Understanding Corporation Management

I. Lee Chapman, III
President and CEO

Mr. Chapman currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of the Centaur Group, LLC and holds Managing Member status in several consulting, service, and venture capital businesses. He holds a BA in English from The Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, and Masters of Business Administration from the Graduate Business School of the University of Virginia (The Darden School).

Mr. Chapman served our country as a US Army armor officer in Viet Nam and was awarded several medals, including the Bronze Star Medal, for service in combat.

After earning his MBA degree, Mr. Chapman held high-level positions in the Virginia business community. He is a former President and CEO of Blue Cross of Virginia and was a Senior Lending Officer and Executive VP of Central Fidelity Bank in Richmond, Virginia. After successful careers in banking and insurance, Mr. Chapman owned and operated several businesses prior to his current business activities.

Mr. Chapman has been a community and alumni leader throughout his career. He is a Chairman Emeritus of The Greater Richmond YMCA, after many years of senior leadership in that organization. He has held leadership roles in The United Way and The Boys Scouts of America. He has also served as a Director of the VMI Foundations, Inc.,
and has served on many other boards of both private and public organizations. [UV 970]

T. Larry Amick
Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder

Larry Amick is a Co-founder of Understanding Corporation and is Director of Marketing and Sales for Magellan Biometric Systems, LLC, a RTP-based technology company. Mr. Amick also serves as Interim Chief Operating Officer of Understanding Corporation.

Mr. Amick started his career as an Army armor officer and served in several command and staff positions leaving the service as a major. Amick co-founded and served in senior positions with International Systems, Inc. and founded Management Improvement Corporation of America (MICA) serving as its Chairman and CEO until 1985. In that year MICA became a division of Dobson & Johnson, Inc. of Nashville, TN. Amick continued as its president until 1989 with responsibility for a wide range of business and financial dealings.

Mr. Amick served as a senior consultant to CSR Ventures, a venture capital and merchant-banking firm. He founded and at times operated several public and private telecom companies including Charter Communications, TelAmerica Corporation, and TelAmeriCard Corporation. Operating TelAmerica and in partnership with MCI, Amick managed the provision of telecommunications systems to American and Allied forces during the “Desert Storm” War. He later co-founded ID Technologies Incorporated a publicly held biometric technology firm. In addition to UC, he recently co-founded Magellan Biometric Systems and Me4Sure (both biometric technology ventures).

Mr. Amick received his Master of Public Administration from UNC-CH and Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees from High Point University. He studied economics and business at Duke University Graduate School and is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Armor Officer Advanced Course. [UV 995]

Lew G. Brown, Ph.D.
Chairman and Co-founder

Lew G. Brown is Associate Professor of Marketing in the Department of Business Administration, Joseph M. Bryan School of Business and Economics, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He holds a BA in Political Science, a Masters of Public Administration, a Masters of Business Administration, and a Ph.D. in Marketing, all from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Brown teaches and consults in the areas of marketing management and strategic marketing, and he conducts research on the subject of convenience as a strategic and tactical marketing variable. Students and colleagues have recognized his outstanding teaching by awarding him UNCG's Alumni Teaching Excellence Award and the Bryan School's Outstanding Faculty Award. He has also served as the Bryan School's Director of Undergraduate Programs. Dr. Brown co-founded UC's predecessor (READ) in 2003.

Dr. Brown is a member of the North American Case Research Association (NACRA) and served as its president for 2001-02. He has published seven cases in the association's Case Research Journal and has twice won the prestigious Curtis E. Tate, Jr., Award for the Outstanding Case presented at NACRA's annual meetings. Dr. Brown serves on the Editorial Review Board for the Case Research Journal, and received the Journal's Outstanding Reviewer Award for 1999. He became editor of the Case Research Journal in May 2005 for a three-year term. He also writes the company cases for Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong's Principles of Marketing textbooks. His cases have appeared in numerous textbooks and electronic case databases; and in January 2000, he and Dr. David Rosenthal authored Cases in Strategic Marketing, a textbook published by Prentice Hall. [UV 891]

Charles Grissom, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Charles Grissom serves as Chief Technology Officer for Understanding Corporation. He brings over twenty years of professional experience to this role. As a mathematician and programmer, Dr. Grissom applies his knowledge and leads talented development teams to design and deploy a variety of complex business software solutions.

Most recently, Dr. Grissom served as the Chief Technology Officer for Supply Chain Intelligence, Inc. There he was chief architect of the sophisticated optimization engine upon which a suite of transportation intelligence products was built. Prior to that role, Dr. Grissom served as the Director of Product Architecture for Viewlocity, Inc. where he was responsible for architecting a B2B trading community management system. Dr. Grissom's expertise in combinatorial optimization techniques and genetic algorithms differentiate his leadership in the development of expert systems. Dr. Grissom has served in leading architect positions for Manhattan Associates, Performance Analysis Corporation, IBM, Applied Concepts, Inc., ISN Corporation, and Quest Technologies.

Dr. Grissom spent three years as an Assistant Professor in mathematics at Wake Forest University and NC State University before transitioning full time into industry. He earned degrees in mathematics and computer science from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a Masters and a Doctorate, both in mathematics, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [UV 1127]

Danny W. Beauchamp
Director of Governmental Sales

Mr. Dan Beauchamp joins the Understanding Corporation after more than 30 years of Washington, D.C. based government, international and entrepreneurial experience. A native of Western North Carolina and a graduate of Appalachian State University, his government service began as a Naval Officer followed by five years as a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He served as a Foreign Assistance Inspector for the U.S. State Department’s Africa and Pacific Rim Bureaus and as a management consultant to the District of Columbia Government on audits and investigations.

Mr. Beauchamp’s private industry experience includes management and business development positions with Continental Oil, Co. (CONOCO), and as Vice President for Government Operations for Strategic Business Services Group, Inc. He was Director of International Sales & Marketing Division for SELBRE Associates, Inc. and served as Federal Representative for Westinghouse, Inc. Most recent professional activities include management, executive and director positions with a number of public and privately owned development stage/ technology firms. [UV 1117]