Thirty-plus years ago, I cut my teeth designing, developing, implementing, and supporting what we then referred to as “custom turn-key applications”, primarily for manufacturing and distribution. Essentially forerunners to ERP, these applications encompassed everything from prospect/customer/order management, inventory/product information management, and manufacturing/fulfillment, through shipping/invoicing, and on to receivables/cash management, and ultimately to GL/financials and sales analysis/reporting/mining.In the years since, as packaged software increasingly replaces large swaths of such systems, I find myself consistently returning to the individual building blocks within these business processes, often for the purpose of optimizing, extending, integrating or transforming them. From EDI, to custom supply chain applications supporting JIT fulfillment, through extending order management’s reach and power via web and mobile solutions, my career remains focused on creatively applying evolving technology to drive continuous improvement in business performance.At Keller Schroeder, we take IT personally because as an employee-owned, regionally-focused, service-based technology company, we all have very real personal stakes not only in our clients’ successes, but in each other’s successes as well. Life is too short and working days are too numerous to spend with people who don’t care about each other – whether they’re coworkers or clients. At Keller Schroeder, I have been fortunate to work with some of the best in both categories.