In 2002 Ching Software’s founder and owner, Ching-Mei Wlasuk, was one of the lucky few who was able to gracefully retire from AT&T with all of those benefits that our fathers used to talk about: a pension, medical insurance and a wonderful going-away party. An inability to golf and the need to provide for two teenage daughters, however, lured Ching-Mei out of her brief retirement and into the world of software consulting, where she took advantage of her software experience and began doing software testing. Ching-Mei spent four years at Wlasuk, Delporte and Davis, Inc. (www.wdddinc.com) as a tester of large-scale communication systems; then another two years as an application tester for iLAB LLC (www.ilabquality.com).
Ching-Mei's 22-year history at AT&T Bell Laboratories (home of the transistor, laser, UNIX, C programming language, and 30-pound rotary phone) provided her with a vision of what software development and methodologies should be. A Master's degree in Mathematics from Wichita State and an MBA from Indiana University equipped Ching-Mei with the ability to understand the processes behind a technology company as well as the financial understanding to manage her small business. In the early part of 2009 Ching-Mei decided to grow her one-person consulting business by adding a business development staff member and by expanding professional relationships with other technology companies in the Indianapolis area. As one of the few Asian woman run software technology companies in the Midwest, Ching Software has sought and been granted Indiana's Woman and Minority owned business status. Ching-Mei will focus her company staffing and Board of Directors selections on the advancement of women and minorities. It is early and Ching Software is small. It is Ching-Mei's goal to carefully grow Ching Software into a technology-excellence center with the same vision of quality that once made Bell Laboratories the foremost research center in the world.
On a historical note, the selection of the Ching Software company name comes from Ching-Mei's own name. In the Asian culture a newborn’s name is chosen by the patriarch of the family (Ching-Mei's paternal grandfather in this case) with care and attention to circumstance and timing. The name Ching-Mei roughly translates to Precious Red Stone. The symbol 璟 translates into Ching (pronounced Jing - as in Jingle Bells) and means precious or quality. Perhaps it is a stretch to name a company after a precious stone, but it is a well-meaning one. Grandfather Chu would be amazed.