BS CSC 1989

Chris Olinger is a talented and accomplished computer scientist and business leader. Chris is a graduate of the Computer Science program from North Carolina State University and spent the first chapter of his professional career in the 1980’s and the 1990’s at SAS in Cary, North Carolina. His creativity, intellect, and superior skills served his teammates, SAS, and customers of SAS in many ways. As a member of the Base Applications team within SAS Research and Development, Chris was initially given the assignment to support a set of analytic procedures that comprise part of the base SAS product. During his time in Base SAS R&D, Chris had opportunities to innovate. He was one of the first at SAS to invest heavily in Object Oriented technology, evangelizing the benefits of this modern approach to software development. Eventually, Chris and his colleagues put OO design and development into action, revamping the entire output and reporting subsystem of the SAS engine. This invention, the Output Delivery System, revolutionized the capabilities of not only Base SAS, but all SAS products. The ripple effect from the development of the Output Delivery System continues to this day, increasing the flexibility and capabilities of SAS for both the software developers working at SAS and SAS programmers in the field.

In the late 1990’s, Chris left SAS to join the team at iBiomatics, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS, that led the way in cloud-based warehousing and analytics for the Life Sciences industry. The iBio platform, P21, was one of the first analytic solutions that enabled Life Sciences companies to warehouse, analyze, and report on clinical data in the cloud. The P21 solution was a precursor of what would become the current SAS drug development platform, the Life Sciences Analytic Framework (LSAF).
In the early 2000’s, Chris decided to write a new chapter and start a software consulting business. He took his top-notch skills and understanding of SAS technology internals into the field to help clients directly with their business challenges. At this time, enterprise businesses were beginning to transition to Internet-enabled technology and applications. There was a rapidly increasing demand for expertise and understanding of data, analytics, and reporting combined with Internet technology platforms. Chris co-founded d-wise in 2003, and with the support of a strong SAS partnership, launched an expert consultancy aimed at helping Life Sciences and Healthcare companies leverage analytic technology to achieve their business goals.

Over the last sixteen years, d-wise has grown to over one hundred employees located in over four countries, with more than two hundred unique clients, including more than thirty of the top fifty global pharmaceutical companies. Chris has served in the roles of an expert consultant, software architect, President, and currently serves as the Chief Technology Officer. Along the way, d-wise has developed software products that include specialized feature sets that meet the unique needs of pharmaceutical and healthcare analytics. Under Chris’ direction, d-wise has developed commercial software offerings for federated enterprise search using integrated metadata and data sources as well as sophisticated data anonymization software using risk calculations, risk simulations, natural language processing, and machine learning.

Chris’s company currently employs over sixty consultants that deliver services across more than thirty concurrent projects at any given time, helping clients evaluate software, design solutions, implement, host, and support. As a founder, Chris has ensured that d-wise has grown to become an exceptional company with a positive corporate culture. d-wise has been a winner of the Triangle Business Journal’s Fast 50 award six times, the NC Mid-Market Fast 40 award twice, the When Work Works award twice, the Greater Manchester Innovation 100 award, and the Inc 5000 award four times.

Chris is also active in community outreach. d-Wise has been a gold level sponsor for the Bike MS event since 2016 and supports a company team. Chris has personally participated in the Bike MS New Bern event for the last eight years. d-Wise also sponsored/organized several local cycling events to raise money for the MS Society. The d-wise team has raised over $100K for the MS Society.

Chris also donates regularly to many local causes, including Healing Transitions and WUNC Radio. His work at Healing Transitions included setting up new computer systems, and helping design software systems for patient intake.

Lastly, Chris is also an avid Wolfpacker, guitar enthusiast, cyclist, and lover of technology. He is a proud basketball and football season ticket holder, and he has recently served on the NCSU CSC Strategic Advisory Board. His current direction is wherever cool technology leads.