Chapter Board

Monte is a graduate of the Doctorate of Health Administration (DHA) program at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC).  Monte’s doctoral project was “Investigating Barriers to Increased Use of Electronic Health Records in Rural Mississippi Hospitals.” Since graduating, he has chaired several doctoral committees for students in the program.

He is currently the Vice President-Education for the Central Mississippi Chapter of the Project Management Institute. His activities with the chapter include several presentations for chapter meetings as well as participating with a group to discuss project management with students at a local high school.

He is an IT Project Manager at UMMC primarily involved with the implementation of healthcare projects.  He has over 25 years’ experience in information technology and health information technology leading a number of projects related to IT implementations, EHR implementations/upgrades, biomedical device integration, and legacy application decommissioning and data archiving.

He is also an adjunct instructor for the Health Informatics and Information Management (HIIM) program at UMMC. He has also served as an adjunct instructor at the Madison, MS branch of Tulane University prior to its closing. He has also taught project management and IT-related courses at the Mississippi Institute of Technology Services. He is slated to teach a PMP preparation bootcamp in November.

He is also involved in a number of community service activities including being an advisory board member and volunteer for his local Habitat for Humanity affiliate. He also has volunteered on numerous occasions to serve meals at the local “soup kitchen.”

Melinda Simmons has been managing projects for over 17 years.  She started out in state government managing IT projects, then moved on to working on company-designated priority projects for Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company.

A few years ago, she decided to leave the workforce to stay home with her young children.  Since then, she has continued to maintain her credential and manage projects, but on a part time basis in the property management business she runs with her husband.  Melinda has been a certified PMP since 2007 and was one of the founding members of the Central MS Chapter in 2010.  In the past,  she served as VP Membership,  VP Finance,  President Elect, President, and President Emeritus.  

Michael Box has been in IT for over 25 years, having worked in technical and management positions on mainframes, open systems, monitoring, infrastructure, databases, and data center.  He is currently serving in the position of Lead, Data Governance at BeyondTrust.  

Michael earned his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Millsaps College, Master of Science in Mathematics from the University of Mississippi, and the Master of Health Informatics and Information Management from the University of Mississippi Medical Center.  After earning his PMP certification in October 2020, he joined the Central MS PMI chapter.

Outside the office, Michael enjoys running, exercising with his family, and coming alongside his wife as they homeschool their two younger daughters and navigate the new world of life at college for their oldest daughter.

Originally from Nebraska, I moved to Ridgeland, Mississippi in 2007 to take my first “official” project management position with CSpire.   I’m now a Consulting Project Manager with Oracle Corporation, Utilities Global Business Unit (UGBU), where I lead software implementation projects across the country.   I have a bachelor’s degree in Physics and an MBA from the University of Nebraska, and I’ve been a member of the Central Mississippi chapter since its inception.   I’m also a US Army veteran, having served in both US Army, Europe and the XVIII Airborne Corps.  I’m looking forward to serving the chapter.  

Brennan is an Account Manager For TEKsystems, an IT Consulting and Staffing Company for the State of Mississippi. He graduated from Brandon High School and attended the University of Mississippi. He began his career in technology in Memphis TN and found a passion for connecting people and seeing the effect that great IT organizations like the PMI can have on a community. The Pandemic brought him back home to Jackson, where he is enthusiastic about growing our The Central Mississippi Chapter and seeing it continue to have a great and meaningful impact on our community and businesses.

Drennan Allen was born in Mar 2000 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Born into a military family that periodically moved across the eastern United States, he developed a devoted spirit of patriotism and love for the United States. His father, a Major in the United States Marine Corps, instilled in him the values of hard work, integrity, and commitment. Drennan considers his greatest accomplishment thus far to be the completion of El Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage across France and Spain that he completed when he was just 15 years old. Attending high school online, he became well acquainted with the use of technology and virtual forms of communication. Upon his high school graduation, he enrolled in the University of South Carolina's Marine Corps Reserve Officer Training Corps as a midshipman. He pursued a Political Science Bachelor for one year before realizing he was meant to seek a different path in life. This led him to explore his desires and goals more closely. When his family moved to Pascagoula, MS, he enrolled in the Mississippi State Building Construction Science Program. He takes his academics very seriously and is proficient at balancing his life and education.  Since coming to Mississippi State University, Drennan has been the driving force behind the founding of the Mississippi State chapter of the Sigma Lambda Chi construction honor society and is the current president. He is active in the Associated Builders & Contractors club on campus. He is also currently working towards becoming a volunteer Firefighter. Drennan has been inducted to multiple academic honor societies including Phi Kappa Phi and Golden Key International. With his free time, Drennan enjoys hiking, playing guitar, and being outdoors. Drennan interned with Robins & Morton over the summer of 2021. There he received hands-on project management experience by working on multiple projects, the principle of which was Advent Health's $256 million hospital in Tampa, Florida. His goals upon graduation are to continue his education through various certifications and ultimately the pursuance of a master's degree. Planning to pursue a career in Project Management, Drennan hopes to bring about a new generation of construction to not only the United States but to the international market. Drennan's long-term goals include starting his own real estate development company. His graduation is set for Spring 2023.