Featured Speaker(s)

Tery Howard
Senior Vice President/Chief Technology Officer
Miami Dolphins

Tery Howard is entering her 16th season with the Miami Dolphins and Sun Life Stadium as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. She joined the Dolphins after 15 years with Carnival Cruise Lines, where she gained experience managing all of Carnival's shipboard technologies.

As the CIO, Howard is responsible for managing and directing the technology initiatives and strategic direction of business operations at the Miami Dolphins and Sun Life Stadium. Her primary focus includes infrastructure, telecommunications, business systems and broadcast media, converging the technologies and services to position Sun Life Stadium and the Miami Dolphins at the forefront of the industry.

Respected throughout the industry, Howard is frequently called upon to contribute to IT presentations, panel discussions and workshops. Under her leadership, Sun Life Stadium and the Miami Dolphins were recognized by InfoWorld as one of the "Top 100" companies who have made the best use of technology to enhance their business, and was also recognized by PC Magazine as one of the "Top 10" companies that are using technology in intelligent ways to improve their business. Howard was also recognized by Sports Business Journal in 2011 as a Game Changer in Sports for her innovation and impact to the sports industry. Howard was also a finalist for the Technology Leader of the Year Award at the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to her responsibilities within the Dolphins' organization, Howard is also actively involved in various advisory boards, participates and leads community initiatives, providing guidance and mentorship.

Howard earned a Bachelor of Science and a Masters in Business Administration from Florida International University (FIU), and resides in Miami Beach with her husband Eric Howard and three children, Natalie, Charlie and Monica.

Rebecca Smith
Chief Information Officer
Henderson Behavioral Health

Rebecca Smith is currently the "change agent" (aka Chief Information Officer) for Henderson Behavioral Health and has also managed the organization's billing operations. Henderson is the oldest and largest non-profit behavioral healthcare system in South Florida. Henderson completed their transition to their EHR (Electronic Health Record) in March of 2011 and is busily working through their "Meaningful Use" requirements. This is the second full EHR implementation that Ms. Smith has completed. Prior to her current role, Ms. Smith was the CIO for ten years at Life Management Center who went live with their EHR in 2006.

Previous to entering the not for profit sector Ms. Smith worked for a national software company managing a team of software project executives. Under her direction, she and her team of project executives successfully lead over 500 organizations throughout the country through successful software conversions and implementations.

Ms. Smith served on the Executive Board of a National EHR organization for 5 years. Previous to this she established and also served as the Chairperson for a similar EHR group for the state of Florida. She is an active member of the Florida Council CIO Committee, S. Florida Technology Alliance and CIO Council, HIMSS, and ITWomen.

Jennifer Torlone
Senior Director, Technology and Information Services
Amerijet Holdings, Inc.

Jennifer S. Torlone is the Senior Director, Technology and Information Services for Amerijet Holdings, Inc. Since joining Amerijet in May of 2011, Jennifer has positioned the company to become a leader in technology, modernizing the applications, architecture and infrastructure. She has transformed the Information Technology organization at Amerijet into a team of innovators, business strategists, and project managers, while outsourcing the day-to-day activities. Her vision is to make it easy to do business �" with internal and external customers.

Before joining Amerijet, Jennifer served for 10 years as Vice President of Information and Account Services for Fine Art Lamps, a privately held, US-based manufacturing company with global distribution, where she was responsible not only for the company's technology, but also, customer service, accounts receivable, credit services, and marketing. She spent the previous 10 years in executive technology roles for publicly traded and Fortune 500 companies.

Jennifer holds a bachelor's of science in entrepreneurship from University of Miami. She is very active with the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts of America and is a Committee Chair and Charter Organization Representative, respectively. She supports Angel's Pediatric Heart House charity by holding fund raisers and awareness drives. Jennifer rides her horses in Dressage competitions and has competed in local and international events throughout her riding career. She resides in Plantation, Florida with her husband and two sons.

Alva Bell Bullard
Senior Director, Information Technology
Experian Marketing Services

Alva Bell Bullard, an expert at building and leading smart, independent, and enthusiastic technical teams, is a technology professional having worked in the industry for over twenty-five years.
She has spent most of her career at leading market research and fulfillment firms, serving as a partner and CIO/Senior Vice President with Simmons Market Research for eight years. In 2004, she and her partners sold the business to Experian, a leading global information services company. At Experian, she is currently co-leading global software development teams in North America, Costa Rica, Melbourne, Australia and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

At a time when resources are scarce and demands are high, Alva is able to provide the vision and strategy as well as inspire enthusiasm in her staff to deliver upon commitments in an on-time, high quality fashion. She and her team have been recipients of numerous individual and team honors including Product Launch of the Year Award, Marketing Forward Award, and several Spot and Spirit awards for their contributions to product ideas, solutions and services to Experian's Marketing Services division. In addition to these awards and recognitions, Alva was the recipient of one of the company's top honors as an Elite Award winner. Included in this recognition was an all-expense paid trip to Rome, Italy!

Alva received her undergraduate degree in computer science from Spelman College, her master's degree from St. Thomas University, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Information Systems at Nova Southeastern University.