Fall 2011

Graduates

Guest Speaker's Biography: Dr. Nelson C. Baker

Dr. Nelson Baker is the Vice Provost for Distance Learning and Professional Education at Georgia Tech and an Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is a nationally recognized leader in educational technologies designed for and applied to engineering and technical environments having won numerous awards in this area. As the Associate Vice Provost, Dr. Baker is responsible for the oversight of all the professional education programs offered by Georgia Tech and for the distance delivered masters' degree programs. Within the educational technology domain, Dr. Baker pursues the creation and assessment of technology used by engineering students in the pursuit of learning the impacts on knowledge retention and transfer. These activities have included multi-lingual web-based intelligent simulations for problem solving, intelligent tutors, student models, virtual reality interfaces for education, and medical assistants for physicians.

Keynote Speaker's Biography: Mr. Steven W. Weathers, CEcD

Steve Weathers was named President and CEO of the Savannah Economic Development Authority (SEDA) and joined the staff in November 2010.

Prior to his role at SEDA, Steve was the President and CEO of the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP) since September of 2005, where he also led Rocket Ventures as its President & Managing Director. During his time at RGP, the organization assumed a leadership role that led to the creation of more than 7,200 new high-paying, high-skilled jobs in the region. Rocket Ventures, the region’s first ever pre-seed venture fund which Steve led the effort to create, grew to become a $22.5 million early-state investment fund comprised of $7.5 million of private investment capital, as well as a $15 million grant from the State of Ohio. Rocket Ventures created 77 new technology companies in a three-year period.

Steve has been in economic development for more than 20 years, with 11 of those years in San Diego, California as Vice President of the San Diego Economic Development Corporation. Through the years, Steve has been involved in the attraction retention, growth and start-up of more than 500 companies. Some of his most significant and notable successes during his economic development career have been the attraction of the Novartis Genomic Research Center, Gateway Computers headquarters, the LEGO Theme Park and the SPAWAR Defense headquarters to the San Diego region, as well as the attraction of the GEICO, Citigroup and Intuit Software national service centers to the Tucson region.  

• Presenters

• Special Student Recognition:

2011 Gold Tower Award Winners:
Websites and Microsites: Recognition of Excellence

• Casey Smith
  GTS Student Worker - Web Developer
• Melanie Paul
  GTS Public Relations Intern

• Ceremony Program

• GTS Looking Back Slide Show