Join us in welcoming another OK Transformer we’ve worked with for several years, Barbara Butner.

Barbara Butner is Executive Director of Calm Waters Center for Children and Families. Barbara graduated from Wewoka HS and the University of Oklahoma. While at OU, she earned her BS in ED. After graduation, she went to worked for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and later, joined American Airlines until her early retirement in 1996. She has worked in the non-profit sector for the past 16 years.

2. Tell us about your day-to-day responsibilities:

I have the responsibility of overseeing the agency in all areas such as: fund raising, community relations, volunteer recruitment and PR/marketing.

3. What’s the most exciting business challenge you’ve been faced with?

I am not certain this was the most exciting business challenge, but the BIGGEST challenge that I have been faced with is keeping afloat the Calm Waters team when the economy took a nosedive.

Calm Waters had just expanded grief services to School-based groups within 17 public school systems and the staff had just grown from 4 to 6 full time employees. Cutting back costs and not laying off employees was a major feat. Chesapeake Energy stepped up in a big way and helped the agency through a more challenging economic time.

4. What’s your definition of success?

Success for me is feeling that my actions have truly made a difference – a good positive difference in someone’s life every day.

5. What’s the biggest lesson you learned from a mistake you (or your

team/company) made?

Underestimating the fundraising abilities and generosity of our Calm Waters’ board of directors! Our fundraiser in May raise four times as much as we anticipated. Our co-chairs for our 20th Anniversary event were incredible!

6. How has technology improved your business and your life?

For Calm Waters, our website is the “go to” site before ANYTHING happens with our participants, volunteers and donors. It’s informative, has the necessary forms for enrolling in our programs and trainings, and alerts our friends/donors or upcoming events, not to mention the history and information that can be obtained. Calm Waters has cut cost substantially over the last few years in postage/paper. No longer do we need to mail out our materials, but simply direct the families and individuals to our website. This one change has made a huge difference in our organization. There is a much quicker turnaround on getting/receiving information.

7. What’s your favorite app and why?

The Pandora App. I listen to Pandora when I run, work and relax. Love it!

8. What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?

Maya Angelou says it best, “I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.”

9. Web site, blog or book you consider required reading.

Life’s Little Instruction Book

10. What’s next?

This year marks Calm Waters Center for Children and Families’ 20th Anniversary. In the past 20 years, the agency has served more than 20,000 individuals. What’s next? We are forging ahead into the NEXT 20 years by not only serving our local community to the best of our abilities but hope to begin an aggressive outreach into other parts of the state with CW grief services, programs and trainings.

It’s time to get to know Shannon L. Rich, the president/ceo of Oklahoma Heritage Association &
Gaylord Pickens Museum. Welcome, Shannon! 

1.    Shannon L. Rich became president of the Oklahoma Heritage Association (OHA) in November of 2004.  Under her leadership, the staff, programs, awareness and reach of the Association have expanded significantly.  Prior to joining OHA, Rich set records as the director of Sales & Marketing within the Marriott Corporation, as well as John Q. Hammons Hotels, with successful openings of The Renaissance Hotel, Cox Convention Center and Courtyard by Marriott in Downtown Oklahoma City. A proud fifth-generation Oklahoman, Rich is a graduate of Leadership Oklahoma City and Leadership Oklahoma, an active volunteer in the community serving on the boards of Leadership Oklahoma City, Leadership Oklahoma, Presbyterian Health Foundation, Creative Oklahoma and OKC All Sports Association, and is a graduate of Oklahoma City University.

2.What is your daily responsibility? I have the great fortune to work with an impressive and passionate board of directors while leading a team of incredibly dedicated department heads (Oklahoma Hall of Fame, publishing, education, finance/development, museum programs) that are focused and truly care about the mission of the OHA. I travel the state speaking to groups about the OHA and Museum, long-term planning and fundraising.

3. What’s the most exciting business challenge you’ve been faced with?
Without a doubt my most exciting and rewarding challenge has been the renovation and reinvention of the former Mid-Continent Life Insurance building into the high-tech, interactive Gaylord-Pickens Museum. My experience opening hotels helped with the brick-and-mortar aspect of the project. However, learning to create meaningful and educational exhibits, while ensuring visitors of all ages remain engaged, truly stretched my experience and made me a better professional.

4. What’s your definition of success?
My definition of success is knowing that you do what you love, you are making a difference, you respect the people around you and you leave the place better than you found it.

6. How has technology improved your business and your life?
Students are multifaceted learners and adults receive information in many different styles. The web allows us to greet teachers and students prior to their visit, ensuring they have the most rewarding experience possible. The web also allows students who might not have a chance to attend an educational series or visit the museum to have the benefit of information through pod cast or streaming video.

7. What’s your favorite app and why?
I have two personal favorite apps; my fitness pal provides the technology for me and my close friends to track our nutrition and exercise routines while providing instant accountability and the opportunity to encourage each other. I’m a good Oklahoma girl so ESPN Score Center takes me through the college football, basketball and softball seasons.  More recently the app keeps me updated on not only the OKC Thunder, but all NBA scores and updates.

8. What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?
One of my first hotel general managers taught me to “inspect what you expect”; sharing details of your vision and/or the execution of a plan, regardless of what business you are in, isn’t always enough. You have to care about the details enough to not only write it down, send an email or phone it in.  When you show up and inspect what you expect it sends a clear message to staff and the guest/client that you care, you are paying attention and their time is just as valuable as yours.

9. Web site, blog or book you consider required reading.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell– it’s a fun read and absolutely amazing correlation between leadership, trends, fads and people that actually tip the scales into meaningful change. It applies to every business, service and relationship. I keep it in my office for reference from time to time.

10. What’s next?

We are fundraising to bring all the exhibit technology in-house, as well as update and create new stories to tell in the Museum. We look forward to creating generations of proud Oklahomans by finding new and inventive ways to share Oklahoma’s story through its people.

Contact info:

Shannon L. Rich
President/CEO
Oklahoma Heritage Association
Gaylord-Pickens Oklahoma Heritage Museum
1400 Classen Drive
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73106

www.oklahomaheritage.com
405.523.3201 (direct)
405.235.4458 (main)
888.501.2059 (toll free)
405.235.2714 (fax)

Follow her on Twitter:
@slrich13

My first 90 days at Phase2 have been exciting, challenging, and a heck of a lot of fun.   One of the tasks I was asked to accomplish was to take a look at Phase2’s processes/procedures and help position the company for growth.  Having helped build a company from the ground up, Perimeter Technology Center, we developed and implemented processes and procedures along the way; Phase 2 has been in existence for 14+ years with existing processes and procedures in place.   Allowing an “outsider” to come into the company to “review” these processes/procedures required a great deal of time; I have spent many hours with Shane and Heath to learn “how” Phase 2 delivers software to our customers, why we use an “Agile Development Process” (heck, I didn’t even know what that meant 90 days ago!), and how we develop relationships with our customers through the discovery/architecture process.

Although coming from the technology industry, there is a huge difference between data center co-location and developing custom software!  The team at Phase 2 has been wonderful to me, not only accepting me onto the team, but working with me to get me up to speed with the software vernacular!  I have also been attending multiple customer meetings,and it is very refreshing to see the relationship between Phase2 and our customers.  Every relationship is built on trust, honesty, and integrity.  It is wonderful to participate on a peer level with the customer versus the client/vendor level.  Phase2 customers understand the value we bring to the table and trust us to help them define what they need.  My greatest surprise over the first 90 days – being embraced by the team at Phase 2; these folks have allowed me to feel like one of the team and for that I am extremely grateful and appreciate it.

Then
We didn’t have money for new machines, so I worked on a laptop with a broken monitor.

Now
We buy hardware regularly and now I work on a laptop with two working monitors.

Then
Heath was into triathlons and competing in every way.

Now
Heath likes teddy bears and pressing flowers.

Then
Each programmer was a one man army and there was little code collaboration.

Now
We have project teams that work together daily.

Then
We had one server sitting in a rack at our office hosting sites.

Now
We have our hosted sites spread across many cloud servers, though that old server is still sitting in the rack serving out some older sites.

Then
Gas cost around $1.50 a gallon and my truck got about 20 miles per gallon.

Now
Gas costs around $3.30 a gallon and my truck gets about 18 miles per gallon.

Then
The most recent smartphones were the BlackBerry and Palm Treo and mobile web browsing was just beginning.  Phase 2 had no regard for mobile web sites.

Now
Mobile web browsing is done routinely on a number of devices.  Phase 2 creates mobile applications and is always looking at how things look in mobile devices.

Then
We didn’t have any clients that were located outside the state of Oklahoma.

Now
We have multiple clients that are located outside the state of Oklahoma.

Then
We had a guy you used to mumble and swear a lot.

Now
We have a different guy that mumbles and swears a lot.

Connect with Chad on Linked In. 

1.The Bio
Stan Chase, Chief Operating Officer, Phase 2 Interactive; former co-founder, partner, and Chief Operating Officer of Perimeter Technology Center, Oklahoma’s leading commercial data center provider. Sold Perimeter in the fall of 2011 to a regional data center provider, Cequel III; graduate of Leadership Oklahoma, Leadership Oklahoma City, member of the board of Directors for NewView Oklahoma, serve on the Governor’s Technology Application Review Board; graduate of Southern Nazarene University with a Masters and Bachelor degrees in Business Management; retired Leiutenant Colonel from the Oklahoma Army National Guard with over 24 years of service; graduate of the Command and General Staff College, Combined Arms Services Staff College, Officer Advanced and Officer Basic Artillery Schools, and the Advanced Signal Officer course.  I am married for the past 30+ years to Pam and we have one son, Sam, who attends the University of Central Oklahoma’s Academy of Contemporary Music.

2. Briefly describe your day-to-day responsibilities.
At Phase 2 Interactive, I am responsible for the strategic growth planning of the company which includes product development and acquisition of strategic assets.

3. What’s the most exciting business challenge you’ve been faced with?
Prior to Phase 2, I was challenged with the strategic growth of Perimeter Technology.  The growth of the company was limited to the avaiability of capital and we had to derive a strategy of organically growing the company with very little access to capital except through traditional means such as banks and private equity investors.  By developing strategic relationships with key business partners in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Perimeter Technology was able to grow to over $10 million in annual revenues and acquire over 60,000 square feet of data center facilities.

4. What’s your definition of success?
My definition of success is probably much different than many?  I believe a person is only truly successful if they can look at all facets of their life and determine if they have been successful.  This includes their faith, their marriage or significant relationship, businesss career, etc.  I also believe you are only truly successful if you can look back on your career and honestly analyze the things you have done whether they have been successful or not, and find an experience that helped determine your next course of action. There are many in OKC that would look at my past and question whether or not certain parts were successful?  I would challenge them that all things that happened in my past helped contribute to my success.

5. What’s the biggest lesson you learned from a mistake you (or your team/company) made?  
To trust your gut!  Whenever you’re in a situation, trust your inner compass and do what you know is right.  One of my business partners at Perimeter Technology always said to “do right and fear not”.  The statement in itself seems rather cliche but in truth, if we do right we have very little to fear.  We will all make many mistakes in our careers and lives, but we must learn from each and vow to ourselves not to make the same mistake again.

6. How has technology improved your business and your life?
Having the ability to be connected anywhere at any time is invaluable to business.  The ability to contact customers, employees, family at any time and anywhere in the world is invaluable.  The ability to be mobile and stay connected is incredible.  I recently had a 2 week vacation trip to Europe and the ability to call or email was invaluable.  It was not that many years ago that staying connected internationally was difficult and the technologies were very expensive.  With todays’ applications, it is easy and very inexpensive to stay connected with family and business.

7. What’s your favorite app and why?
Cellular technology.  It was not that many years ago that people did not have cellular technologies and were required to communicate through “land line” connectivity.  This required having the ability to “connect” with someone either through a regular telephone, a dial up modem, etc.  Now days, everyone carries at least one mobile device that keeps them connected.  These devices include mobile phones, laptops, smart phones, iPads, etc.  By simply having a mobile device, people today have the ability to be connected personally or professionally 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

8. What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?
Buy as much time as you can when starting a business.  When I first received this advice I was not sure what it meant; as I continued to grow my business, I learned very quickly what it meant “make your capital last as long as you can so that you can stay in business”.  If that means taking lower salaries, having less to do more, etc., that is what you need to do.  Once you have to acquire more capital, it becomes very expensive and the return on investment diminishes.

Web site, blog or book you consider required reading.
Besides the Bible, everyone should read books that inspire them and challenge them to new heights!  This can be in the form of enjoyment, business, etc.  Find books that allow you to escape and dream!

10. What’s next?
Phase 2; helping Mark and Heath take the company the next level and having a blast doing it!

_______________

About OK Transformers: Each week, Phase 2 will share an interview with a successful Oklahoman we believe is going above and beyond to transform Oklahoma. We’ll also occasionally share leadership, sales and business stories from our P2 executive team. Transforming business is what we do, through software development, web sites and mobile applications, and we’re proud to share the advice and achievements of others on our blog about making Oklahoma even greater.