Joanne Peterson is a 1986 alumna of Chatham University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics & Management. She was a second generation student at Chatham and felt that the program was a perfect fit for her needs in the 1980s. Joanne mentioned in her interview, “I started my business, Abator, while at Chatham (took my marketing final a week after my daughter, 3rd gen Chatham alum, was born). Our CPA was my Chatham advisor, and we’ve hosted multiple Chatham interns.”
As CEO of Abator, meaning “Terminator” or “Eliminator,” Joanne and her team “terminate information technology, project engagement, and diversity certification problems.” Additionally, “Abator is 94% women owned and operated, which influences our corporate culture and management style toward developing quality relationships that will continue to last decades.”
During her time at Chatham, Joanne’s tutorial advisors were “Blythe Runsdorf and Steve Gerson. My final presentation topic was ‘Escalating Software Costs; A Study of Software Cost Estimating and the Software Acquisition Process’. Funny how that remains such a compelling topic.” Joanne reminisced on her statistics course at Chatham, noting, “I had half the class in my basement using a TRS80 dial-up to Chatham’s PDP10 to run the SPSS package – because so many of [my classmates] were uneasy around computers. Of course, this was before Time magazine named the PC ‘Person of the Year’, so maybe they had good reason to be skeptical. Good grief, what a trip down memory lane!” Joanne is still very much involved at Chatham as she volunteers for interviews during the World Ready Women Scholarship Weekends, hosts Chatham students as interns, and is a member of the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship (CWE).
Joanne’s time at Chatham led to her personal growth, as well as professional growth. The future for Abator is bright, as she concludes, “Abator will continue to grow and adapt, releasing new products and services from our Wilkinsburg base. Moreover, I’ll continue writing for our blog, which addresses issued faced by diversity-owned and operated business enterprises.”
For more information on Joanne’s business, Abator, visit the company website. Check out her blog, Get Diversity Certified Business, if you are interested in learning more about connecting minority, women, veteran business owners.
