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As vice president Network and e-Commerce Systems for Worldspan’s Worldwide Technical Operations division, Kelly Higgins directs the planning, engineering, implementation and support functions for the Company’s network infrastructure, distributed systems and communications software solutions. These solutions service Worldspan’s worldwide hosted airlines, travel suppliers, travel agencies and large travel e-commerce companies. Higgins’ network and distributed systems responsibilities include support of key applications for multiple customer groups, such as Worldspan e-Pricing®, Worldspan Go!® and Worldspan Trip Manager® XE. Higgins is responsible for the development of IP-based communications software and network solutions serving hosted carriers, travel suppliers and travel e-commerce companies. This includes the migration of a worldwide communications and hardware infrastructure transforming legacy protocols to an all-IP-based solution. Higgins’ hardware and software platform responsibilities include management of Worldspan’s distributed systems complex of more than 1,500 Windows, Linux and Unix servers and related distributed databases, network security and communications middleware, as well as internal corporate e-mail, desktop, voice, video and LAN systems. With Worldspan since 2001, Higgins previously served as director Network and e-Commerce Infrastructure, where he was responsible for managing the worldwide network and communications infrastructure and distributed systems platforms supporting Worldspan’s travel agency, supplier, e-commerce and hosted carrier customers. Higgins’ career in network and technical operations for major corporations spans more than 23 years. Prior to joining Worldspan, he served as director Data Center Services for Crawford & Company (NYSE: CRDA and CRDB), the world's largest independent provider of claims management solutions. In this position, Higgins managed mainframe and distributed systems (Windows, Unix) technical support, application production control, network engineering and 24/7 data center operations. Earlier in his career, Higgins served Crawford & Company as manager Data Center Operations, and also served BellSouth Corporation as manager Network and Operations. Higgins holds a bachelor’s degree in Management from Georgia State University and an MBA in Management from Kennesaw State University. A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Higgins resides in Atlanta with his wife, Patricia. They have three grown children. | 