W. Craig Bowman
College of Business, Engineering, and Computational & Mathematical Sciences Alumnus of the Year, 2013
Craig Bowman is manager of National Security Programs for Adobe, a publicly traded company worth over $23 billion.
His professional journey started at Frostburg State University, where he studied business administration and was mentored by Dr. Amit Shah. Shortly after graduating, Bowman was recruited into the United States intelligence community where he served in the clandestine services for over seven years.
In 1994, Bowman founded ComQuest Corp., an information systems firm specializing in U.S. government consulting. In 1998, Bowman sold ComQuest to DigitalSelect, a start-up digital subscriber line (DSL) provider backed by an angel investor, becoming a business partner and serving as vice president. Within two years, Bowman led the DigitalSelect team to over 60 points of presence across the eastern region of the United States. In November 2000, Bowman and his partners sold DigitalSelect to Primus Telecommunications, a company worth over $175 million. He served on Primus’ technical staff for a year before leaving to start his third company.
In December 1998, Bowman started DigitalGreens, a golf media company that focused on web-based media coverage of the country’s best golf resorts. The company was featured on local news stations and grew to include over 100 of the country’s highest-ranking golf destinations. Golf Digest and Travel & Leisure Golf magazine both showcased DigitalGreens’ copyrighted material on their websites and, in 1999, the U.S. Open used DigitalGreens’ material during their coverage of the live event.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Bowman transferred ownership of DigitalGreens to his brother-in-law and returned full-time to the intelligence community, where he worked for nine years as a manager for Perot Systems, as well as for SAIC , both publicly traded companies with a combined worth of over $40 billion. In these roles, Bowman led his team of talented IT professionals in preventing further terrorist attacks in the United States following the tragedy of Sept. 11.
In November 2010, Bowman accepted a position as Adobe’s account manager of the intelligence community. Within a year, he was promoted to his current position as manager of National Security Programs. He leads a team of sales and IT professionals, positioning Adobe’s Enterprise products in the intelligence community to help drive efficiency and accuracy, assisting in the important mission of reducing national security uncertainty.
While attending Frostburg State University, Bowman met his wife, Alison Combes. Married for 18 years, they live in Great Falls, Va., with their two children, Tyler, 7, and Karlina, who will be 2 in June. Tyler is a budding actor, having already appeared in three television commercials, including Michelle Obama’s campaign for childhood exercise. Karlina, adopted from Colombia, enjoys doing whatever her big brother is doing.
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W. Craig Bowman
W. Craig
Bowman
2013 Alumnus