Getting to know you

Kerry Geffert
Product Evangelist, Terra Dotta

If you have been reading the articles in this space, you know that Terra Dotta is growing. New products; more staff; almost 700 clients. The faces in our annual company staff photo are becoming smaller as we squeeze more people into a photograph whose size has not similarly increased. While it has been a significant chunk of a lifetime for some of our clients, for others it seems not that long ago that two graduate student entrepreneurs were demonstrating their new software program at a NAFSA Annual Conference in San Antonio.

Almost 16 years have passed since that debut, and those two entrepreneurs are still at it, sporting the occasional beard, singing karaoke, and leading the international education space with a powerful system for application management that also ensures the safety of campus travelers. Terra Dotta continues to grow and expand, all the while remaining true to two key elements of our mission: best-in-class technology and mutual trust in our business relationships. You have heard a lot about our recent best-in-class technology efforts. Now it is time to turn the spotlight on our valued business relationships. That’s you!

Terra Dotta’s public face has been primarily through our top-notch Business Development (aka Sales) Team. Cheryl Boeckman and her team have fanned out across the country to provide prospective clients as well as current clients with the latest information on Terra Dotta’s offerings. You probably know at least one of them, and (I hope) consider her or him both a colleague and a friend. We are pleased to announce that that team has added two new faces. Cathy Swope recently joined Terra Dotta as a Business Development Representative, based in the upper Midwest. Cathy comes with a robust background in higher education technology with some of the leading solutions organizations. You can learn more about Cathy in this newsletter in the “Getting to Know Us” section, but suffice it to say that we are excited to have Cathy on board!

Our other new face brings a new dynamic to Terra Dotta. Most know Terra Dotta as a U.S. organization; however, did you know that we have clients in 11 other countries? As the technology and security needs of international student mobility become more, well, international, worldwide interest in Terra Dotta’s suite of solutions continues to increase. You might have seen us represented at international meetings in Europe and Asia. That is about to increase. We are pleased to welcome Mark Callaghan who will represent Terra Dotta as our Director of International Business Development. As the title implies, Mark, who is based in London, will represent us outside of the United States. We will provide a more complete introduction in a future issue of the PORTAL, though you might already know him from his extensive background in the global travel and security realm. If you will be attending the upcoming APAIE Conference in Singapore, stop by the Terra Dotta booth (#40) and introduce yourself to Mark and James Lee.

Changes to our Business Development Team aren’t the only changes our customers will be seeing soon. As we approach 700 clients, we recognize that our Business Development Team alone may not be sufficient to meet the needs of both our prospective clients and our current clients. Therefore, we are very excited to announce that James Lee has agreed to put together and lead a new Terra Dotta team – the Relationship Management Team (RMT). Joining James on this team will be John Duncan, a longtime member of the Business Development Team. This dynamic duo will help Terra Dotta to continue to achieve its high levels of customer satisfaction. And lest you be concerned, the RMT does not replace our current Support Team. You will continue to liaise with our Support Team for your technical and software-related matters.

Those who know James and John (is there anyone who doesn’t?) will agree that they are the best suited persons for this new initiative. With almost two decades of combined service with Terra Dotta, they have the best handle on Terra Dotta operations and resources to meet the needs of our clients. And they know our customers. James and John will lead Terra Dotta in understanding even better how our customers use our software in an effort to continually improve your system. Using a proactive, systematic process, they will work with you to better learn your requirements and strive to catch any brewing issues early on. Over the next year, they will be reaching out to all of our clients. However, in the meantime, feel free to reach out to them at james.lee@terradotta.com or johnd@terradotta.com.

The spring term being well underway means that another conference season has begun! You might guess that conference attendance occupies a significant portion of our time at Terra Dotta. Conferences provide networking and training opportunities for all of us regardless of our positions and years of experience in the profession. Deciding on which conferences to attend, however, can be a daunting experience. Check our articles in previous PORTAL issues (January 2017, March 2016, October 2013) for tips and considerations as you make your decisions.

For us at Terra Dotta, conferences are some of the better opportunities to catch up with our friends and colleagues, and to demonstrate the latest from our Development Team. We look forward to seeing you at many of these meetings; conferences we are attending that are occurring soon are listed elsewhere in this newsletter. For our entire year’s slate, refer to our conference webpage. Drop us a note beforehand if you would like to meet with us at a conference so that we can schedule a convenient appointment with you.

Since our beginning over 16 years ago, Terra Dotta’s mission has been built on positive relationships with our customers. Though our solutions exist in a world of data, our core values emphasize the personal interactions and opportunities that exist because of those data. As we move forward in the coming months, we hope you will find our new initiatives to be further enhancements of our valuable affiliations. Together with our customers, we hope to facilitate the mobility of more students and campus travelers as they discover the vast world before them, in a safe and informed manner.