The DEAR Group was founded in 1999 by Donald E. Rife, President and CEO, to provide Project Leadership, Quality Assurance, and Software Testing services to organizations in the greater Philadelphia area. The company has since increased its focus to include Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning. Since obtaining his degree in Business Administration from Elizabethtown College in 1976, Mr. Rife has amassed over 32 years of professional experience in the information technology industry.

The new Millennium…
While at UPHS, Mr. Rife was approached to get back into the Y2k arena. After much consternation, Mr. Rife left UPHS to lead the Y2k testing effort at Sovereign Bank. It was there that Mr. Rife founded The DEAR Group. Since successfully helping Sovereign Bank through Y2k, Mr. Rife has assisted Sovereign in the launching of a web bank, assimilating 285 FleetBoston branches into their organization, implementing a corporate-wide Information Security initiative, establishing a Business Resumption / Disaster Recovery Planning program and implementing a Records Management program.

In addition to leading large, enterprise-wide programs, over the last 10 years Mr. Rife has spent more than 19,000 hours managing over thirty (30) IT and business related projects. Mr. Rife recently obtained his PMP certification.

In 2000, Mr. Rife co-founded the Greater Philadelphia Business and Technology Alliance (www.phillyalliance.com). The Alliance was established to bring together a network of companies, that share common values and have proven expertise in a wide range of disciplines, to provide the highest quality business and technology solutions to their clients.

As you can see, Mr. Rife has had a storied career in Information Technology. While he has had numerous consulting engagements with many companies in the Philadelphia area, for much of his career, Mr. Rife has been the client of vendors and consultants. He understands consulting from a client’s point of view.  He understands the importance of providing cost effective, value added solutions to meeting client needs.