IT Woman of the Year Nominee:

Barbara Rinella

Manager and Data Architect,
CIBER Inc.

Barbara Rinella is a manager and data architect at CIBER Inc. She has worked in Information Technology for over 15-years after graduating from RIT with a BS in Computer Science. Her technical specialties reside in the data world. She has become a technical leader in her space able work with executives to define clear requirements, architect and design complex solutions, and develop data driven models to achieve clear business outcomes. Barb brings a high level of dedication to her role as the Data Services Competency Lead for CIBER. In this role, Barb is the Manager for all Database Architects and Developers. She leads and mentors the team through career development, training, project transitioning, and business support. Her team often comments on her commitment and selfless approach.

Barb is always willing to help in whatever capacity is needed. Her main job responsibilities include data modeling and design, and mentoring the data administration and database development teams. She has stepped up on multiple occasions to lead full consulting teams (production support and development teams) both from a technical perspective and a project perspective. In her time at CIBER, she has worked with business analysts on requirements, collaborated with other architects on design, and pitched in when testing resources were needed, among other things. She understands the entire project life cycle and helps the team implement it.

In her career she has worked with. a diversity of clients and involved in many verticals, including (but not limited to) retail, telecommunications, education, manufacturing, and financial. She is flexible and works well in any situation. The technical work Barb delivers and manages describes only a portion of her contributions. Her professionalism, demeanor, and consulting mindset helps take both technical and non-technical clients through a solution oriented coaching process. She worked with one financial client who inherited a credit management system which needed additional scale, reporting, and business level data for decisioning. Barb led a team of analysts, developers, testers, and the client through a two-year effort to build a new datawarehouse, incorporated security, business-rules automation, and delivered an architecture which is now a benchmark for the client (and potentially the industry). This level of discipline, best practices, and the 'player-coach' mindset has solidified her position as a go-to leader for the client and has helped our organization replicate the approach and thinking to other projects.

Barb often gets involved in any activities going on around her and finds that joining technical groups is a good way to learn new things. She has been a member of TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute), NAIUA (North American Ingres Users Association), and local Oracle groups. She has recently helped another consultant start a local chapter of PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) and is now Vice President of that chapter. Barb has been involved in a number of charity events, including walks for Juvenile Diabetes, the American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society. She has been active for the last decade in the "Relay For Life" overnight charity event that benefits the American Cancer Society. This year, Barb is serving as Team Captain and is also on the planning committee for the Henrietta Relay, a new site for the 2009 event.