Chris Blanding

Representing Cisco to several key municipal and higher education customers in central Texas is the culmination of a dream. That is to positively influence my local community with the worlds’ best technology portfolio. As an account manager I have the opportunity to advance initiatives that will improve citizen engagement, transportation and the delivery of electricity and water, accelerate learning in higher education, and ultimately help our community communicate to improve the quality of life for everyone.

I have over 14 years’ experience in the technology sector primarily focused on translating organizational needs into technology solutions. However, my career began in the military in the mid 90’s managing one of the first digital intelligence systems designed to consolidate and fuse data from multiple sources, derive meaningful insights from that data, and ultimately securely message decision makers with those insights to support rapid decision making. In that role, I developed an understanding of digital systems and how technology can either help or hinder decision making. Early on I recognized that a mountain of real time data without insights is worthless and actually detracts from the mission. I also learned that sharing key insights amongst constituents in disparate organizations is the key to making huge leaps in capability.