Board of Advisors

We are honored and humbled that these great Georgians serve as our Board of Advisors. Their wisdom and guidance are critical to our success.

Mike Adkinson, Editor and Publisher TechLINKS

Mike's career includes 20 years in the U.S. Army and what he says seems like 80 years in private business. His military achievements include assignments as a paratrooper, ranger and helicopter pilot. He was recognized as the pilot with "the most combat missions flown by any American aviator, of any branch of service, in any war." He was runner-up as Army Aviator of the Year in 1968. His awards for valor in combat include the Distinguished Service Medal, two Silver Stars, six Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star of Valor, 73 Air Medals, a Purple Heart and several other citations.

A graduate of Auburn University, at age 33 Mike was the youngest US Army officer promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel since World War II. He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College and was selected by Gen. Colin Powell to be his operations officer when Powell commanded a combat brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. Following retirement from the Army, Mike served as a leadership consultant to various corporations including Ford Motor Co., AT&T, American Medical, Kaiser Chemicals and the New York Stock Exchange. Later he founded a publishing organization which became the first publisher of technology-related information in the region. Its titles included, Atlanta Computer Currents.

In 1998 Mike created TechLINKS as a publication designed to fill the needs of the growing number of businesses who have interest in and are involved with the Georgia technology community. The editorial focus of this bi-monthly publication and its daily email broadcast serving the local Information Technology industry. TechLINKS collects and distributes information about the people, events and trends of this vibrant industry throughout the state. Mike devotes a lot of his time to meeting with local business groups to encourage participation in the technology industry and he frequently participates as a speaker and seminar presenter at regional and national conferences including Internet World. Mike is actively involved with several IT related schools and technology trade associations.

Mike and his daughter Julie received The Georgia Public Service Award for Technology from Governor Roy Barnes and they have received numerous awards from organizations like GEDA, AeA and the Magazine Association of Georgia.

Jean Barnes, Principal Critical3 Marketing

Jean has more than 18 years of experience in marketing and sales with technology-based companies. Her broad-based expertise includes strategic market definition, brand creation and management, electronic and web-based marketing programs, lead generation, vertical market activities, public relations, advertising, and direct and channel sales programs.

Prior to joining Critical3, Jean was Chief Marketing Officer at Atlanta-headquartered STI Knowledge, Inc., where she played a primary role in transforming the business into a leading provider of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solutions. The idea of GeorgiaFirst! - helping Georgia companies do business with other Georgia companies - was initiated by Jay Clark and Jean while at STI.

Before joining STI Knowledge, Jean was vice president of marketing at Covast where she launched the European company’s business in the US. She also established and negotiated a strategic OEM partnership with Microsoft, giving Covast products a significant market share. Jean has also served in executive marketing roles with Cotelligent and Intergraph. She was a founding member of Intergraph’s Information Management division where her strategic marketing direction helped grow the organization from $0 to $15M in just 18 months.

Jean is active in many business organizations in the Atlanta area, including the Technology Association of Georgia, GlobalExecWomen and the Atlanta Hi Tech CMO Round Table. Jean holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Auburn University, and a master’s degree from the Florida Institute of Technology.