The Vivit Board of Directors presented the 2014 Americas award winners at the HP Discover Conference in Las Vegas on June 11, 2014. The Champion of the Year Award went to Todd DeCapua, Leader the Year Award went to Paul Shovlin, Speaker of the Year Award went to Ron Cornwell, and the new Top Virtual Contributor Award went to Randy Mikel.
This year marks the sixth anniversary of the awards presentation recognizing outstanding volunteers. Winners are chosen from submissions by members worldwide. The Americas Awards are presented each June, and the Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific awards are presented each December.
"As a volunteer community focused on helping HP Software customers be successful and develop their careers, we are driven to create a forum for sharing best-practices and sparking game-changing conversations,” said Tammy Young, Chapter and Special Interest Group Chair, Board of Directors.” I have deep respect for these talented volunteers who share their expertise by presenting webinars, organizing Local User Group meetings, and creating content to share with members worldwide.”
Todd DeCapua, 2014 Champion of the Year, was recognized for expanding the Vivit community by co-leading Local User Groups in Delaware and Philadelphia, four global Special Interest Groups focused on DevOps, Mobile, Agile, and Performance Engineering, frequently delivering webinars, and writing blogs. Over the years, Todd has received several recognitions from Vivit, including HP Software Universe "Best & Brightest,” 2010 Leader of the Year, and 2013 Speaker of the Year.
Todd is a seasoned software professional with more than 20 years of experience in IT applications development, IT operations, product marketing, product management, channels operations and business development in several domains including Mobile, Agile, Cloud, and Performance. He recently joined HP in April 2014 through their acquisition of Shunra; he is currently a Senior Product Marketing Manager of Application Delivery Management, Go-To-Market and is responsible for Network Virtualization and Service Virtualization.
Paul Shovlin, 2014 Leader of the Year, was recognized for his leadership of the Florida Local User Group. Paul started as a contributor and speaker with the Tampa Mercury User Group in 2005 and was instrumental in starting the Vivit Local User Group in Florida six years ago. He helped increase the number of Florida meetings by moving to a quarterly model. Paul has spoken for multiple Local User Groups across America this past year, and he has shared his extensive meeting planning knowledge with other leaders. In addition, Paul fostered a relationship with HP Marketing representatives to bring them to the table. Paul also contributes his expertise worldwide by serving on the Membership Committee.
Paul has worked in software quality for 18 years and currently holds the position of Director of Client Management for Checkpoint Technologies. Paul focuses on assisting customers to identify Quality Assurance (QA) and software testing challenges and offering cost effective and industry leading solutions. Paul is HP Certified in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and is an HP Certified Instructor.
Ron Cornwell, 2014 Speaker of the Year, frequently delivers webinars to members worldwide on topics related to Data Center Automation. He was spotlighted as a panelist and presenter at the Vivit Virtual Summit on Cloud in November 2013. He presented three sessions at HP Discover 2013. In addition, he co-leads the Vivit Data Center Automation Special Interest Group and has served as a member of the HP Customer Advisory Board on Cloud and HPOO Special Interest Group for the past several years.
Ron has worked in the IT field for over 15 years. He has been involved with several key initiatives including Data Center Consolidations, Data Center Automation, and most recently deploying Private Cloud. He is currently the Team Lead for the Data Center Automation group at McKesson Corp. Prior to joining McKesson, he was a member of the US Army. He continues to support our country’s military through volunteerism and donations to support the Wounded Warrior Project.
Randy Mikel, Top Virtual Contributor, received recognition for his participation in and contributions through Vivit’s website. He has been a member since 2007 and has utilized the many resources available to members. He participates in virtual Special Interest Groups, attends live webinar events to acquire cross-training on HP product and services, and searches the forums, blogs, and newsletters regularly for solutions to issues or questions about HP product installations. He also offers his tips and knowledge on issues that other members post in the forums and participates in the Houston and Chicago Local User Groups. He hosts Local User Group meetings at his place of employment and has presented a case study on his company’s ITSM implementation. He also participates in all online Board of Directors nominations and elections to bring outstanding leadership to Vivit.
Randy has over 15 years of experience with Project and Portfolio Management (PPM). Currently at Halliburton, a Houston-based energy products and services industry leader, he provides IT team leadership to support 3,200 users of the HP PPM Suite for the global SAP application support teams, as well as over 400 other enterprise applications and the Project Management Organization which manages over 1,500 global IT projects. He also supports other HP software products: Service Manager, uCMDB, Asset Manager, and Quality Center.
