Tom Olenick is the president of Olenick & Associates where he is responsible for daily operations and strategic direction. He founded the firm in 1998 to apply his experience in many mission critical IT application projects to clients. Olenick & Associates success has led it to fourteen years of uninterrupted growth.Tom’s career in information technology spans forty years. He started as a computer programmer at the Chicago Transit Authority in 1973. His passion for data management led him to role of Data Base Administrator, establishing processes, tools, and team structures for data management and database systems. He began a fourteen-year stint at Harris Bank after working in transportation, manufacturing and health care. Tom moved from data administration to lead the design, development, and implementation of a central transaction distribution system that formatted, balanced, and posted all of the bank’s daily transactions. During the two years just prior to forming Olenick & Associates, Tom managed software development services for factory automation solutions at RDI (later to become Geneer.) Three roles have shaped his vision of what an IT services firm should be: twenty-five years as an IT technician and manager, as a client of many IT service firms, and as the leader of consulting services at Geneer. Never forgetting that it is the client’s success that keeps his firm in business, Tom mentors his management team and has infused Olenick & Associates with the values, focus, and actions that make real-world software projects successful. Olenick & Associates began with and continues to use a flat management structure operating as a practice to assure client satisfaction and ongoing learning and innovation for members of the technical staff.