PMC Facilitator

With more than fourteen years' experience in marketing, Mara Krieps has focused on technology product management and product marketing for the past eight years. She is an instructor and advisory board member for the UW-Extension Software Product Management Certificate Program. Mara also provides product management training to corporations, and she has been a speaker on product management topics for the annual AIPMM conference.

As a product management consultant, Mara contributes to key product initiatives for technology companies. Previously Mara was Director of Product Management at Concur Technologies, and she has held senior Product Management and Marketing roles at SmartContractor, BSQUARE, Captura Software, Egghead Software and Eddie Bauer.

Mara holds an MBA from Northwestern University and a Bachelors Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

PMC Advisory Board

Bruce Nowjack
Director of Product Management, Cyphermetrix

Bruce has more than 20 years of experience in the software technology industry, focusing on Product Management within the last five years. Bruce currently is Director of Product Management at Cyphermetrix. Previously, he served in Product Management roles at companies including Vitessa and WRQ, where he performed a full spectrum of activities from product concept to successful launches.

Bruce’s background includes development, project management and account management roles at NCR and EDS, where he led domestic and international cross-functional teams to support aggressive business objectives, including all sales support activities for the launch of SprintPCS.

Bruce Scheer
Partner, FutureSight Consulting

Bruce founded his firm in 2000, and it has become one of Washington State's fastest-growing private companies over the past few years. Previously he held executive positions in consulting firms and in industry across North America and Asia, and was the Vice President and West Coast Office Director for MSI Consulting. He is a noted author and speaker on various topics, including the business value of IT, and selling and marketing based on ROI. He has worked with clients to identify strategic market opportunities and develop Go-To-Market plans for new products and services. Bruce earned an MBA in International Marketing at the University of Oregon, and continued his learning at Cornell, University of Copenhagen, UC Berkeley, and University of Michigan.

Connie Chrobuck
Senior Product Manager, PAR3 Communications

Connie Chrobuck has more than 20 years’ experience in product management, market development, operations and project management in the telecommunications, data communications and software/Internet industries.

She has led cross-functional teams to multiple successful product introductions at US West/Qwest, and has spearheaded product definition efforts at other Seattle-based technology firms, including edge2net, Who’s Calling, Microsoft, and PAR3 Communications. She also has defined and initiated partnership programs and established key sales, operations and customer service processes, leading to increased client wins and expansion of market opportunities.

Connie holds an MBA from Seattle University, a Bachelors Degree in Computer Information Services and a Certificate in Project Management from the University of Washington.

Dan Sears
Principal, Performant Consulting

Dan has spent the past 17 years in senior product management, product marketing, strategic alliance and business development roles, in the US, India and Asia. In 2000, at Talisma Corp., Dan developed and launched one of the industry's first CRM Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market offerings and also developed and launched the first CRM product offering designed for the Higher Education market. Recent engagements include the Eclipse Foundation and Open Health Tools, leading open source software development platform and tools providers.

Dan is a graduate of the University of Washington's Professional Certification in Software Product Management. He holds a BS in Entrepreneurial Studies and Marketing Management from Babson College, where he also co-founded a 30-person student-run business serving college students across the state of Massachusetts.

David Smith
Director of Product Management, Insightful

David Smith joined Insightful's UK-based team in 1998 as International Product Manager and moved to the Seattle headquarters in 2000 to take up the position of Product Marketing Manager. A longtime S-PLUS user with intimate knowledge of Insightful's technology, David is responsible for Insightful's statistical analysis and data mining products. Before joining Insightful, David was employed as a Research Associate at Lancaster University in Northern England, working on methods and software for statistical analysis. His introduction to S-PLUS came in 1991 as a consultant with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in his hometown of Adelaide, South Australia.

Don Vendetti
Product Management Consultant

Don has more than 25 years in product development, and more than 10 years in product management. His primary expertise is in wireless software, hardware, and service offerings. He lead the product management teams at local startups Qpass and ViAir (now Visto). He also served as Director of Product & Business Development at AT&T Wireless, where he managed over $60M in revenue, and was Sr. Program Manager in Motorola's Wireless Data Group. Along the way, he also did a stint as VP Product Development and the first employee at Verge Wireless.

Don was an early contributing member of the original PCMCIA standards group, and he co-founded a 50 member international wireless industry consortium. Don holds an MBA from the University of Washington and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University.

James Moran, CPM
Product Manger, ShareBuilder

James has been working in Software Product Management since 1999 for companies such as InsWeb, The Cobalt Group, and Who's Calling. He has also consulted for leading companies such as Amazon.com and Microsoft. James currently manages ShareBuilder's Small Business 401(k) Product and Marketing Initiatives.

He received a BA in Business Management from Loyola Marymount University in 1993, is a graduate of the University of Washington Software Product Management Certificate Program and has received his CPM from the Association of International Product Marketing and Management.

Linda Merrick, CPM
Principal, P5 Group

Linda Merrick has 20 years of software industry experience encompassing broad channel experience, product strategy and requirements formulation, brand management, business plan development, and product launch activities at companies including Captura Software, WRQ, and LapLink. Recent client engagements include product marketing projects for Avaya and Concur Technologies, and acting VP of Marketing for N2H2. Linda is an instructor and advisory board member for the UW-Extension Software Product Management Certificate Program. She also has been a speaker on Product Management topics for the annual AIPMM conference.

Val Sanford
Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, Zango

Val has more than a dozen years' experience in Internet-based companies. She is responsible for Zango's corporate marketing and product strategy. Previously Val was vice president of products at Singlestep Technologies and vice president of business operations at Network Commerce, where she successfully led business and operations teams in e-commerce, online media and business-to-business services. She has developed products and solutions for mid-sized and large enterprise corporations and has a passion for finding opportunities in new and emerging markets.

Early in her career, she worked at Foote Cone & Belding Direct in Los Angeles. She holds a bachelor's of arts from Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington and is a graduate of the Pivotal Product Marketing Software Product Management Intensive.

Emeritus Board Members

Barry Smith, CPM, CPMM
Senior Product Manager, Expedia

Barry has worked with software, technology and IT organizations for over 20 years. Although his first career was as a geophysicist in the petroleum industry, the purchase of an early IBM XT sparked a lifelong fascination with computing (and an eventual exit from the oil business).

Since receiving his MBA in 1996, Barry has served in product management and marketing roles in companies across a diverse range of technologies. Currently the Director of Product Management at Virtuoso, Ltd., he also has served as Director of Strategic Growth for the company. Previously, he introduced a mobile-phone ordering and payment system at Ontain. Before that, he launched the industry’s first speech-enabled web browser at Conversay, helped developed a prototype living-room PC system at Intel, and managed several releases in the LapLink product line.

Barry holds a BS in Geology and an MBA from University of Washington, and holds AIPMM Certifications in Product Management and Product Marketing Management.