management in June 2009.

Kate is a Senior Partner at Dachis Corporation. Dachis is a stealth-mode startup focusing on enterprise social software and services. She joined from Nielsen Online where she was the VP of Measurement Science. Kate focused on developing internal methodologies, introducing established Nielsen data to consumer-generated media, and consulting on innovative client requests. She has spoken at industry events and conferences including WOMMA, AdTech, MediaX, ARF, and ICWSM. She has published in several academic journals including the Journal of Advertising Research, Annual Review of Psychology, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, and Handbook of Positive Psychology. Kate completed her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Candace O'Keefe-Mathis has more than 25 years experience in continuing education and leadership development programming. The former newspaper and magazine journalist previously spent many years leading the Foundation for Women's Resources (FWR), a position to which she gladly returned in 2007. She leads a team of dedicated colleagues overseeing Leadership Texas, the Power Pipeline, Foundation alumnae efforts and the creation of the next generation of projects and programs aimed at continuing the advancement of women leaders in the 21st century. She has counseled Leadership America and oversaw the 1996 launch of the national emerging women's leadership retreat, the Power Pipeline. She was also the founding Executive Director of The Women's Museum: An Institute for the Future, which opened in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution as the nation's first comprehensive women’s history museum in Dallas, Texas, in September 2000.

Connie Reece specializes in strategies for marketing and communications programs that use Web 2.0 tools and technologies. She is also a popular conference speaker.  Presentation topics include social media, social networking, blogging and microblogging, podcasts and vlogs, virtual worlds, social bookmarking, marketing and advertising trends, blogger relations, public relations in the age of Google, and using social media for social good.  In addition to being founder of Every Dot Connects, Connie is a cofounding member and serves on the advisory board of the Social Media Club, an international best-practices association for emerging media professionals.  When a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer in late 2007, Connie created the Frozen Pea Fund.  Connie maintains office hours in the virtual world Second Life.

Gail Taylor Russell is an intellectual property attorney that specializes in building business value through intellectual property strategy and protection. She is a registered patent attorney as well as a member of the bar of several states. With over twenty five years in the technology field, Ms. Taylor Russell has held key operations, alliance, legal and technology management positions. She combines business, technical and legal hands-on experience and education with in-depth intellectual property law experience. Drawing on both her intellectual property law and business management background, she helps clients find the right way to manage and protect their intellectual property in technology related business transactions. Ms. Taylor Russell is also an Adjunct Instructor in Intellectual Property Law at The University of Texas and is the author of many published articles on intellectual property law, focusing on trademark, patent, and software issues. Her education includes a B.A. from Providence College, an MSEE from Northeastern University , a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.

Jan Triplett, Ph.D. is the Chief Operating Officer of the Business Success Center (BSC) that provides an incubator and accelerator program and turnaround services for businesses in trouble. She is a Certified Technical Advisor for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, former nationally syndicated moderator for “The Next 200 Years”, and a frequent keynote speaker. She  is co-developer of  the award-winning "Owners MBA” course and author of A Networker’s Guide to Success and co-author of Thinking Big, Staying Small. She was a delegate to the White House Conference and Congressional Summit on Small Business. The US Small Business Administration (SBA) honored her as Texas’ Small Business Advocate and the Austin Chamber named her as Woman Business Owner of the Year. Her company received a 5-Star SBA national program award and the Austin Business Journal selected it as a Top 20 Management Consulting firm. It is an Austin certified “green business” and a member of the Central TX Association of Guaranteed Government Lenders. Triplett currently serves on the board of Texas Green Network, Responsible Growth for Northcross, and SIFE (Students Involved in Free Enterprise). She helped create the Northcross IBIZ District and was featured in Austin Woman for her expertise working with family businesses. She has worked across industries, from accounting firms to zoos with local to international markets.