In last week’s edition of High Tech Monthly we ran our list of Who’s Who in Technology. We also noted that there were a few of those who should have been on the list whom we were unable to contact. We promised an addendum in this week’s edition. What follows is an addendum to last week’s issue, and with a more complete response from Rodger Dowdell of American Power Conversion, who was involved in his company’s third quarter earnings announcement as we compiled information for the listing in last week’s edition.
There are many worthy individuals and we view this Who’s Who in Technology as a work in progress. We will be adding to it from time to time on our Web Site, where we encourage you to view the complete Who’s Who in Technology.
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Kip Bergstrom
Executive Director, Economic Policy Council
Professional Background: Bergstrom has worked in the public sector in economic development, and has worked in the private sector, for both corporations and small businesses, in the service and manufacturing sectors, in both line management and strategic planning capacities.
Education: Undergraduate degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in modern society and social thought. Master’s at the Harvard Kennedy School — the first Harvard student to major in economic development, he customized his plan of study. (City and regional planning was his original focus; he took most of his courses within the business school.)
Age: 48
Why Bergstrom is on the list: The Economic Policy Council has become a leader in the development of innovative technology companies through its Slater Grants and other programs. Additionally, Bergstrom and the council have become leading advocates for programs within schools that stimulate interest in information technology careers.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
The increasing significance of the workforce’s development has been significant. It’s a major factor in the recruitment and retention of business. An IT workforce is necessary to sustain technical firms; this issue has gone from a “major problem” to a “mission critical.”
What do you think is the most important issue facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
The issue of developing an IT workforce — we must find a way to stop talking about the problem and start solving it. The process has to start at the 7th grade. It is therefore a long time in solving, but it must be done in a focused, aggressive way. We have to begin working on it.
Andrew Chi
Director of Marketing and Sales, Orbidex
Professional Background: Chi is the former general manager for SK Corporation of Los Angeles.
Education: BA, economics and fine art, Occidental College, Los Angeles; MBA, Anderson School of Management at UCLA
Age: 31
Why Chi is on the list: Combining a background in fine art and technology, Chi and Orbidex have become among Rhode Island’s leading technology companies.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
“Enabling small to medium-sized firms to utilize the tools available through the Internet to communicate more effectively; to operate just like their larger counterparts. I am in the business of helping small to medium-sized businesses get on the Web and expand their traditional operations using the Internet. Naturally, I think the Internet technology has allowed these folks with limited resources to operate on a much larger scale than they have in the past and do things that only the larger firms were capable of doing.
What do you think is the most significant development facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
“I think online security and privacy are two very important issues. With the rush to get on the Web and ‘e’ everything these days, small and medium-sized operations very often neglect the much-needed security and privacy measures. Since they are not the experts when it comes to online security and/or privacy and most of them don’t have time to learn, it is the responsibility of us service providers to make sure the right technology is deployed and the necessary measures taken.”
Marc Davis
President/CEO, UNICOM
Professional Background: Davis has worked at UNICOM for his “whole life;” it is a family business. He began his career there as marketing manager in 1966, after spending two years on active duty in the U.S. Army. He rose through the ranks, becoming vice president after about five years, and was president by the 1980s.
Education: Bachelor of arts, chemistry, Providence College; master’s in business, University of Rhode Island
Age: 58
Why Davis is on the list: Davis has seen the growth of the computer industry since its inception. He pushed for the transition of UNICOM from an audio-visual business to a computer-centered one, completing that transition by 1980. He made the transition both because he anticipated the needs of UNICOM’s clients, and because he recognized that “a business should have a high value-add component” — a high-tech focus provided that.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
The most significant development has been “the tremendous increase in price performance of memory, disk storage and bandwith, which have enabled the rapid growth of the Internet.”
What do you think is the most important issue facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
Creating the skills necessary for a high-tech workforce is key — “lots of training” is needed. There is a shortage of talent, especially at the high end of the workforce, in more “advantage technologies.”
Rodger B. Dowdell, Jr.
President, CEO and Chairman of the Board, American Power Conversion Corporation
Professional Background: Dowdell joined APC as a consultant in January 1985 and six months later was appointed President and CEO. In 1990, Ernst & Young and Merrill Lynch named Dowdell “Entrepreneur of the Year.” Prior to joining APC, Dowdell was President of Independent Energy, Inc., and had held positions at Texas Instruments, Brown & Sharpe, and the Naval Underwater Systems Center.
Education: Dowdell graduated Cum Laude from Brown University in 1971 with a BSEE and subsequent to that earned a MSEE from the University of Rhode Island.
Age: 51
Why Dowdell is on the list: APC is a leading technology company, with strong national and international business. Dowdell has managed this highly successful company nearly since its inception.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
Commercialization of the Internet and optical networking.
What do you think is the most important issue facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
Continuing to drive up the reliability and the ease of use of the Internet.
Nigel Hebborn
Nestor
Position: I started with the Company in July 1996 working as a financial consultant and in October 1996 assumed the position of Chief Financial Officer. In 1999 I was named Executive Vice President/CFO of the parent corporation, Nestor, Inc., and assumed the role of CFO of the subsidiary corporation, Nestor Traffic Systems, Inc.
Professional background: I have worked over 17 years in the public and private accounting sectors with a broad-based background in the management of general accounting, finance, MIS, and administrative functions. In 1994 I formed and served as president of Wolfish Consulting Services, Inc., a consulting and background reporting firm. Prior to forming Wolfish, I worked as Vice President Finance of Nova American Group, Inc., an insurance and banking holding company in Buffalo, NY, and I served as president of various Nova subsidiaries. I began my professional career with Price Waterhouse.
Education: Bachelor’s in business administration/accounting from Witten-berg University, Springfield, Ohio in 1981. Certified Public Accountant — New York State, 1983. Member — American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Age: 41
Why Hebborn is on the list: Nestor is among Rhode Island’s public technology companies, and continues to develop and promote innovative products that involve traffic safety and fraud detection solutions.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
The ability to store and retrieve information on smaller and less expensive computers. This evolution has tremendously increased the efficiency of most workers, particularly in the technology field. Five years ago, anyone needing significant data or processing needs would be limited to an office-based computer. Today a lot of development and certainly general office tasks can be performed at a client’s site or at home.
What do you think is the most important issue facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
Anticipating no letup in the steady growth of the worldwide economy, the biggest issue the technology industry, and probably all other growth industries, face is the ability to find employees with the training and qualifications needed. I think we are just beginning to realize how limited and non-elastic the human-resource supply actually is.
Robert Petrocelli
President, Heartlab, Inc.
Professional Background: Petrocelli co-founded Heartlab with a cardiologist while in the computer science Ph.D. program at Brown University in 1994.
Education: Bachelor’s degree, physics, University of Rhode Island; master’s, computer science, University of Rhode Island; completed all Ph.D. work for computer science degree, except dissertation, Brown University.
Age: 34
Why Petrocelli is on the list: He has brought Heartlab into a very competitive market dominated by big names such as General Electric, Siemens, and Philips, and made it a top choice for medical imaging — it is chosen by close to 70 percent of tertiary care centers in the U.S. The company was recently named to Inc. 500 annual ranking of 500 fastest-growing private companies in the United States. Heartlab ranked 145.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
The most significant development within the last five years has been the “wholesale move” in cardiology from analogue to digital imaging. Petrocelli said that his company does very little analogue imaging today. (The move to digital imaging eliminates traditional forms of imaging such as film and videotape.)
What do you think is the most important issue facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
The most important issue facing Heartlab’s customers is the level of government reimbursement for medical procedures. During the past few years, there has been a “spiral of reduction in reimbursement,” which poses a “significant fiscal challenge” to hospitals.
Jeff Stibel
Vice president, Net Zero
Professional background: Stibel has worked in the academic, business and technical sectors. He spent five years at Verizon, building its Internet search portal. He also founded the Web site simpli.com. He currently is in charge of Net Zero’s advertising and targeted marketing.
Education: Bachelor’s degree, psychology, Tufts University; master’s, cognitive science, Brown University. (Stibel is on leave from a joint Brown University/MIT Sloan Ph.D. program in business and cognitive science.)
Age: 27
Why Stibel is on the list: Stibel was among the founders of simpli.com that was bought by NetZero several months ago, with the company establishing a significant presence in Providence. The deal itself was significant, with simpli.com still in its infancy gaining the attention of and merging with NetZero.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
The explosive growth of the Internet, without question, has been the most significant development.
What do you think is the most important issue facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
The industry must learn how to deal with the explosive growth that it has experienced, particularly from a business perspective — how it can generate real revenue, and maximize the value of what has been created. Stibel added that his company has been “remarkably successful” in securing talent from the region, which he credits to the area’s universities.
Hal Tovin
President and CEO of Citizens’ e-Businesses
Professional Background: “I’m a classical marketing guy,” said Tovin, who spent five years at General Mills, then went on to the Marketing Corporation of America. He went into banking in 1990, building Shawmut Bank’s marketing program. He joined Citizens in 1995, and began a company partnership with Shaw’s supermarkets, opening in-store banking franchises in Plymouth and Fairhaven, Massachusetts.
There are now 50 branch offices in three states at Shaw’s, Star and Shop’n’Save market locations. Tovin is responsible for the development of Citizens’ e-banking, phone banking and supermarket branches.
Education: Bachelor’s degree, political science, Brown University; master’s (marketing and strategic planning), Wharton, Philadelphia.
Age: 45
Why did you select a career in high technology?
Tovin does not consider himself a “high tech” figure; rather, he is a marketing professional who is now working in the technical arena.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
The development of the Internet, in that it enables businesses to connect with their customers. The Internet is a “disruptive technology” (he attributes this quote to Clayton Christianson at Harvard) — it has altered society like the telephone and television did in centuries past.
What do you think is the most important issue facing your industry or field over the next 12 months?
The key issue facing the industry is to figure out how to take advantage of partnerships that are necessary for businesses to reach customers. Businesses cannot build technology themselves; they must partner with companies that can provide them with the Internet knowledge and skills to enable them to relate to their customers. Citizens is embarking on a pilot project, a partnership with eScout.com, for a service called Citizens Bank BizMart, which will be an online buying and selling network for small businesses.
Graham Allen
Director of e-Business, Textron
Professional Background: Allen began his career with GEC Alsthom in South Africa, before beginning an extensive career with Timken Company, a $2.3 billion manufacturer of bearings and high alloy steel. He joined Timken as a sales engineer, working first in Colmar France, then in the United Kingdom and South Africa. He moved to the U.S. to take a position as Timken’s marketing manager for Industrial Distribution for North America, and was subsequently appointed to the position of manager of business systems development for Timken Worldwide.
Education: Bachelor’s degree,/ mechanical engineering, University of Capetown, South Africa
Age: 34
Why did you choose a career in high technology?
Allen had always had a strong interest in the Internet and the information technology field and how it might affect the way business worked .His most recent position at Timken allowed him to lead the development of its e-business strategy. At Textron, his goal is to transform the company from a “net-aware” company to a “net-visionary” company.
What do you think is the most significant development in your field over the last five years?
Allen asserts that the combination of the Internet as a global network infrastructure, the Internet browser as an intelligent interface to the Web and a defined and common set of protocols and standards have been the most significant development to business.
