Dale Ferrario (Chairman of the Board) - President, FreshBrain
Dale Ferrario was most recently VP of SOA/Business Integration at Sun Microsystems. In this role, he was responsible for delivering industry leading platform, frameworks, and composite applications that are at the core of Sun's SOA platform. Dale has broad management expertise. Over the years he has managed most engineering and IT functions and has experience managing employees in the US, India, Israel, Ireland, China, Japan, and the UK. Dale is a former Sun Presidents award winner and has attended Sun's leadership institute. Dale graduated from Santa Clara with a MBA in 1989, and the University of California Santa Barbara with a BA in Computer Science in 1985. Dale is married to his high school sweetheart Julie. They have two sons Anthony and Nicholas.
Curt Roberts (Vice Chairman of the Board) - USTAR Executive and Retired VP Marketing, Nike
Curt Roberts is currently Vice Provost, Innovative and Economic Development with USTAR. USTAR is an initiative to develop new tech companies in Utah through the commercialization of inventions created at Utah universities. Curt has served a Nike's VP and GM, Vision,Timing, and Techlab as well as Nike's VP of Global Strategic Planning from 1999 - 2007. Curt was also CEO and Chairman of the board for Peacehealth, a $300 million regional health delivery system located in Eugene, OR. Curt was awarded a Masters in Business Administration degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration in 1988 and a BA degree in Economics, with minors in Mathematics and Spanish from Weber State University in 1986.
Lewis Gale - Dean of Goddard School of Business, Weber State University
Lewis Gale is the current Dean of the John B. Goddard school of Business and Economics, Weber State University. Prior to Lewis' arrival at Weber State University, he served as Dean of the B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration at the University of Louisiana from 2003-2005. Lewis earned a Ph.D in Economics in 1994 from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. with a specialization in international economics. He also holds a Master of Science in Economics from ASU and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the California State University, Fresno. Dr. Gale's primary area of research is international economics in which he has published several articles in academic journals, such as International Review of Economics and Finance and Journal for Global Business Education.
Rich Green - Former Executive Vice President, Software, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Rich Green was responsible for the overall operational leadership of Sun's software division, which has delivered some of the computer industry's most innovative technologies and business models. Mr. Green oversaw the Solaris Enterprise System, including the Solaris Operating System, the Java Enterprise System suites, N1 management software, Sun Studio and Java Studio developer tools. In addition, he lead a variety of industry-standards efforts and open source communities. With more than 20 years of industry experience, Green has extraordinary insight into the evolution of developer platforms and enterprise software alike. Green also spearheaded the development of such critical technological advancements as Java Studio Creator and was instrumental in driving adoption for Sun's Java Virtual Machine software. Previously, Green was Executive Vice President of Products for Cassatt. And before that he served as Vice President and General Manager of the Solaris products organization.
Michael LaFave - Head of Sales, Consolidated Printing
Mike LaFave graduated from University California Santa Barbara in 1993 with a double major of Business Economics and Communications. Mike has spent the past 24 years honing his skills in Sales and Marketing of Printing and Environmental Firms. His success has stemmed from working with operations and developing a vision statement for his company and selling the companies vision to current and prospective customers. Mike is currently EVP of Sales and Partnering for consolidated Printers. Mike is happily married to Sarah and together they have two beautiful children, Nicholas and Lucy.
Robert Strickland, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, T-Mobile, USA.
Robert Strickland runs the Enterprise IT (EIT) team, where he is responsible for aligning IT strategy with business initiatives and delivering innovative solutions to support T-Mobile’s customer-driven philosophy. Prior to joining T-Mobile, Mr. Strickland served as the SVP and CIO at EchoStar Communications Corporation – best known for its DISH Network technology. In addition to his most recent role at EchoStar, Mr. Strickland was the President and Chief Operations Officer at Silas Technologies, Chief Technology Officer at Landmark Communications, Inc, CIO at Teradyne, CIO at Continental Cablevision/Media One and CIO of Harvard Business School. He holds a BA in mathematics from Brandeis University and serves on the Board of Directors for T-Systems, North America. Robert has previously served on the Math and Science Education board and is currently a board member for FreshBrain. Mr. Strickland resides in Bellevue, Washington with his family.