Tom Overholt

Tom Overholt has grown and evolved through the incredible growth of information technology and is hanging on to its future with both hands. That's what more than three decades in the business will do for you. Successfully adjusting to the quantum leaps in the IT world over the past 35 years, Tom has a distinct vision of how technology develops and unfolds.

His leadership of SD3 is rooted in a deep history of IT entrepreneurship. After working as a software engineer for Honeywell, Inc., Tom co-founded BALR Corporation, devising the name from a popular assembly language instruction used on IBM 360/370 mainframe computers. He instituted a Unix-based companywide e-mail in the early ‘80s, a good decade before most of the rest of the world would even hit a “Send” button. As BALR grew, Tom absorbed the creation of more programming languages, advanced technology tools, smaller and faster processors – constant change and continual improvements in the rapid explosion of technology. Over this period, Tom developed his philosophy of hiring the best talent, people who also had a passion for technology, and doing things right, with customer satisfaction as the essential outcome.

Tom was raised in Brookfield, Illinois, and currently lives in Oak Brook. He is rarely far from his golf clubs or skis. He worked a variety of full- and part-time jobs to pay his way through college, earning a Bachelor's in Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he was named Most Outstanding Student in the Department of System Engineering. Tom and SD3 support a variety of charities, including Ronald McDonald House and Step Up for Autism.