Tom Shea brings extensive startup management and execution experience to Gear6. He was previously CEO of Mirra, a developer of digital content production products. Prior to Mirra, Tom served as President and COO of Roxio, a developer and publisher of digital media software and tools. Previously, he held numerous executive posts during a long tenure at Adaptec Corporation, which he concluded as general manager of the software division that ultimately spun off as Roxio in 2001. Tom holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Elliot Carpenter brings solid experience in technology, corporate finance and operations to the company. Prior to Gear6, he worked as Chief Financial Officer of Roxio, a leader in digital media software. Prior to that, he held various positions at Adaptec in Mergers and Acquisitions, Treasury and Manufacturing Operations. Carpenter began his career at Arthur Andersen and is a certified public accountant. He holds a dual bachelors degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Brian Gladden joined Gear6 from NetApp where he most recently held the position of Director, OEM Sales, managing the worldwide team dedicated to growing OEM business. Earlier in his career at NetApp, Gladden was a Global Enterprise Manager covering Fortune 100 accounts. Prior to NetApp, Gladden worked at numerous storage companies including SpectraLogic and nStor, building sales channels and driving revenue. He holds an MBA from California State University, Hayward and a BS degree from California State University, Chico.
Gary Orenstein has broad storage networking experience and has been involved in numerous growth companies. Prior to Gear6, he served as Vice President of Marketing for Compellent, a modular enterprise storage provider. At Compellent, he helped successfully launch the company and product to widespread channel and customer adoption. Before Compellent, Gary was a co-founder of Nishan Systems, a company that led the IP storage market and was acquired by McDATA. Gary is also the author of IP Storage Networking: Straight to the Core -- a book that outlines the business value of enterprise storage technology. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA from Dartmouth College.
Martin Patterson joined Gear6 from Sun Microsystems, where he was a director in Sun's N1 Grid System division. Patterson was Co-founder and Vice President of Advanced Development at Terraspring, a California-based company widely regarded as a pioneer and leader in data center virtualization and provisioning products. Terraspring was acquired by Sun in 2002 and its technology is used to power the first phase of the N1 roadmap. Before Terraspring, Martin was a Senior Staff Engineer in Sun Microsystems working on a range of software projects encompassing network security, key management, protocol design, systems management and telecommunication products. He began his career at British Telecom and he holds an Honors Degree in Computer Science from the Queen's University of Belfast.
Nisha Talagala brings broad technical experience in systems, storage and I/O architecture to Gear6. She joined Gear6 from Sun Microsystems, where she worked in Advanced Development focusing on high availability storage and filesystem technologies. Nisha obtained her Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley, where she conducted research in clustered storage system reliability and performance. She has over 20 issued patents in the areas of data storage, I/O, and systems architecture.
Geoff Barrall is a founder of Trusted Data Corporation and the designer of its core technology. Prior to joining Trusted Data, he founded five companies, the most recent being BlueArc Corporation, the number three supplier of Enterprise NAS in the US. Geoff was voted a Byte and Switch Top Ten storage industry star, speaks frequently at major technology events and is published in leading industry publications. He holds a PhD in Cybernetics from the University of Reading, UK.
Rich is a co-founder and Vice President of Innovation Quest, a non-profit foundation for the benefit of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). He is a retired executive of Network Appliance, a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise, where he was employee number six. During his 12 years at NetApp, Rich held a number of executive positions in marketing, corporate development, and engineering. At various times, he directed product management, strategic marketing, mergers and acquisitions, several software engineering groups, and strategic alliances and business development. Prior to NetApp, Rich held management positions at Intel Corporation and several startup companies. He holds a BSEE from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an MSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Andy is the co-founder and CEO of 7MPS and is the former VP of Strategic Technology and CTO for Network Appliance. In his technical leadership role at Network Appliance, Andy traveled to, and communicated frequently with, leading customers worldwide to understand their storage infrastructure issues, technology initiatives and application growth plans. Based on his close interaction with customers and his extensive knowledge of cutting edge storage technologies, Andy provided strategic product planning expertise to Network Appliance. He is now actively involved in developing relationships with independent storage software vendors focused on adding value to enterprise customers and is a frequent industry speaker.
