Eduardo Carreras joined Perception Partners Inc. as a partner.
Carreras is the former chief intellectual property counsel of The Coca-Cola Co. During his tenure at Coca-Cola, he directed a number of initiatives to ensure that the company maximized the value intrinsic in its IP.
During his 25 years as an IP attorney, Carreras has handled issues in many technical areas, including fiber optics, lasers, plastic and metal packaging, electro-mechanical equipment, and chemical processes. Carreras has a law degree and a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Miami. He also has a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology.
He joins Perception Partners after his early retirement from The Coca-Cola Co. to help companies develop their IP strategies to protect and exploit innovations that lead to competitive advantage.
“We couldn’t be more pleased or honored than to have Ed Carreras join our team,” says Barry Brager, founding partner. “Ed’s commitment to leveraging IP for competitive advantage directly complements the commitment of Perception Partners to our clients. Although Ed is an accomplished attorney, his strategic focus is what brought us together. As we work collectively to extract revenues from intangible asset portfolios, we hope that our clients who used to say, ‘IP? Call my lawyer,’ will now say ‘IP? Call my strategist.'”
Carreras’ role within Perception Partners is to provide strategic consulting, portfolio assessment, licensing development, mergers and acquisition due diligence and Fortune 100 expertise.
DELTA AIR LINES
Delta Air Lines named Jerome Miller vice president – global diversity and community affairs.
Miller joins the company from InterContinental Hotels Group, where he began his career in 1999 as vice president – human resources before being promoted to his most recent position of vice president and chief diversity officer for the Americas division in 2001.
Before joining InterContinental Hotels Group, Miller worked for The Coca-Cola Co. and held positions of increasing responsibility, including human resources director for Southern Africa, business change consultant and HR consultant. Prior to that, he worked at Lockhheed Aeronautical Systems Co. and the Ford Motor Co.
FRIEDMAN’S INC.
Friedman’s Inc. elected Peter Thorner independent director. Thorner fills an existing vacancy and is designated as a class B director. He is the former chairman and CEO of Bradlees Stores, a discount retailer.
PHARMDATA INC.
PharmData Inc. named Carl Allison director, data management. Allison was most recently at Yamanouchi Pharma America, where he was director, data management. For the last three decades, he has held positions of increasing responsibility with numerous major global pharmaceutical companies, including Aventis, Pfizer, Warner-Lambert, Bayer, Marion Merrill Dow and SmithKline Beecham.
COUSINS PROPERTIES INC.
Earle Yancey joined Cousins Properties Inc. as vice president, development, in its industrial division. Yancey is responsible for overseeing industrial development projects. Most recently, he was with CarrAmerica Realty Corp., where he served as vice president and senior project manager for all Atlanta-area development projects. Previously, he held a similar position with Atlanta’s Peterson Properties, which was acquired by CarrAmerica in 1996. He began his career in real estate as an investment specialist for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.
MAPICS INC.
MAPICS Inc. CFO Michael Casey has left the company, which is conducting a search for a successor. Casey, who joined MAPICS in 2001, is joining a private software company in Atlanta as its COO and CFO.
WITNESS SYSTEMS
Witness Systems appointed Tom Bishop to its board of directors. Bishop serves as chief technology officer for VIEO Inc., a provider of real-time application-based service level management solutions.
Bishop has held leadership positions at 2nd Wave, CompuCare Management Systems, Lotus Computing Corp., Tandem Computers, UNIX International and Bell Laboratories. He has nine patents in the areas of fault tolerant computing, distributed computing and multiprocessing, and was selected by InfoWorld magazine as one of the industry’s 25 Most Influential CTOs for 2004.
WILLIAM MILLS AGENCY
Kerri Milam, vice president of the William Mills Agency, joined the Mortgage Banking Association Affordable Housing/Emerging Markets Committee and the Georgia-based Cooperative Resource Center’s board of directors.
Milam founded HeadStrongPR, later acquired by William Mills Agency. She was a founder of Customer Relationship Management Southeast and a senior client service professional at Ketchum and Porter Novelli.
In the 1990s, she was a regional marketing manager for KPMG. She also served as public affairs manager for Georgia’s housing finance authority and as public information officer for a metro Atlanta county government.
CHARYS HOLDING CO. INC.
Charys Holding Co. Inc. named Catherine B. McKee to its board of directors.
McKee is a senior vice president and director at General Dynamics’ C4 Systems. Prior to General Dynamics, McKee held several executive-level positions with Motorola, including senior vice president of Strategic Business Services and corporate vice president of quality and administration. Her earlier professional and management positions were with Max Factor and Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Allied Chemical, and Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals.
