Troy Nelson
President

Troy is the Director of Information Technology at The Burchfield Group, a pharmacy benefits consultancy in West St. Paul. Prior to Burchfield, Troy worked as a technical consultant for various local firms, specializing in Customer Relationship Management systems and mobile technology. He completed his Master of Science in the Management of Technology at the University of Minnesota in 2006. He also holds a degree in Journalism from the University of St. Thomas. Troy is also an adjunct instructor at ITT Technical Institute.

Contact Troy at pres@nwaitp.org

Jim Clark
Past President

Jim is President and CEO of Interim CIOs - offering interim CIO services to companies in transition. Mr. Clark has been a member of DPMA/AITP since 1979, and President of the Northwest Chapter from 2001 to 2008.

Contact Jim at pastpres@nwaitp.org

Gary Peterson
Secretary

Gary has extensive experience supporting business applications in the financial services and distribution sectors. His specializations include database conversions, cross-platform interfaces, CRM/Single View of Customer, Data Quality, and Postal Service products. Gary is a utility player serving in diverse roles from technical team lead to tier II support for distributed end-user applications. He enjoys fishing, motorcycling, camping, and serves as a captain of a financial team at his church.

Contact Gary at sec@nwaitp.org

Richard Aman
Treasurer

Richard has been in the information Technology industry for the past 20 years working with local and wide area network implementations. His educational background consists of degrees in both the study of geography and geographical information systems. Richard's most recent industry experience was the leader of the research, implementation and testing of a county wide law enforcement upgrade. Richard began teaching adjunct networking classes for a college in Wisconsin in 2000 which eventually led to a full time teaching position. Richard earned his Master's degree in Education and Professional Development which led him to the Twin Cities for an opportunity to work as the Chair for the School of Information Technology at ITT Technical Institute. Richard is currently the Dean of Academic Affairs at the Eden Prairie campus where he is able to continue to practice and keep abreast of technology updates , and also mentor and assist students who are the future workforce industry.

Contact Richard at treas@nwaitp.org

Michael Janes, (CISSP®)
Membership Chair

A consultant with 40 years in IT experience. The last 10 years as President of Cyber Guard Dog. Mike specializes in Information Security for Small Businesses. He protects Small businesses for Cyber Criminals. Mike has been a member of the Northwest Chapter of Association of Information Technology Professionals since 2003. He has been a member of the Minnesota chapter of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) since 2003. The last 2 years serving on the election committee. Mike has been a member of Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) since 2009. December of 2004, the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Inc(ISC)²® awarded him the title of Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®).

Contact Mike at members@nwaitp.org

Nicholas Kriz
Program Chair

Nick is a recent graduate from Dunwoody College of Technology's Computer Networking program. Prior to accepting the Program Chair position with NWAITP, he served as President of the student chapter of AITP at Dunwoody, which helped earn him a finalist position for the Dunwoody Student Leadership award. Nick is currently working as a technician for One Adam Claude servicing the IT needs of individuals and small businesses, and is looking forward to returning to Dunwoody this fall as an adjunct instructor.

Contact Nick at prog@nwaitp.org

Tim Plas
Student Chapter Liaison

Tim is a Principal Consultant at Virteva, in the Managed Services group. His current focus areas are operational-DBA services, storage, server virtualization, and cloud computing, as well as providing level-3 escalation support for IT managed services. Previous specialties in his 25+ years in the IT field have included Citrix/Terminal Services (app hosting), LAN's / WAN's / network security, systems analysis and design, DB architecture, app development, systems-level programming, and various IT management roles, including CTO and partner in an IT service firm.

Contact Tim at stu@nwaitp.org

Bob Arko
Communications Chair

Bob has been a Network Administrator with Civil Engineering companies for 16 years, where he supported Windows, Novell, Exchange, MS SQL Server, IIS, Voice over IP, remote offices, and VPN. Bob has a Bachelor’s degree, and is a Licensed Professional Geologist with a background in Environmental Remediation. Bob also serves as the Newsletter Editor for the Twin Cities Aero Historians, a group of aviation enthusiasts.

Contact Bob at comm@nwaitp.org