Jim Fowler Email & Phone Number

RIDGE-LANE Limited Partners is a strategic advisory and venture development firm founded by financier R. Brad Lane and The Honorable Thomas J. Ridge – focused on root-cause solutions to grand challenges in Education, Sustainability, and Information Technology – with a team of General Partners, Venture Partners, and Senior Advisors who have served at the highest levels of finance, government, and military. We create value for our clients and society by bridging the gaps between private-sector innovation, investment capital, policy and procurement – across the Federal, State, and Local levels: an innovation ecosystem, providing corporate development to commercialize and scale novel venture-backed technology companies, as well as place-based solutions that improve cities and quality of life. Our team serves as a fiduciary advisor to companies looking for strategic ways to accelerate growth, providing an integrated offering of Advisory, Capital, and Business Development – aligning the commercial interests of private business, with the needs of society and our future civilization – where our knowledge and networks are leveraged to create maximum value for all stakeholders.

Louisville, Kentucky

Led the university's information technology function with a clear priority to develop an overall information technology vision and roadmap incorporating the needs of the academic, administrative, and medical affairs constituencies. Also oversaw the university's Information Technology shared governance groups.

Frankfort, Kentucky

Served as the principal advisor to the Governor and the Executive Cabinet on IT policy and administration related to the acquisition and administration, deployment and management of IT resources within the Commonwealth. As a member of the Governor's Cabinet and as functional head of the Commonwealth Office of Technology, oversaw the the Commonwealth's strategic IT plan and policies. Responsible for an operating budget of $130 million, 800 staff, and over $600 million in capital project budgets.The four central focus areas include facilitating cross-agency communications and collaboration, consolidation and centralization of the IT infrastructure and support services throughout the executive branch of state government, security and compliance to insure that the data of the Commonwealth's citizens and businesses is safe and secure, and, generating opportunities for greater cost effectiveness and capitalizing on economies of scale to provide a more efficient IT environment.

New York, New York

Leads the IT Services organization (600 Professionals; $200MM OpEx) supporting the City’s 45 Mayoral Agencies by providing a secure state-of-the-art shared services environment including computer operation, network & telecommunications services, technical architecture services, foundational technologies (operating systems, databases, monitoring & reporting tools, email & archiving, collaboration tools, data storage, etc.), document management services, and business application development & support. The shared services program, CITIServ (NYC Citywide IT Infrastructure Services Program), provides a 24/7 Service Desk, Network Operations Center, and Security Operations Center. The telecommunications environment includes a Citywide high speed fiber optic network connecting over 150 city locations as well as a private, city owned and operated high speed wireless network providing over 95% coverage throughout the 5 Boroughs of New York City. The wireless network is used to provide water meter reading for over 5 Million New York households, network connectivity to city offices and garages not easily accessible to the fiber optic network, backup communications channels for the fiber optic network, and transmission of video and data to/from NYPD patrol cars. It also enables remote control of over 10,000 citywide traffic signals for rush hour and emergency reconfigurations. The position is also responsible for the radio communications networks for NYC first responders.

Led the Technology Management Division (350 Professionals; $45MM OpEx) in support of the organization’s charter to provide cost effective, convenient and safe mass transit service to the citizens of Chicago. Key responsibilities included operational systems to provide bus and rail scheduling and dispatching and tracking systems utilizing GPS to identify the real time location of every bus and train in operation, revenue management including collection technology, human resources systems to manage over 12,000 represented employees, and absence management initiatives to control costs. The revenue collection system generated in excess of 2 Million transactions per day and is operational 24 X 7. 40% of these transactions were credit/debit cards requiring identity protection and compliance with PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards. Also responsible for the city-wide telecommunications network including over 100 miles of high speed fiber optic cable.

Senior executive in the transit authority’s information technology function (550 Professionals; $140MM OpEx). Worked with other transit departments, local government agencies and the Homeland Security Department to provide safe, secure, and affordable transportation for the City of New York. Key areas of accountability were the revenue management system, the advanced rail control and signaling system, and customer service systems which included several initiatives involving direct communications with customers through iPod, PDA and Cell Phone technologies. Directed the outsource agreements with IBM and Unisys for datacenter management and support for the agency’s 11,500 desktop computers and provided management oversight for the pilot new technology fare collection process involving credit/debit cards and cell phones enabled with the NFC (Near Field Communications) chip.

Provided executive leadership for the company’s worldwide operations including 32 manufacturing facilities located in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Key responsibilities included uniting all manufacturing facilities with a common engineering design system and a common ERP/MRP system. Enabled a common global supply chain management strategy by delivering an enterprise level suite of business applications. This environment provided for both global and regional inventory management and shared best practices.

Provided leadership for the Company’s world-wide voice and data telecommunications activities and for relationship management with technology-based business partners and suppliers.