Chairman of the Board & Co-Founder
Walter McKinlay is Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder of DYONYX. Since the company’s inception, Walter has provided wisdom and insight in creating a new organization that offers something markedly different in a very crowded business management and technology services market. Walter believed that businesses were looking for an experienced team to help them become more productive using the tools they currently have, rather than focus on selling more technology. “This is at the heart of DYONYX’ mission to “provide our support services with integrity and honesty, and always be considered a trusted partner.”

As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Walter owns real estate companies in London and the south of France, a vineyard in the French Southern Rhone valley (www.domainedemourchon.com), and a European technology company focused on financial services. A native of London, Walter has developed a number of successful companies over a 35-year span, including an international freight forwarding organization specializing in oil and gas exploration equipment transportation, an information management and records storage company that has expanded into 15 locations in Europe and the United States, and Scottish hotel interests.

Walter completed his military service in the British Royal Navy serving two years aboard minesweepers and submarines. He is a keen yachtsman and has, over the years, sailed transatlantic and several long distance ocean passage trips.

CEO & Co-Founder
Fred Pratt is Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of DYONYX. Fred brings a wealth of experience to the company, especially in the area of productivity improvement, and large-scale project management, development and outsourcing. For more than 28 years, Fred has helped companies design and manage system integration projects that have resulted in immediate and lasting efficiencies in the way they conduct business. Notable projects for Fred have been several ERP implementations as project manager and multiple implementation projects of large scale, global deployments.

In his role as CEO, Fred provides operational oversight of the company’s three main divisions – Professional Services and Risk Management, IT Services and Applications Development. Fred’s strategic models of efficiency are the primary methodologies used by DYONYX today to assist business and government clients. These models include project management, integration, strategic support planning lifecycles, and continuous quality improvement, in many cases increasing end user productivity by as much as 30 percent -without the addition of new technology.

Prior to co-founding DYONYX, Fred served as a program manager for I-NET (now known as Getronics), an outsource provider headquartered in Bethesda, MD specializing in network infrastructure solutions. Fred worked in the company’s New York office and was primarily responsible for directing the resources and project development for Time Warner, Inc. Fred’s client base has included a variety of businesses, from those specializing in the media and entertainment industry to those specializing in oil and gas, chemical, aerospace, and a range of commercial offerings.

Fred donates his time to several local causes including Youthreach and the local church. Both organizations support people in crisis. In addition Fred is a member of the Chief Executive Network an organization dedicated to providing knowledge channels for CEO’s.

Prior to co-founding DYONYX in 1996, Chuck worked 12 years at Hays Information Management (now known as Iron Mountain), a two billion dollar information management company operating in five countries. While working at Hays, Chuck held several management positions in the areas of sales administration and operations. He was responsible for securing the company’s largest client, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and helping to develop its state-of-the-art information management system that is still in use today. At Hays, Chuck earned the position as top revenue producer worldwide for five years in a row. Reporting directly to the president, he served on the executive management team and was responsible for the Houston and Dallas markets. He was also a member of the ISO9000 certification management team responsible for developing international standards of quality. Some of Chuck’s other major accounts at Hays included Unocal, Marathon Oil, BP, Texaco, and Amerada Hess.

Today, Chuck’s entrepreneurial spirit and keen business acumen have helped DYONYX maintain its focus on quality, which has resulted in improved business operations for its clients. Chuck received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of St. Thomas in Houston. As a firm believer in community service, Chuck has been a volunteer with Texas Children’s Hospital, and currently holds a position on the board of directors for The Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas. In addition, he has been an active member of the Greater Houston Partnership CEO Roundtables and is a past finalist of Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Executive Vice President, Operations
Talbot Theiss is Executive Vice President, Operations and Delivery of DYONYX. As one of DYONYX’s original employees, Talbot has been involved in every major DYONYX customer engagement including federal, state and local government agency clients and enterprise customers nationwide. Talbot is responsible for quality assurance and oversight of DYONYX technical resources, program management and ultimately, customer satisfaction. He has more than 15 years of experience in project management, business process analysis, secure network design and outsourced network and desktop support.

Talbot began his career with CSC at NASA Johnson Space Center progressively supporting desktop, application development, server hardware/operating systems, and network infrastructure. Following that, for I-NET, Talbot technically supported and deployed Cisco infrastructure for Time Warner’s global network including the European network in the UK and Germany. Talbot worked with clients and developers on requirements for network circuit utilization and stability reporting to augment the use of HP OpenView with the end result being an overall network management solution. This lead to a promotion to the Manager of the 24x7 Network Command Center where customers such as Time Warner, Halliburton, Royal Bank of Scotland and other major networks were monitored, managed, and supported.

Since joining DYONYX, Talbot has technically led numerous IT design, implementation and support efforts. Following 9/11, he built the DYONYX Enterprise Security practice which has completed over 150 assessments of security for companies in all market verticals including numerous government agencies, over 50 of which he has personally provided the PM function. Three years ago, Talbot was promoted to Executive Vice President of Operations and now provides oversight of delivery for all DYONYX engagements. Talbot earned a BBA, Information Systems Management from Lamar University in 1988 and has been in the IT field for 20 years.

Executive Vice President, Information Technologies
Trent Henson is Executive Vice President, Information Technology of DYONYX, providing leading architectural design and direction for DYONYX’s largest government and enterprise customers. Among his many talents, credentials and capabilities, Trent is a true technology professional, with over ten years of experience designing and implementing networks, custom coding applications and leading the support efforts of the associated infrastructures in a variety of settings for large and complex IT enterprise environments. Trent is a leading expert in the design, development, deployment and customized implementation of Active Directory, Exchange and portal solutions for multiple clients.

He was the chief architect for Lupient Automotive, the nation’s 10th largest automobile dealership in the country, responsible for the design and implementation of Lupient’s AD/Exchange network that is used by over 40 divisions and outside vendors and provides calendaring, event scheduling, improved management and help desk integration. He designed, developed and implemented a state-wide web based medical case management and tracking portal system and network infrastructure used by 58 State of Texas facilities to track, manage and provide vital statistical reporting information on child abuse victims and related case information. He was also the chief architect in designing an organization-wide network and information delivery portal built on Microsoft Best Practice standards and architecture for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Trent worked with project stakeholders to develop the requirements for this White House agency, tailoring specific departmental requirements into the enterprise design. The organization required a high level of information security and granular levels of control in disseminating organizational data.

Trent has also played the role of Chief Architect for numerous enterprise clients including Mayo Clinic, Christus Health Care, American Express, Northwest Airlines and Hilton Hotels. Prior to joining DYONYX, Trent was the Chief Technology Officer and founder of Blue Ink Technologies, a longstanding DYONYX partner and leading provider of Microsoft based technologies to Fortune 1000 and emerging technologies companies nationwide. Blue Ink was acquired by DYONYX in 2005.

Vice President, Energy Practice
Ron Blume is Vice President and Energy Practice Director at DYONYX. Ron has over 35 years of extensive energy and electric utility industry experience in engineering, information systems, finance, construction and project management, business process reengineering and organizational analysis.  He has been instrumental in leading the development of competitive methodologies and building a team of seasoned senior consultants. He has led over one hundred SCADA/DCS and NERC related security-compliance projects, including industry leading work with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) as well as with a number of the largest electric utilities in North America. As a talented and tenured professional, Ron has been actively involved in utility deregulation and has provided expert testimony in rate case proceedings.  Ron continues to actively participate in industry committees and forums and ensures that all associated engineering, operations, and business requirements are incorporated within the DYONYX work scope and deliverables consistent with the mission of every project.

Earlier in his career Ron designed electrical power systems for generation and transmission facilities while at Burns & McDonnell.  He subsequently spent a number of years at Central Illinois Public Service in cost, schedule control, and project management functions for power generation construction projects.  While at TERA Corporation, Ron managed multiple information management systems projects for Illinois Power, Central South West, Entergy (Middle South), Frito Lay, General Dynamics, and other utility entities.  He later served as the Manager of Information Systems Planning for all of the Texas Utility (TXU) companies.

He founded Business Systems Engineering, Inc. a leading provider of work management services for both Fortune 500 companies and municipal entities. He has designed and developed information systems that can effectively handle business operations, including records management, materials management, maintenance and work management, project scheduling, cost control, accounting and budgeting functions. Ron joined DYONYX in 1999 and has since served as the Vice President and Director of the Energy Practice. Ron received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Missouri.  He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the state of Texas.