William A. Wilcox - Chairman & CEO
Will is a co-founder of Antares and has over thirty years of experience in company management, systems analysis, software design, development and project management.
Will's experience in software development includes mainframe, minicomputer, client/server and web-based applications. Will was involved in the development of an asynchronous communications package including a script language processor and a text editor. He also has experience in the development of accounting, inventory control, and telecommunications software packages, and in the development of systems software and development tools.
Will holds a BS degree in Mathematics from Nicholls State University. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery and IEEE. He currently services as President of the Baton Rouge chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals. Will is involved in promoting IT education and exploring ways to attract more students to careers in computing.
Ralph S. Melian - President
Ralph is a results-oriented senior executive who brings to Antares his twenty-year experience in all areas of operations, especially in managed care. At Antares, Ralph is involved with business development activities as well as company management, project management, systems analysis and creation of design specifications. In particular, he is co-coordinating multiple projects for key customers.
Prior to Antares, he was Chief Operating Officer of Southeast Medical Alliance; a privately held provider owned managed care company with more than 8,000 health care providers. Some of his accomplishments include: implemented Medical Cost Efficiency committee that reduced medical expenses by $2 million annually; implemented EDI for Claims; instituted standard measurements for all operations functions; and reduced HMO claims inventory by 50% at the same time as enrollment increased by 20%.
At United Healthcare of Louisiana, Ralph rose from Director of Management Information Systems to Vice President of Operations. While at United Healthcare, he implemented electronic claims and other EDI projects; installed new multiple location telephone system and implemented corporate-wide scheduling and e-mail system. At Telecom Management, a subsidiary of The Network long distance telephone company, Ralph developed and marketed call accounting systems for corporate, hotel, shared tenant and re-seller industries.
Ralph graduated Cum Laude with a BS degree in Computer Science from Nicholls State University, in Thibodaux, Louisiana and a minor in business administration. He is a member of the Louisiana Technology Council and serves on the Software Committee.
Laura P. Thomas - Vice President of Sales
Laura has over twenty - two years experience in software market and sales analysis, new product and services introduction, forecasting and corporate account sales. She has been a driving force in sales and marketing management in the high tech software development and information technology consulting fields in the south central region.
She has helped Antares grow from four to forty-five employees providing software solutions for corporate clients, government and small to mid-size businesses. Prior to joining Antares, she was Director of National Sales for U.S. Robotics' software division that marketed and sold the BLAST line of asynchronous data communications software for microcomputers, minicomputers and mainframes. She successfully developed incentives and trained sales personnel to increase national sales 55%. Her sales team also consistently met sales goals in fiscal year 1992 until U.S. Robotics consolidated BLAST operations to corporate headquarters in Skokie, Illinois.
She is the Treasurer for the Louisiana Chapter of International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners (IAMCP) and is an active member Sales & Marketing Executives of Greater Baton Rouge and recently served on the board as VP of eCommerce and Marketing. She is past president of the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP).
Laura graduated Cum Laude from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and holds a BA degree in Public Relations with a Computer Science minor.
Wanda A. Lamarche - Director of Software Development
Wanda has over 25 years experience with her primary responsibilities including managing multiple programmers on various development projects. She is also responsible for developing programming specifications, software development, program installation, and documentation. For Antares, Wanda has worked with applications ranging from asset management systems; company budgeting and an environmental data-modeling program developed using VB, SQL Server and Active Server Pages.
At Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida, Wanda worked in the Desktop Business Solutions and Decision Support Systems Groups providing business automated solutions to the Finance and Treasury departments. At Barnett Technologies, the technology division of Barnett Banks of Florida, Wanda performed project management, systems analysis, design, scheduling, implementation and training for various banking applications.
She was Software Development Manager and Systems Consultant for a small consulting company Northeast Software Associates, in the northeast that developed packages for clients in the manufacturing, distribution, retail, and service industries. Northeast offered modules including: AR, AP, GL, POS, Sales Ordering and Invoicing, Inventory Control, Purchase Order Control, and Sales Analysis. Her areas of expertise include developing database applications and working with customers to develop software specifications.
Wanda earned her AS degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Lowell in Massachusetts. She has additional training from Powersoft Corporation in Windows Application Design and Developing PowerBuilder Applications. Wanda has also attended Microsoft Workshops and conferences.