Tracy LaQuey Parker is a Canadian-American businesswoman. She is the senior vice president at Parker Solutions Group. Before joining the company, LaQuey Parker worked for Cisco as a chief technology officer and started The UTeach Institute. Apart from her career, LaQuey Parker became the first person to win a lawsuit against a spammer and was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2017.
LaQuey Parker was born in Newfoundland on a United States Air Force base. After moving to Texas, she went to the University of Texas at Austin for a Bachelor of Arts degree and specialized in computer science.[1]
In 1988, she started working for the University of Texas with the Texas Higher Education Network. While with the university, she was a part of the Texas Education Network in 1991 that connected Texan teachers to the Internet.[2] She left the university to work with Cisco Systems as a chief technology officer. While at Cisco, she was in charge of projects that introduced the Internet to schools globally.[1] After creating The UTeach Institute in 2006, LaQuey Parker went to Parker Solutions Group and became the Senior Vice President of the Business Development department.[3]
Apart from her technological career, LaQuey Parker authored The User's Directory of Computer Networks in 1988 and The Internet Companion in 1992.[4] In May 1997, LaQuey Parker was the lead plaintiff in a spamming lawsuit.[5] In the case, LaQuey Parker sued defendant Craig Nowak after he used her company website via email spoofing to send spam emails.[6] As a result, LaQuey Parker received over five thousand emails ranging from hate mail to bounced messages between March 31 and April 1, 1997.[7] [8] After a November 1997 Texas District Court verdict ruled in favor of LaQuey Parker,[9] she became the first person to win a lawsuit against a spammer.[2]
In 2017, LaQuey Parker was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.[10]