A Charter Solutions client interview
Deb Bauman, Chief Information Officer, Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation
Deb Bauman never envisioned for herself a career in technology, but time and again, the tech industry found Deb – pulling her in and providing learning opportunities, leadership skills, and career growth in dynamic industries like retail, airlines, banking, and financial services. Now, more than 25 years later, Deb is serving in yet another leadership position that is both tech oriented and mission driven, as Chief Information Officer for Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
Deb was first introduced to Charter Solutions 20 years ago and has frequently tapped the team for project management and business strategy support. Given Hazelden’s healthcare focus, Deb now also turns to Charter Solutions for business analytics and Tableau deployment.
“Over the years, I’ve found my place in the tech industry and I’ve come to realize this is where I’m meant to be,” said Deb. “Throughout my career and my interactions with Charter Solutions, they have always been able to assemble a team that understands business and that can provide the education and support that my teams have needed.”
Deb Bauman never envisioned for herself a career in technology, but time and again, the tech industry found Deb – pulling her in and providing learning opportunities, leadership skills, and career growth in dynamic industries like retail, airlines, banking, and financial services. Now, more than 25 years later, Deb is serving in yet another leadership position that is both tech oriented and mission driven, as Chief Information Officer for Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
Deb was first introduced to Charter Solutions 20 years ago and has frequently tapped the team for project management and business strategy support. Given Hazelden’s healthcare focus, Deb now also turns to Charter Solutions for business analytics and Tableau deployment.
“Over the years, I’ve found my place in the tech industry and I’ve come to realize this is where I’m meant to be,” said Deb. “Throughout my career and my interactions with Charter Solutions, they have always been able to assemble a team that understands business and that can provide the education and support that my teams have needed.”
For example, prior to partnering with Charter on their first Tableau implementation, Hazelden relied primarily on spreadsheets to manage data. To ensure a successful transition to dashboarding and Tableau, Charter delivered prototypes that illustrated for the Hazelden team why Tableau would be an important, powerful tool for them. This educational process was so valuable that Hazelden leaders who initially saw little difference between Tableau and Excel, now make Tableau dashboards an essential part of their daily workflows.
Getting a boost from the experts
The expertise of Charter Solutions has been important to Deb as her internal team works to re-position the organization to be more product oriented. More specifically, Charter has helped Deb’s team align technology with Hazelden’s product roadmap to better understand what they need to do to support product development through the application of technology.
“I appreciate that Charter Solutions is a business-focused tech firm. They truly seek to understand the business problem first and then help to provide the best technical solution. Not all tech firms do this,” said Deb. “And we can always count on Charter to provide a team of highly trained, collaborative, and professional experts for whatever we may need.”
A rising tide lifts all boats
While providing expert guidance and hands-on support have been central to the success of Charter Solutions over the years, the company and its leadership have also earned a reputation as connectors and enthusiastic supporters of the tech and business industry as a whole.
From hosting networking events to CIO roundtables, Charter Solutions works to elevate the tech community by identifying expert speakers from organizations like the University of Minnesota and Zoom to share knowledge and increase understanding of new tech and trends.
“Whatever she does, Dee just naturally creates an environment that allows people to reach out to others and to extend interactions and build lasting relationships,” said Deb. “As a long-time client, we see this same passion for knowledge sharing across the entire Charter Solutions team, as they have partnered with us time and again to not only address specific technology needs, but to elevate our internal understanding of how technology can influence our business goals and support our mission as a healthcare organization.”