Executive Team

Jay B. Rea

President and CEO
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com

Founder of TheAcademy.com, a training, media and internet production company.

Jay Rea is a long time developer of innovative technology systems. Formerly, he was Vice President, Technology of Carlson Wagon Lit, the largest travel agency company in the world. Prior to that, he was President and Owner of CompuCheck Corporation, a software firm marketing the service "Fare CompuCheck," the first automated airfare and reservation auditing and monitoring system ever developed. He owned and operated Sanborn's Travel from 1976 to 1987. Sanborn's was a major regional travel company with offices in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas, Texas. In 1979, Mr. Rea founded Travel Systems, Inc., which developed and marketed the TS-2000, a travel agency accounting and reporting system now owned by Apollo Travel Services. Prior to this, Mr. Rea was an Advisory Marketing Representative for the IBM Corporation where he sold and installed the first computerized traffic control system in the U. S., and developed numerous other innovative computer systems.

Anne Hart Rea

Vice President
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com

Anne joined TheAcademy.com in January of 2008. She is in charge of Quality Assurance for the Healthy Employee Learning Program Courses, as well as the new Business Etiquette Courses produced by the company. She serves on the board as Vice President.

Mrs. Rea has over 30 years of experience in the travel industry. She worked for an international airline for seven years, where she trained all the new employees in the Love Field ticketing and reservation office. Anne then worked for over 25 years in the travel agency industry. She owned her own agency for two years. For 19 years, she served in upper management, as Director of Leisure Sales, with Associate Offices of American Express, located in Texas and Florida. In addition, she conducted seminars in all aspects of computer programs related to the Travel Agency Industry. Anne trained agents in airline, tour companies, and cruise line computer programs.

Mrs. Rea has a bachelor degree from the University of Texas at Austin with a major in English and minors in Latin and Education. She has completed graduate courses in Special Education.

Mere Noonan

Senior Vice President
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com
mnoonan@theacademy.com

Mere earned her A.S. in multimedia technology form N.W.V. College in 2004. Her grasp of multimedia and web technologies earned her a position at TheAcademy.com in 2004 as an entry-level developer. Mere quickly helped to grow the development team and product offerings for TheAcademy.com as she earned a position as Director of Development.

Promoted to Vice President of Technology in 2006, Ms. Noonan worked closely with the marketing, sales, support, and development teams to increase the company's technical capabilities and in particular spearheading the design of the Athena LMS. She has assisted in all aspects of project management, design and program implementation, marketing, sales, business strategy, program support, management and course production.

In 2007, Mere earned her B.S. in Project management from AIU, a web-based university, furthering her knowledge in the roles Internet-based training technologies play in today's market. She was promoted to Vice President of Sales and Marketing where she oversees all of TheAcademy.com's worldwide communications efforts, including advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, collateral development, and Internet marketing activities.

Adrian Swift

Director of Sales
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com
aswift@theacademy.com

Adrian joined TheAcademy.com in 2009 as an Account Manager where she quickly asserted herself as a leader, resulting in her promotion to Director of Sales in 2010. As Director of Sales, she leverages her strong background in online training and education to drive the strategic direction of the sales team, providing support, training and motivation. In addition, she works closely with sales support and development teams to increase the company’s brand awareness and product success.

Previously, she worked directly with the behavior based safety program at Trinity Workplace Learning. After two years in the safety realm, she was promoted to Account Manager with the Industrial Services Division. She used the experience gained during her years with TWL and her knowledge of safety and industrial training to aid The Academy.com in building the Safety, Industrial and HR training libraries.

Adrian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and a minor in Sociology from Tarleton State University. She is based in Dallas, Texas.

Frank Martinez

Director of Development
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com
fmartinez@theacademy.com

Frank Martinez joined TAC team as an entry-level web developer and has managed to work his way up to Director of Development in a very short amount of time. His years of experience in multi-platform server systems, web based programming languages and management roles in Fortune 500 Company has become the driving force to his ability to take on projects no matter the size while delivering a quality product.

Nancy A. Bauer

Director, Product Management
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com

Nancy joined TheAcademy.com in 2008 with 30 years of experience in management and administration. Previously, Nancy spent ten years with Tenet Health Systems, Primedia Workplace Learning and TWL Knowledge Group in their online training and education divisions overseeing accreditation and product development. Prior to that, she spent 20 years focused on marketing and product development in a variety of global industries.

Nancy leads product management for TheAcademy.com’s Healthy Employee Learning Program. She was a key developer of the program, leveraging her first-hand career experience and connections in the healthcare industry, into the development of this superior online learning product.

In addition to her role in product management, Nancy is responsible for market analysis and research. In this position, she is focused on analyzing e-training markets, lead generation, competitive analysis and market direction.

Nancy is based in Dallas, Texas. She attended Texarkana Community College and Southern Arkansas University.

Shannon du Plessis

Writer / Instructional Designer
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com

Native Texan Shannon du Plessis earned her BBA with a concentration in finance from the University of Houston. Shannon put her education to work in Austin, Texas where she held increasingly responsible finance and accounting positions in state government and the private sector. With her job duties frequently expanded to include documentation, training, or a computer software conversion project (she's been through three), Shannon found she liked writing much better than number crunching. With writing in her genes (English teachers in her family) she turned her love for learning and writing into a successful technical writing business. In 2006, Ms. du Plessis leant her writing skills to The Academy.com beginning a successful collaboration that continues with Shannon as a key team member of TheAcademy.com.

Mary Hancock

Writer / Instructional Designer
E-Training, Inc. DBA TheAcademy.com

Mary Hancock is a e-learning developer, project manager, and instructional design consultant with over fifteen years of practical experience. As owner and operator of Key Point Learning, an instructional design consulting firm based in Arlington, Texas, she has developed training courses for such Fortune 500 companies as IBM, AT&T, Frito-Lay, and Shell Oil. As a creative, innovative training professional, she is committed to providing learners with the skills and education needed to succeed in today's competitive marketplace.