and Logan S. Grant of Raleigh. Sarah Ruth
Huie (’02 AB) and Timothy Gennaro of Lake
Worth, Fla. George Roscoe Little IV (’02
AB) and Elizabeth Hill Harrell of Edenton.
■ family additions
Hollie Goodwin Allen (’02 AB) and Clinton
Mayo Allen of Apex; a daughter, Payton
Elizabeth Allen, on Nov. 8, 2007. Kristina
Jones Hamilton (’02 AB) and Matthew
Allen Hamilton (’02 AB) of Raleigh; a son,
Matthew Davis Hamilton, on Oct. 4, 2007.
’03 Lisa Ann Andrews (’03 AB) of
Winton-Salem has been promoted to loss mitigation analyst at
Republic Mortgage Insurance Co. Jessica
Camille Dixon (’03 AB) of Charlotte has
been named an associate with Parker Poe
Adams & Bernstein LLP. Shawn Michael
Doorhy (’03 AB, ’07 JD) of Indianapolis has
joined Baker & Daniels LLP as an associate
practicing with the construction, environmental law and real property litigation group.
Austin Brooke Highsmith (’03 AB) of
Beverly Hills, Calif., has filmed an episode of
the CBS series Ghost Whisperer and is auditioning for a role in the next Star Trek movie.
Zhihai “Troy” Mao (’03 MAC) of Haidian
District, China, has been appointed chief
financial officer for China TransInfo Technology Corp., which provides public transportation information services technology in
China and works in affiliation with the
GeoGIS Research Laboratory at Peking University. Kimberly Kathryn McNeill (’03
AB) of Durham has been named staff associate
for youth and congregational life at University Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill.
Star Luther Sampson (’03 MSA) of
Durham has been named 2008 Principal of
the Year for Durham Public Schools. Sampson
is principal of Eastway Elementary. Jeffrey
John Tobias (’03 AB) of Rocky Mount has
been named a commercial lender with Providence Bank. Matthew Patrick Weiner
(’03 AB, ’07 JD) of Charlotte has been named
an associate with Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP.
■ marriages
Georgia Moore Boklage (’03 ABJM) and
William Sherrod Brown III (’00 AB, ’02
MAC) of Raleigh. Dr. Brian Richard
Dedmond (’03 AB, ’07 DDS) and Kristen
Ashley Evans (’02 BSBIO, ’07 BSDH) of
Chapel Hill. Jenny Chrystell Duncan (’03
AB, ’04 MAT) and Brian Stephen Wood of
Asheville. David Michael Kleinman (’03
AB) and Jennifer Ann Sult (’04 ABJM) of
Woodbury, N. Y. Randall Trenton Rhyne
(’03 BSCH) and Rina Vaishnav (’06 MSW)
of Durham.
■ family additions
Katherine Myers Krier (’03 AB) and Rene
Open to Change
China is steeped in tradition. A decade was ness School filled with enthusiasm for the down central control that
a rare measure for a society whose history emphasis on teamwork and eager to ask was holding China back. profile
was told in centuries. Suddenly, all of this is questions. It was at UNC that he heard a talk For Chen, open-source
changing. Even a short interval between visits by then-Red Hat CEO Matt Szulik that inspired offered a more sustainable
can leave a person in awe. him to embrace a new idea: open-source soft- business model, one in which the software
Michael Chen ’04 (MBA) was born on the ware. He earned an internship at Red Hat in business targets a market at the wide base of
cusp of this shift. Raised in Chengdu, the 2003. The next year, Chen was hired as the the wealth pyramid, selling more broadly,
provincial capital city in southwestern Sichuan point person in planning for Red Hat China. rather than concentrating on a small elite at
province, he graduated from Nanjing Univer- That September, Chen moved back to China to the top.
sity in 1994, the first year students were Jumping into the dynamic pace of
able to choose jobs in a market economy. business in China, Chen was able in three
Before that, Chen explains, graduating stu- years to expand an empty office with
dents were assigned a job by the govern- three desks and no employees into a com-
ment, which set their salaries and told pany shaping the direction of software
them where to live. Chen loved the new policy and practice in China. Red Hat
atmosphere and eventually found himself China now works in Beijing, Shanghai,
running a $500 million project for Jaimin Shenzhen and Hong Kong, operates joint
Real Estate. By the late 1990s, he was labs with government standardization
ready to go to the U.S. to learn more about groups, educates government officers on
business. the value of open-source systems and pro-
Chen laughs when he remembers that motes open-source to education cus-
not all of the traditional ways had been Michael Chen ’04 (MBA), Red Hat’s vice president for corporate market- tomers as a new way to learn.
eclipsed by change. He began his U.S. stud- ing, sees parallels in the development of open-source software markets Chen returned to the U.S. last fall to
and China’s changing business culture.
ies in engineering at N.C. State University become Red Hat’s vice president for cor-
after being turned down by UNC. “At the end of put his ideas into practice. porate marketing, translating his success in
my UNC interview,” he recalls, “when I was With open-source software — such as the pressing the case for open-source in China to
asked if I had any questions, I said, ‘No.’ In Linux operating system Red Hat markets — a worldwide effort. However, Red Hat China
China it is discourteous to pose questions. It users are allowed to see the code, make continues to be a prize project. Chen relishes
implies that the person talking to you has not changes and essentially constantly create new the pace of change in China. Asked about
explained things properly!” Chen suspects that versions. The company’s business is helping problems like pollution, he sees change as
in the eyes of the interviewer, he appeared to clients make better use of the best versions of China’s ally. “They are talking now about a
be a pretty dull candidate without spark or the software. For Chen, this radical change green GDP,” he points out. A traditional soci-
promise. dovetailed with his aspirations. The idea of ety, China is learning to openly embrace new
It took a couple of years, but Chen learned users sharing ideas and exchanging solutions ideas.
the ropes and entered the Kenan-Flagler Busi- offered a model that broke away from the top- — Susan Simone
COURTESY MICHAEL CHEN ’04 (MBA)
