Message from Greater Columbia Chapter President

Phyllis Coleman (2nd from right) with award-winner regional HSCC team

Greetings!

As we start the New Year, I want to take a moment to thank all of you for your support - moral, volunteer and financial - these past two years as I served as President of the BDPA Greater Columbia chapter.

We faced some challenges but with your help, we worked through them and kept progressing:

• We had no corporate sponsorships in 2010 but, through revitalizing our Corporate Advisory Council (CAC), and working with our corporate advisors, we were able to regain corporate sponsorship from BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina.
• We established new relationships within the community which netted additional financial support for the High School Computer Training Program and High School Computer Competition Program (HSTCP/HSCC)
• In 2011, we were faced with finding a new home for our HSTCP/HSCC program and were fortunate to receive a generous offer to use the classroom space at the downtown offices of IT-oLogy.
• We hosted the 2011 Regional High School Computer Competition (at IT-oLogy) with six teams from four BDPA chapters in attendance (Atlanta, Charlotte Greater Columbia and Triangle).
• We worked with the BDPA Education and Technology Foundation on various grant proposals, garnering a portion of the American Honda Foundation grant which helped us make the trip to the 2011 National BDPA Technology Conference in Chicago.

• And finally, we took one of the largest groups of students of any of the chapters to the 2011 National BDPA youth technology camp (16 middle and high school students), demonstrating that South Carolina has a lot of intellectual talent waiting to become the next generation to enter the IT field.

Thank you to my officers: Paulette Johnson-Davis, Immediate Past-President; Aniha Davis, VP-Finance; Moses Brown, VP-Membership Management and Wennie Lee, VP-Membership Services.

BDPA is a great organization and with your ongoing support, we will continue to do great things.

Happy New Year and welcome to our new slate of officers for 2012-2013:

• President - Mildred Allen (SCANA)
• President-Elect - Paulette Johnson-Davis (BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina)
• VP-Finance - Wennie Lee
• Chapter Recorder - Michael Norton (BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina)

With warmest regards,
Phyllis A. Coleman, 2010-2011 president
BDPA Greater Columbia Chapter