Future Point Systems: Visual analytics for critical decision making.

Management Team

  

Mike Metscher (CEO, Board of Directors). Mr. Metscher is an accomplished engineer, entrepreneur and executive with over 25 years of experience. Mike comes to Future Point Systems after serving as Executive Vice President of Overwatch Systems Tactical Operations and Chief Operating Officer of Austin Info Systems. As Executive Vice President of Overwatch Systems Tactical Operations, Mike was a key member of the management team that acquired companies and grew Overwatch into a leading provider of multi-source intelligence analysis software tools. These efforts culminated in the successful acquisition of Overwatch by Textron in 2006. Overwatch Systems was formed when Austin Info Systems was sold to a private equity firm and became the platform company. The company developed intelligence analysis software and communications systems for the Department of Defense. As Chief Operating Officer of Austin Info Systems, Mike oversaw the company’s growth to over 250 employees and revenues of $34M. Prior to joining Austin Info Systems, Mike worked at Electrospace Systems in Richardson, Texas for over 10 years and advanced to the position of Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Systems Division Manager. Mike holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University.

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Ben Sommers (Vice President, Sales & Marketing). Mr. Sommers joins Future Point Systems with a proven track record of building successful technology businesses. Most recently at IBM, Ben managed a Western U.S. territory, working across all of IBM’s solution areas and focusing on software & Internet-based business clients. He led an extended team of IBM technical and service specialists, along with a valuable ecosystem of business partners. Previous to IBM, Ben has held key finance and investment positions at Windspeed Ventures, a venture capital firm, and at Robertson Stephens, a technology-focused investment bank. In addition, Ben worked in business development at an early stage enterprise software company, THINQ Learning Solutions (acquired by Saba Software, Nasdaq: SABA). Ben has a BA in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business.

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Board of Directors

Mike Lyons (Board of Directors). Mr. Lyons is the Founder and Chairman of Future Point Systems. He is a veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist and entrepreneur. Mr. Lyons currently serves as a Venture Partner at Paladin Capital Group in Washington D.C. With $1B under management, Paladin is focused on a range of investment stages from early to late with principal interest in Homeland Security and companies using a dual use business model. Prior to founding FPS, Mr. Lyons founded the PNNL spinout, SafeView, Inc., in 2002. Mr. Lyons served as Chairman of SafeView until the company was sold in 2006 to L3 for $105M. Previously, Mr. Lyons served as an Executive Director of ePlanet Ventures II, a $500M early to mid-stage venture fund. Mr. Lyons has had prior affiliations with many other venture capital firms, including Vanguard Ventures, Investcorp, InCube, and Zilkha Venture Partners. He has been an active Board member of many technology companies, including Selectica, Informed Diagnostics (now Picaro), and Real-Time Innovations. Previously he held management positions in Integrated Systems Inc., and Lockheed Missiles and Space.

Concurrently, Mr. Lyons is a Consulting Associate Professor at the Stanford University Department of Management Science and Engineering. He was the founding professor of the Technology Venture Formation course at Stanford University's School of Engineering, and co-teaches the course with FPS Advisor Audrey MacLean. Mr. Lyons received a Bachelors and Masters (equivalent) in Engineering Physics from Cornell University, an MSEE from Stanford University, and an MBA, with Distinction, from the Pepperdine Presidential/Key Executive Program.

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Dan Bathon (Board of Directors). Mr. Bathon is a founding partner of Windspeed Ventures and currently serves as general partner and chairman. He is a seasoned financial expert, having served as senior vice president and partner of Drexel Burnham Lambert, where he was in charge of the firm’s commercial paper division in New York and where he raised over $1 billion for two major customers. From 1987 Dan managed Drexel’s high yield bond development effort in Western Europe from Paris. This included structuring foreign currency debentures for some of Drexel’s European clients. In 1989, he left Drexel to start his own European investment banking company specializing in leveraged buy-outs, corporate finance, and institutional money management and achieved the highest market returns during his tenure. Upon returning to the United States, Dan started FINATECH, Inc., where he continued to advise international corporate finance clients. At FINATECH he helped lead the venture capital financing for Accordance Corporation that later merged into Software.com. Dan received a BS in business administration from Villanova University.

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Miles B. Wachendorf (Board of Directors), Rear Admiral (Ret), United States Navy. Mr. Wachendorf graduated with distinction from U.S. Naval Academy in 1974 with majors in mathematics and Soviet Area Studies-Russian. He has served afloat on both nuclear powered attack and strategic missile submarines of the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets including command of USS Parche (SSN-683). He also commanded Submarine Development Squadron FIVE in San Diego, Calif.

His shore assignments included Deputy Assistant for CNO/VCNO Decision Coordination, Branch Head for Anti-submarine Warfare, Chief of Joint Staff Nuclear/Counter-proliferation Division, Executive Assistant to the Joint Staff Director of Strategic Plans and Policy (J-5), Director of the OPNAV Strategy and Policy Division (N51), US Defense Attaché to Russia, and Chief of Staff U.S. Joint Forces Command. Mr. Wachendorf studied international relations in the German language as an Olmsted Scholar at the University of Zurich, received a Master of Science in Engineering degree from The Catholic University, attended the Senior Officials in National Security program at Harvard University, and graduated from the Senior Officer Course at the Naval War College. Mr. Wachendorf retired from active duty in 2008. He is currently Chief Operating Officer of EchoStorm Worldwide, LLC in Suffolk, Virginia.

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Kevin Fitzgerald (Board of Directors). Mr. Fitzgerald is currently head of North America Client Management and North America Middle Market, Citigroup Global Transaction Services. He joined Citigroup directly from Oracle Corporation, where he was the Senior Vice President responsible for the sale of Oracle products to the Public Sector and Healthcare markets in North America. A member of Oracle's Executive Committee, Fitzgerald headed a division whose annual revenues exceeded $900 million and consistently led the corporation in customer satisfaction and retention. Mr. Fitzgerald's enormous experience in the North America and government arenas has been gained through the roles he played in private and public-sector sales and executive-level management at IBM, NBI Incorporated, Netscape Communications and Siebel Systems.

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Board of Advisors

Haig Farris (Board of Advisors). Mr. Farris is President of Fractal Capital Corp., a private venture capital company financing high technology start-ups and resource service technology companies. He is a proven veteran of the venture capital industry, having served as President of Fractal Capital since 1990. In addition to serving as an Advisor to Future Point Systems, Haig is also a director and founder of two UBC spin-out companies; D-Wave Systems, a quantum computing company, and Zymeworks Inc, an enzyme design company. Previous to Fractal Capital, Haig worked for almost two decades as a Co-founder and Partner of the Ventures West Management group of venture capital funds; the largest venture capital pool in western Canada. In addition to his tremendous experience in the world of venture capital, Haig served as Co-founder of the financial consulting firm of Brown, Farris & Jefferson Ltd., specializing in financial services relating to going public, raising equity capital and financially analyzing business opportunities. Haig also worked as a practicing lawyer at the law firm of Farris & Company, specializing in commercial litigation and corporation law. Haig received a BA in economics & English from University of British Columbia and a LL.D from University of Pennsylvania Law School.

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Steve David (Board of Advisors). Mr. David is currently an independent consultant focused on providing strategic planning services to a variety of clients. He retired from Procter & Gamble, a multi-national manufacturer of family, personal and household care products, in January 2005, following a career that spanned more than thirty-four years. From July 2000 until his retirement from P&G, he held the position of Chief Information Officer and Business-to-Business Officer. In 1989, he served as General Manager (Arabian Peninsula) and in 1986, as Country Manager, P&G Hellas (Greece). Mr. David sits on the Boards of several high-tech startup companies and non-profit organizations, and is the Chairman of Iomega Corp. He has a passion for data visualization, and founded the RFID Institute at MIT. He also serves as a Senior Advisor for the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. David earned his BS from the University of Nebraska.

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Audrey MacLean (Board of Advisors). Ms. MacLean is a highly regarded, long-time Silicon Valley angel investor. She has been on Forbes magazine's Midas Touch list, and has been honored by Business Week as one of the 50 most influential business women in America. She has three decades of combined experience in the computer and communications industries. She was a founder of Network Equipment Technologies (NET), which went public in 1987, and later co-founded and was CEO of Adaptive which merged with NET in 1993. Ms. MacLean is also an affiliate and advisor to a number of leading venture capital funds. She has had many successful exits from her investments, including via IPO: Pure Software, Pete's Brewing Company, AdForce, DSL.net, and Selectica; and via acquisition: Firefly (Microsoft), Avidia (Pair Gain), SpecialtyMD (Chemdex), and Ironport (Cisco). Ms. MacLean is the lead professor for the Technology Venture Formation course in Stanford University's School of Engineering, and actively works to support the development of entrepreneurial studies nationwide through her non-profit board work at the Kauffman Fellows Program and at Santa Clara University's Center for Applied Ethics.

 

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