From the moment I met Dave, it was apparent that he was a highly skilled and highly intelligent individual on our team. Many people talk to the talk, but Dave walks the walk. Over the past two years, I have had the opportunity to work closely with him on numerous projects involving our enterprise data warehouse. His thoughtfulness, thoroughness and diligence shines through every step of the way. Dave has passion for what he does, takes great care in his work and commits himself 100% to the task at hand. While there are many adjectives to describe Dave, the one that stands out the most is dependable. Dave can be depended on to effectively and efficiently resolve complex problems, produce high quality work, meet deadlines, architect robust solutions, strategize for the future, manage simultaneous projects, take initiative, just to name a few. He would be a great asset to any company.

Erika Murtha

Manager, Data Warehouse 

Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange (PURE) 

David has worked on multiple projects for us developing ETL and data management solutions, and we hope to use him again in the future. His input into our architecture plans and his expertise in developing bulletproof solutions has been invaluable to us. He is the kind of IT resource that I wish I had in all of the work I do.

David Schwantner

Principal IT Business Analyst 

Cymer, an ASML company 

We hired Dave as the ETL lead for the datawarehouse intitiative at Circor. Dave turned out to be a tremendous asset to the project. His technical ability and design skills are unquestionably of the highest quality. 

The project was tight with a lot of moving parts and changing priorities and Dave put in the additional effort to get it done. He has an excellent work ethic and pride in what he does. He performed multiple roles on the project including Architect. He was creative in finding ways to move the project along when issues were discovered. 

I attribute the success of the project largely to Dave and I would welcome the opportunity to work with him again.

Michelle Draghi

Project Manager 
CIRCOR International, Inc. (on behalf of Gurnet Consulting) 

We hired Dave to build a data warehouse solution and a business intelligence layer for our customer base.

An "out of the box" thinker, he established an effective strategy that fully leverages the SQL Server Stack cutting development times by 33%.

Dave has the acumen, drive and sense of ownership required to build powerful solutions out of nothing.

Beyond his strong sense of technology he is able to derive and formulate business requirements and implementation strategies from the ground up, working closely with cross functional teams to establish consensus, providing guidance and delivering solutions that exceed expectations.

Claudia Santoro

VP, Engineering 
Exit41, Inc 

Override, as a startup company in the Fuel Loyalty Marketing arena, quickly realized that the key to our success was the ability to capture, store and analyze data. We also realized that because we were in a new and rather unique market space, off the shelf products would most likely not fully satisfy our needs. It was at this time during our company’s product development that we engaged Dave Elish to lead our Business Intelligence development project from the ground up.

Most impressive about Dave is his ability to quickly grasp business concepts and requirements and by working with multiple stakeholders, Dave designed our BI solution. As the company emerged from a pilot concept to a marketable product, Dave kept up with ever changing requirements and demands. He worked closely with the business stakeholders, understood their needs, helped refine requirements, and enabled Override IT to continuously deliver new products and enhancements. 

The IT department’s success is due in no small part to Dave’s talent, dedication and strong desire to deliver high quality product. Dave brought to the team the desired expertise in the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting, Analytical and Integration Services. His technical abilities have been described as “best I have ever seen” by both senior developer contractors and on-staff employees. In a very short time Dave delivered a complex solution made easy by an elegant implementation of multiple data source feeds into the data warehouse, reports and cubes for timely analysis and the ability to quickly react to what is happening today. His solution contributes daily to our success thus far, and more importantly, our future success in the market.

Bob Contreras

Director of Solutions Engineering 
Highlands Override Inc 

In his time with Exit41 Dave proved to be a master of the Microsoft BI stack. His technical expertise combined with strong abilities to parse requirements and work in a team environment made for a pleasant and effective work experience. Responsible for building a data mart and initial SSRS reporting infrastructure, Dave completed the project leaving behind a highly stable and configurable application that Exit41 will continue to build on in the future. I would welcome the opportunity to work with Dave again and would strongly recommend him to any organization looking for a Database Architect.

Bob Hammond III

Database Architect 
Exit41, Inc 

I had the pleasure of working with Dave for about a year while he led development of our Data Warehouse and Reporting solutions at Override. In addition to designing and developing the solution he also interviewed and trained the team that is currently responsible for its maintenance and day to day operation.

Dave did an excellent job on this assignment; he was able to efficiently multi-task to ensure that all tasks were completed in a timely manner. He was always willing to offer his expertise to all departments involved including business intelligence, operations, marketing, customer service, finance and others. Talent to understand both business and technical aspects of the project and the ability to effectively communicate technical ideas to audiences with no technical background were extremely valuable qualities that Dave brought with him to Override.

Dave possesses the ultimate “can do” attitude while taking on all tasks with a positive energy; he is very well organized and has the uncanny ability to keep track of every detail necessary for the successful completion of a project. I am very grateful for his contribution to Override and very confident that he has the intelligence, work ethic and communications skills to add value to any organization.

Irena McCue

Director of Business Intelligence 
Highlands Override Inc 

As a Senior Manager of IT I worked with David (Dave) Elish while he developed a data warehouse, reporting, and analytics solution.

I enjoyed working with Dave and would welcome an opportunity to work with him again. He is the most talented DBA I have worked with in my 25 year career. He made sure his work was of the highest quality possible. I often performed QA on Dave’s work finding little to no errors. When an error was found, it was quickly addressed. 

Dave was an excellent communicator often working directly with the business. 

Dave was not an 8 to 5 consultant. He was often more dedicated than an employee. He pitched in on projects that were in trouble. I recall a few days of just a couple hours sleep each day shortly after joining us to help fix a production issue that was unrelated to his role. I also recall him staying late many nights when employees had already gone to be sure commitments were met.

I recommend Dave without an ounce of hesitation.

Cheri Murdock

Business Analytics
Tyler Technologies Inc

Dave is hands down the top BI consultant I've worked with. He knows Kimball methodology and the entire Microsoft BI stack top to bottom, and can translate technical and business concepts back and forth with ease. He built a warehouse and associated ETL processes that remain robust, are well-documented, and look like a best practices implementation - a nice change from the wreckage left behind by many consultants. I would have no hesitation about working with Dave again, or recommending him to any organization that needs an ace BI architect.

Patrick El-Azem

Principal Consultant
Net Gain Solutions LLC

We brought Dave in due to his knowledge of Data Warehousing and Cognos. Although he had no direct experience with the CRM system we had in place and were upgrading (Onyx), Dave was able get up to speed quickly with how the data structures related, how we hoped to view the data for reporting, and what we needed accomplished. He always asked the right questions, came back with sensible solutions, and provided us with the data warehouse for reporting that is still our backbone 6 years later.

Jim Clark

Associate Vice President
Robeco

Dave is one of the most talented developers I have worked with. He is skilled at seeing the big picture, is thorough in his analysis and design, and always delivers on time. I hope to work with him again in the future.

Michelle Lanigan

Project Manager
Acorn Technologies, Inc.