Ben Cranmore
Chief Information Officer
Furniture Outlets USA

After those six years with General Dynamics I moved on to start my own software development company specialized in the Oil and Gas industry. Within five years I had grown the business to 22 employees and was staged for an Initial Public Offering that would have resulted in a public held company. Two months prior to the actual IPO offering the Oil and Gas Industry experienced its "Melt Down" and within the next six months the business became almost non-existent.

Rebounding from the efforts required to create and grow a small software development company and realizing that I was interested in creating data processing departmentalized functions delivering software/hardware solutions, I shifted to become a consultant assisting many companies in establishing their own IT departments. I operated as a consultant for about five years not only in the US but also internationally into Australia as well. It was my specialty to assist an organization in developing an IT department often where there was none in place. Many of these clients were not for profit organizations with their own unique requirements.

In 1989 I pursued an opportunity to “manage” a software development organization in Tulsa Oklahoma. I was responsible for the development of a new and revolutionary software package to support major property management companies responsible for thousands of rental units coast to coast. I create the department, hired 6 software development specialists and over three years created this unique property management software product. This product was so successful that one of the clients bought the company and incorporated it into their IT function. I was offered a position with this company in Chicago but declined (I did not want to relocate my family and kids in school into the Chicago area) In 1992 I accepted my second position as MIS director for an 85 million/year Furniture Retailer company in Oklahoma. My job was to grow the IT department and make it possible for the company to move past the 100+ million per year mark. I started the department with one assistant and in five years created the MIS structure with five employees to work with 250 users on an RS/6000 mainframe using vertical market software from a vendor named "Storis".

Not only was I successful in creating the MIS function I worked very closely with the Storis organization vastly improving the design and functionality of their software product from version 3.0 to version 7.1 For my efforts re-designing the Storis software functionality I was awarded the “Visionary of the Year” award.

I was successful enough with the Storis software product to have many other furniture retailers seek me out. I turned control of the MIS department to the new MIS Director which was originally my third IT employee (working at the company as a part time evening cashier when I recruited him). I was able to move him with his education and experience along such that in five years he was able to function as my replacement as the new MIS director.

I again moved into the consulting world. For six years I traveled 50 weeks out of 52 all over the United States (Jamaica was as far outside of the US that I regularly traveled even though Storis asked me to assist with an installation in China (which I declined) assisting many different furniture retailers that either utilized the Storis application software or wanted to convert to it.

After six years of exciting travel and many offers of opportunities at many different furniture companies one of my clients made me an offer I could not refuse. In 2003 I again entered the job market with my current employer to grow the IT function from two employees and the furniture business from 45 million per year to exceed the 100+ million sales target and become one of the top 50 furniture Retailers in the US. Currently almost five+ years into this opportunity the MIS function has seven employees processing for 250 users in a company of 1200+ employees. The IT operation is currently responsible for 24/7/365 operations.

I am currently the Chief Information Officer for a top 100 Furniture Retailer in the upper Midwest. We have 22 retail locations in four states supported by three major distribution centers. We were at number 80 last year and we are at 56 this year. We started with two employees and now staff a department of seven.

I have more than 33 years experience in the IT environment. I have technical abilities both in software development and with many various hardware platforms. I have worked with new software development as well as packaged 3 rd party software in various vertical markets. I have worked mainframes and mini’s as well as PC networks from small to hundreds of PC’s on wide area networks. I have a very long list of technical experience, however, one of my best abilities is to organize, motivate, manage and interact with technical professionals within the Information Technology world.