Interesting Facts

Tonya Harmon
Tonya is passionate about her human services customers and the people they serve, and she has successfully inspired others to help build a great company that is dedicated to providing world class solutions for them. Tonya won the Top 50 SmartCEO Female Entrepreneur CEO award in July of 2007, and in April of 2008 was nominated in the Entrepreneur category in the Ninth Annual Leadership Awards given by Women in Technology (WIT). Tonya's exceptional leadership capabilities landed Harmony on Washington SmartCEO magazine's prestigious list of the 50 fastest growing companies in the Washington, DC area, published in January of 2008.

Patricia T. Boggs
Pat loves to cross country bicycle with her husband, and is also an avid hiker and swimmer. She is a passionate reader who reads at an astonishing rate, completing at least one book every week. Pat also grows most of her own food and is an artist. In her rare spare time, she volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and a range of organizations focused on the needs of battered women.

Derrick Cobey
Derrick is committed to his work as Harmony's chief technology officer (CTO) and his ever-improving golf game. Derrick recently received a Nike SQ SUMO² 5900 driver as a gift from a friend. He plans to use his new weapon this year in his quest to break 80 and amass a small fortune from his winnings from Harmony’s VP, Finance, Steve Renkes, on the golf course!

Stan Eames
Stan holds a Fifth Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, and also holds a national title in a sparring competition. He coaches football for the local high school, and enjoys running, golf and snowboarding. Always active, Stan is now studying for his private pilot's license.

Keith Ewell
With a group of other musically inclined Harmony employees, Keith has performed at a number of corporate functions as the singer of the semi-official house band. As a high school senior, he appeared in a Public Service Announcement (PSA) for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It’s a Fact – Pot Hurts” aired nationally, much to the amusement of Keith’s college roommates.

Nicholas Harmon
Nick has attempted to share his passion for service and security to the health and human services field since joining Harmony in 1999. One of his most memorable professional experiences has been seeing Harmony implemented in the Casey Family Programs’ field office in his hometown of Yakima, WA. One of his current projects involves working with states to support returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reintegrate back into their local communities and families. As a Navy veteran, this has been especially rewarding, knowing the stress that overseas deployment can cause on one’s self and one’s family.

Steven E. Renkes
Steve is an avid golfer when he is not overseeing all aspects of Harmony’s complex financial operations. Steve also has unique, first-hand experience in an area in which many of Harmony’s clients are engaged: adoption, and more specifically international adoption. Eight years ago, Steve and his wife adopted a child from Russia, an experience that Steve described as among the most rewarding of his life.

Executive Team

Harmony employs seasoned professionals with experience in a diverse range of health and human service areas, technical and non-technical, who are committed to a corporate culture that promotes the very best in IT products and services. The capabilities of our exceptional executive team exemplify the values that have helped make Harmony a leader in health and human services information technology solutions.

Tonya J. Harmon, President and Chief Executive Officer
Patricia T. Boggs, Senior Vice President, Operations
Derrick Cobey, Chief Technology Officer
Stan Eames, Senior Vice President, Market Strategy
Keith Ewell, Director, Solutions
Nicholas Harmon, Senior Vice President, Business Development and Strategy
Steven E. Renkes, Vice President, Finance

Tonya J. Harmon - President and Chief Executive Officer

Tonya Harmon is the Founder, President and CEO of Harmony Information Systems, Inc. (Harmony). Tonya started the company in 1998 when she realized there was a vital need for high quality, enterprise software in human services.

Tonya’s two passions have always been in software and in helping others. Tonya has volunteered or worked in a wide variety of social service and behavioral health agencies since grade school; early on, Tonya volunteered in the special education class, and by high school, was volunteering in the Crisis Center, a school for the deaf and later at a residential program for the intellectually disabled. At the same time, Tonya became enamored with personal computers, and before the age of twenty, owned seven and had started her first software company, Computon. Tonya soon began to combine her two interests, helping the disabled use computers, writing software for various agencies, teaching night school to professors on how to use computers in the classroom, and later as the IT director for a large behavioral health agency.

For three decades Tonya has devoted her attention to software and human services, making her a well-known, leading expert on the subject. Tonya holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and has completed coursework towards a Master’s Degree in Management Information Systems at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Patricia T. Boggs - Senior Vice President, Operations

Pat Boggs brings more than twenty years of experience in executive-level corporate management to her role as senior vice president, operations, of Harmony Information Systems, Inc. As director of all customer-facing operations, including professional services and customer support, Pat draws on her expansive professional experience to ensure that every client’s experience with a Harmony product or professional exceeds expectations and fulfills key objectives.

Pat has extensive experience in executive-level client service. She has demonstrated success in fostering every aspect of the client relationship, from sales to delivery to expansion. In the software arena, she has particular experience in complete ERP implementation, integration and support; transaction matching and integration; and on-line risk monitoring and management in ASP environments. Pat also has particular strengths in building teams—domestically and internationally—whose primary focus is helping clients build and maintain competitive advantage in large, complex environments.

Prior to joining Harmony, Pat gained a wealth of experience in a wide ranging field of industries, including software, insurance, pharmaceuticals, consumer products and manufacturing; she also acquired substantial experience in government contracting at the state and local government level. In almost every case, she achieved an enviable record of improved revenue, margins and profits, enhanced corporate procedures and methodologies, expanded product or service lines, and renewed commitment on the part of executive and staff teams. She holds a Doctorate of Business Administration with a major in Statistics and Operations Research and M.A. in Economics, both from Kent State University.

Derrick Cobey - Chief Technology Officer

Derrick Cobey brings fifteen years of senior-level software engineering experience to Harmony Information Systems, primarily in the development and delivery of complex, enterprise-scale software solutions. For Harmony, Derrick provides executive-level oversight of the development and architecture of the entire Harmony product suite, including application architecture and design, evolution strategy, product assessment and evaluation, data center operations and software development lifecycle (SDLC) management. He also provides executive-level oversight of all Harmony divisions engaged in product development or involved with technology issues.

Before joining Harmony, Derrick held progressive positions culminating in senior vice president for a leading product engineering company, directing all software engineering and implementation activities associated with the company’s “Software as a Service” delivery model. As senior vice president, Derrick held ultimate accountability for the definition and execution of the company’s next generation technology strategy and oversaw a team of 95 software engineers. Prior to that, in highly progressive positions for a leading global financial services company, Derrick led strategic planning, alignment and execution of the company’s global research and development functions, overseeing a team of 120 professionals located in five countries. He also successfully defined product technology and architectural standards and oversaw the actions of a software development team charged with defining software development lifecycle standards and institutionalizing them throughout the company.

Derrick has a solid track record of successful software delivery in a variety of industries. He holds an M.S., computer science, from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S., electrical engineering, from the University of Maryland.

Stan Eames - Senior Vice President, Market Strategy

Stan Eames is formerly the founder, president and CEO of Synergy Software Technologies Inc. which merged with Harmony Information Systems, Inc. (Harmony) in 2007. Under Stan’s leadership Synergy quickly became the leading software vendor in the human services market across the United States, with a particular focus on the eldercare and aging marketplace. The merger of Synergy with Harmony was facilitated by Stan’s desire to bring Synergy’s strong market position under the umbrella of the technological and organizational strengths of Harmony. While at Synergy, Stan designed and developed a number of highly successful software systems prior to focusing primarily on business development activities. Stan’s role in Harmony is to provide strategic direction in the selection and management of the markets we serve.

Stan has held numerous information technology positions throughout a career spanning 27 years, ranging from software design and development to executive management. Prior to founding Synergy, Stan was employed by International Business Machines for 11 years, and left as director of IBM’s Northeast Regional Development Center, an organization focused on the development of advanced software development tools and techniques. Stan brings a strong knowledge of information technology to the team, coupled with extensive experience and domain expertise in human services software deployment. Stan holds a B.A. in computer science from the University of Maine, and is a graduate of the IBM business management school and management assessment program.

Keith Ewell - Director, Product Strategy

Keith Ewell, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Director of Solutions for Harmony. Possessing an exceptional blend of clinical, technical and management experience, he is highly skilled at bridging the communication gap between human services and information technology professionals; he is similarly adept at successfully overseeing the design and development of Harmony solutions and in managing complex projects. He has more than ten years of experience in the design and implementation of human service information systems; and 12 years of experience in management.

Before assuming the role of director of solutions, Keith supervised project managers and project analysts responsible for the implementation of Harmony at all customer sites. Before that, he served as senior project manager for numerous installations of Harmony software. He also has a leadership role in the development of HarmonyIS applications, helping to define functional requirements identified by customers to Harmony developers.

Keith earned his Ph.D. and M.S., clinical psychology, from the University of Miami, Miami, Florida and his B.S. in psychology from Loyola College.

Nicholas Harmon - Senior Vice President, Business Development and Strategy

Nick Harmon is one of the original founders of Harmony. As vice president, business development for Harmony, he is the primary point of contact with partners, trade associations, market analysts, and senior government officials. As Harmony’s principal “evangelist”, Nick attends numerous HHS conferences and has presented on the topics of security, service oriented architecture (SOA), and network centric operations at several national events.

Nick is an active member of the Human Services Information Technology Advisory Group and is on the Information Technology Association of America State & Local Government Board of Directors. He is also a founding member of the Family Services Technology Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering caseworkers in the field through mobile technology. Nick is also a participant on the Medicaid Information Technology Architecture Technology Advisory Committee.

Prior to joining Harmony, Nick served as a naval intelligence officer for 10 years and was the deputy director of the Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center for the Department of Defense, where he acquired extensive experience in information assurance. He was also responsible for developing public key infrastructure (PKI) policy for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) related to electronic prescriptions. Nick holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Washington.

Steven E. Renkes - Vice President, Finance

Steve Renkes directs financial operations, risk and treasury management for Harmony, developing policies and programs that position the company for continued growth. For more than twenty years, he has held positions of progressive responsibility and importance in leading companies, domestic and international, that provide information technology software solutions to a diverse group of industries. As vice president of finance for Harmony, Steve is directly accountable to the company’s board of directors for profit/loss; he also serves on the company’s executive management team. Collateral responsibilities include executive-level oversight of all risk, compliance and corporate tax programs; management of all accounting functions, to include liaison with company auditors and financial institutions; due diligence in support of contractual relationships; and related administrative functions. Steve also works with the sales and professional services organizations to ensure that Harmony proposals will yield profitable results and that costs and other estimates are accurately forecast.

Prior to joining Harmony, Steve held positions in a number of multi-million dollar organizations. As VP of risk and compliance of a $650 million subsidiary of a $3.1 billion global IT infrastructure and network services company, he directed all risk and corporate tax programs and served as financial director for the company’s Mexican subsidiary. In that position, he exceeded financial goals by 140 percent. In an earlier position at the same company, he oversaw the statutory merger of four entities to create the subsidiary described previously. Prior to that, as vice president and corporate controller, he played a leading role in taking an Internet professional services company from $7 million in annual revenue to $220 million in annual revenue as a publicly traded entity with a peak market capitalization of over $3 billion.

Steve has consistently achieved similar results throughout his career, and he brings the talent and drive that made those achievements possible to Harmony. He holds a B.S. in accounting from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and is a certified public accountant (CPA) in the Commonwealth of Virginia.