Techie Burger jumps from Frederick to Howard

And she has her work cut out for her, according to her new boss, Richard W. Story, CEO of the Howard County Economic Development Authority.

‘‘This region probably has the greatest concentration of informatics in the free world,” Story said. ‘‘One of the things Linda will do is to help identify this region for its public and private informatics and attract more informatics here.”

Informatics is the science of gathering, analyzing and using data. Examples, Story said, would be NASA creating pictures out of the data from the Hubble space telescope or security agencies interpreting phone call traffic.

Burger comes to Howard County with considerable experience in Frederick County pulling together informatics leaders into networking sessions called ‘‘Informatics and Coffee.”

Story said there would be much more than informatics for Burger in her new position.

As technology manager, she will lead an effort to strengthen a new Technology Council of Howard County. She will also identify potential technology companies as potential targets for doing business in the county and conduct business outreach efforts for the Howard County public school system.

‘‘I’m very excited about the opportunity,” Burger said. ‘‘It will be a lot of fun to work with the technology in Howard County.”

‘‘Linda’s knowledge of technology and the technology organizations in the state of Maryland will be a tremendous asset to the region,” Story said.

While also focusing on technology transfer, Burger will work with organizations such as the Tech Council of Maryland, Greater Baltimore Technology Council, Technology Leadership Consortium, Informatics Coalition, Regional Partners, Technology Database and MIT Enterprise Forum.

Burger said she met Story and Steve Walker, an informatics leader in the state, in the statewide Informatics Coalition, headed by Walker, when she was at the Frederick County Office of Economic Development.

There she was the technology transfer business development specialist responsible for providing strategic business consulting services to pre-startup, small and mid-sized emerging companies.

‘‘I met them [Story and Walker] early in my time working in Frederick County,” Burger said. ‘‘They wanted to know what was going on in the county. I tremendously respect both of the them, so the opportunity to work with them is great.”

Not all of Burger’s work has been in the public sector.

In 1996, she co-founded BEInet.com Inc., an information technology firm in Frederick, which she operated until 2001. She previously was a system consultant for Hanover Direct Inc., a catalog and e-commerce consumer sales company in Weehawken, N.J.

She was also a system consultant with the Frederick County government’s Substance Abuse Services Division and for the Northern Telecom manufacturing operations of Analysts International Corp. in Research Triangle Park, N.C. She also was a computer analyst at Fort Meade.

Burger holds a master’s in administrative sciences in management from John Hopkins University and a bachelor’s in information systems management from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Burger, her husband, Clint, who is a Web designer, and their two sons plan to continue living in Frederick. She said the commute to Columbia is ‘‘not too bad.”

Before she joined the Frederick County Office of Economic Development, Burger provided after-school Spanish instruction to elementary students for the Quality Language Foundation. She also designed and delivered ‘‘Computer Lab” for preschoolers at the Church of the Brethren Learning Center.

When not working, she and her husband take tae kwon do classes with their sons. ‘‘It’s a way we can participate in one of our kids’ sports,” she said.