Despite the risk of sounding like an old geezer, Rick Sherman will admit that he’s been doing data warehousing since before it was even called data warehousing. Before we get into his checkered past, here’s what he’s up to now.

Rick is the founder of Athena IT Solutions, a Boston area business intelligence and data warehousing consulting firm that provides solutions for customers of all sizes and industries. His hands-on experience includes a wide range of data integration tools. Athena IT Solutions’ services are grouped into four main areas:

• Advisory services – assessments, evaluations, design and planning
• Implementation Services – planning, management, development, and implementation
• Training – data warehouse and business intelligence training delivered onsite, often customized with customer workshops
• Vendor Services – there are two categories of services to help software vendors position and sell more products and services. First, product assessments, engineering support, and guidance on the architecture and positioning of the solutions to their customers. Second, providing thought leadership on the vendors' solutions through white papers, articles, webinars, podcasts, and blogs.

Rick also teaches data warehousing, data integration, and business intelligence for a master’s degree program at Northeastern University’s Graduate School of Engineering. He is a published author of more than a hundred articles in publications such as Information Management and SearchDataManagement.com, an industry speaker at gatherings including The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) and DAMA, and has been quoted in CFO and BusinessWeek. He is vice president of the TDWI Boston chapter. Rick is the channel expert for the BeyeNETWORK’s data integration channel. His webinars and videos appear frequently on SearchDataManagement.com.

Rick’s popular blog is The Data Doghouse. He has also blogged for Informatica, providing thought leadership on enterprise data integration. His posts have appeared on Seeking Alpha, Smart Data Collective, and BI Blogs, among others.

Before founding Athena IT Solutions Rick was a director and practice leader for PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting (now part of IBM), where he led a team that designed and implemented data warehousing and business intelligence solutions for dozens of customers such as Bank of America, Teradyne, CVS and Blue Cross Blue Shield. He also works extensively with small to medium-sized businesses to provide guidance and successfully implement their data warehousing projects.

When he worked for Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1980s, Rick led a team that created what was, at the time, the largest non-government data warehouse, although it wasn’t called data warehousing until the late 1980s. The warehouse managed worldwide manufacturing logistics data from 35 manufacturing sites. Later at Digital, he gained valuable experience while working in the relational database group.

Earlier in his career, he managed a team of software developers at Project Software and Development Inc, (PSDI) a maker of project management software that was later acquired by IBM. Prior to PSDI, he was an industrial engineer at the Norton Company, an abrasives company that has since been acquired by Compagnie de Saint-Gobain. He began his career as an industrial engineer at Lifesavers, where he helped streamline the process for manufacturing their popular product Bubble Yum. He could tell you the recipe, but only if you want to make two tons at a time.

Rick received two degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and an MBA.

You can reach him at rsherman@athena-solutions.com and follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rpsherman.