Our History

In the summer of 2003, CIO’s from McCormick, Perdue, and Black & Decker met over lunch for the purpose of forming an effective peer-to-peer regional forum for CIO’s and other senior level informational technology executives. They had each been previous members of other CIO groups that they felt missed something. They sought a certain kind of networking and chemistry among the membership and a forum that:

• Shares common business problems, IT systems and interests
• Has the right size and “mix” of organizations (“for profit”, “not for profit”, government, and at least participation and input from academia) – with a limited number of vendors
• Wants to network and openly share problems, issues, ideas, and solutions

They felt the forum should be affiliated and partnered with a university in the region. The university could provide facilities and support for hosting meeting, but could also help with the relationship between our organizations and the understanding of their needs, and what skills and expertise are being developed within the universities. A request for proposal (RFP) was developed and released to several universities within the Baltimore-Washington region. Towson University (TU) was selected.

In August of 2003, the founding executives entered into a partnership with TU to form the Mid-Atlantic CIO Forum. The forum grew quickly to over 30 members with many of the largest and most prestigious companies in the area. Among the original companies were McCormick, Black & Decker (now Stanley Black & Decker), Perdue Farms, PHH Arval, and the AAI Corporation (now Textron Systems). All current CIO members are listed on this Website HERE.

In addition our charter plans and allows for a limited number of vendor members which are also listed on the current members’ page. Vendor members participate and often present at meetings covering topics selected by the CIO members. Gartner is also a vendor member of the forum and presents at a number of our meetings. Together we seek answers and solutions for our membership.

In 2013 the Forum organized and set up a Security Networking Group(SNG). The need for such a group with such a focus was clear and is an ever growing one. There are over 30 participants (security officers and admins of our CIO members) currently in this group. For more information visit the SNG’s Webpage HERE

The Mid-Atlantic CIO Forum has grown in membership and prestige over its 20 years of existence. We are proud of this. But we are equally proud of the work done by the Forum with scholarships, grants, and interns. Over our twenty years more than 150 scholarships have been awarded. Over $650,000 given to TU for these scholarships. Nothing is more rewarding than working with TU and other universities/institutes to assure that great IT resources will be there when our organizations need them!

In 2022 the Forum became a 501 (C)6 organization. This allows more flexibility in how it operates and serves its members. The Forum is set to continue for another 20 years!

For other milestones of the Forum, please see the list and timeline HERE. There is also a video of a presentation done by one of our Founding Members at our Twentieth Year Celebration below. Please reference the pictures below while viewing the video.

As any member or anyone who has been to one of our Forums and interacted with our members will tell you, the Mid-Atlantic Forum is different. We were conceived and our charter was constructed to be different from other CIO forums or groups. We have successfully established a community of the best CIO and IT executives in the region, who care about each other and their successes. We engage and interact within our meetings, at our social events, and by calling/Emailing/texting each other searching for approaches, answers, and solutions together. Yes, different – but in the right way!