About Me

- Cathy Dew
My name is Cathy Dew and I live and work in Birmingham, Alabama. I am a graphic designer by training and now work with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
I know I lost some of you there. For many people who know me, this will sound strange. These are the people who know that art and design are my passion. Well, I have found a way to use those skills in a more specialized manner.
A little more background on me first. I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. I graduated from UMS-Wright Preparatory School and moved on to Mississippi State University. At Mississippi State I studied Graphic Design and painting. After graduating from there with a BFA I moved to Houston, Texas.
I lived in Houston for 3 1/2 years. While there I worked at Builder Display and Art, Marrot Communications and Edge Creative Strategies. I enjoyed working in the advertising world and working in print design, but I wanted to be closer to my family.
So I moved from Houston to Birmingham in order to work for CTS, Inc. I came to CTS to grow their brand. The company was in need of a fresh mind to think about how to proceed. CTS is a great IT Professional Services firm that was established in 1993. In the years that I have worked at CTS I have been happy to see the company grow and reach new goals. The biggest change that I have undertaken as a part of the CTS Marketing team has been a revamp of the corporate look. As most designers know, this can be quite a challenge.
In working with CTS I was exposed to SharePoint and began to see that this was a technology that I could perhaps enjoy working with. So I have spent 3 years so far exploring SharePoint and how I can use my graphic design knowledge and User Experience skills to work with this web application.
So here I am today, working as a SharePoint Consultant and Graphic Designer in Birmingham, Alabama. But that too is about to change.
I now work with Summit 7 Systems, and they are in Huntsville, Alabama. So the next stop on my journey is life in Huntsville working for a great company and getting to work with SharePoint more and more. Summit 7 is a great company that does excellent SharePoint work. I join them as a Senior Consultant focused on Branding, Information Architecture, and Business Analysis. This is a very exciting new chapter for me and I am very excited for it even if I do have to move for the 7th time in 7 years.
In working with SharePoint I also came to realize that there was a gap in the Birmingham community for a User Group surrounding SharePoint. So in October of 2008, I launched the Birmingham SharePoint Users Group.
Okay, so that is a little background on me. But here are some random facts that you might not know.
- I like to paint
- I quilt
- I was a ballerina for many years
- I like to travel and meet people
