Earth Class Mail
Board of Directors
Chris Kwak, Chairman of the Board -- Partner, 2K Advisors LLC
Mr. Kwak is Founder and Partner of 2K Advisors, a research firm focused on the software and interactive media industries. Prior to 2K Advisors, Mr. Kwak was a senior research analyst at Susquehanna International Group where he followed the enterprise software and consumer software industries. Prior to Susquehanna, he covered the software and IT services sectors at Viking Global Investors, a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund. Before joining Viking, Mr. Kwak was the senior software analyst at Bear Stearns, where he authored research on enterprise applications, infrastructure, and security companies. Prior to Bear Stearns, he was a member of the Credit Suisse First Boston Technology Group.
Mr. Kwak has written extensively about distributed and decentralized network systems and has presented at the Department of Defense on emerging distributed systems and collaboration technologies. At Bear Stearns, Mr. Kwak was a member of the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team for Internet Infrastructure Services. Mr. Kwak received an AB in Philosophy from Harvard College.
Ron Wiener -- Founder and CEO
Ron was the founding principal of Venture Mechanics, LLC, a venture catalyst firm and incubator of high-technology companies in Portland, Oregon. (Earth Class Mail was incubated at Venture Mechanics, and Ron became its full-time CEO in July 2003). Earth Class Mail is Ron's fifth turn in the barrel as the founder and CEO of a venture-backed technology company.
His prior ventures including SnapNames.com, a breakthrough innovator in the domain name industry (named Internet Company of the Year in 2001); PrintBid.com (sold to Kinko's/FedEx), a pioneering artificial-intelligence based B2B exchange for commercial printing jobs and paper stocks; Distribution Sciences Corp./JetStream Aviation, an aviation software and JetStream mail order catalog publisher; and Azure Technology, a San Jose-based manufacturer of navigation avionics and flight simulators, and aviation software and catalog publisher. Mr. Wiener had previously held various marketing and product management positions with Central Point Software (now Symantec), Eagle Computer, ICOT (AA/SABRE), Orchid Technology and Computer Factory. During much of his career he was heavily involved in the direct mail business, mailing hundreds of direct marketing campaigns and catalogs.
Mr. Wiener studied EE/Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, and was founding President of the Oregon Young Entrepreneurs Assn. (now Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum). He has previously served on the Board of Directors of PriMotive, Max-Viz, Measurecast, Market Mechanix, SnapNames, PrintBid.com, Distribution Sciences and Azure Technology.
Jonathan Roberts -- Partner, Ignition Partners
Jonathan Roberts is a Founder and a Partner of Ignition. He invests in business application and services companies and represents Ignition as director on the boards of Airwave Wireless, Docusign, Entellium, Intelligent Results, Clearsight Systems, and Spoken Communications.
Prior to Ignition Roberts spent 13 years at Microsoft, most recently as General Manager of the Windows CE Intelligent Appliance Division, where he was responsible for developing new WinCE products, product marketing, business development and long-term planning for the Windows CE platform as well as the retargeting of the Microsoft's PocketPC effort.
Roberts led the marketing and business efforts for Windows 3.1, 3.11, Windows NT 3.51, NT 4.0, BackOffice 1.0, Windows 98 and NT 4.0 on the Desktop, and finally all of Windows CE including embedded, Pocket PC, Auto, Phones, Set-top, Games, etc.
Roberts received his B.A. in history from the University of Washington where he was also Student Body President. In addition to his Ignition boards, Jonathan serves on the board of Epiphany School and the University of Washington Foundation Board.
Robert Headley -- Partner, Ignition Partners
Robert invests in enterprise software and wireless companies, and also acts as Ignition's Administrative Partner overseeing the firm's day to day operations. Prior to joining Ignition, Robert spent seven years at Starbucks Coffee Company, most recently as Vice President, Finance & Treasurer. In that role, he managed Starbucks Investor Relations, Corporate Development, Treasury, Business Planning & Analysis, and Profit Improvement functions. Prior to Starbucks, Robert spent three years in the Principal Investment Area and Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs in New York and Sydney, Australia. Robert holds an M.S. and B.S. degree with distinction in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.
Kenn Dahl -- President, Prime Recognition Corporation
Prime Recognition is a leading developer of machine-print OCR software in high accuracy/high volume applications. Its award-winning products are sold to a wide variety of customers including the U.S. government, high-volume service bureaus, universities, law firms, and many other types of customers internationally. Mr. Dahl founded Prime in 1993 and was the inventor of the key OCR algorithms and product architecture. Prior to Prime Recognition, he held a variety of positions, including VP of Sales & Marketing and VP of Corporate Development, at ICOT Corporation, a public high-tech company located in Silicon Valley, He has also worked as a scientist with GE Research and as a management consultant with McKinsey and Bain & Co. Mr. Dahl graduated as the top engineer from Purdue University in 1980 and received a MBA from Stanford University in 1983.
Ken Lynn -- former Assistant Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service
Dr. Lynn, online postal mail's premier industry authority, works as a high-demand consultant to mail center vendors and the state and federal government agencies for whom they work. Ken is the lead consultant for AbilityOne, a national organization representing 2000 nonprofit agencies that employ people with disabilities, on federal contracts, in their rollout of a new digital mail and secure document line of business. During Ken's distinguished 25-year career with the United States Postal Service he served in the positions of Assistant Postmaster General - Logistics, Regional General Manager (Chicago), District Manager (Los Angeles), and Postmaster of multiple cities. In 1995, he received the Outstanding Performance Award from Vice President Al Gore and the National Quality Institute. Ken was recognized seven years in a row with the Executive Team Award, and received the Postmaster General's Award for Outstanding Contributions. He also served as a negotiator for the USPS, as a witness in more than 20 arbitrations and six rate hearings and, and as an expert witness for the U.S. House and Senate and the Postal Rate Commission.
Ken was later Senior VP for a major air freight company, a Principal Management Consultant for MasterCard International, and a consultant to United Parcel Service where he established a National Accounts program. From 1973 to 1997, Dr. Lynn taught at City University, Chapman University, UCLA, the University of Louisville, Northwestern, the University of Washington, and GSA/Graduate School USDA. Ken has a doctorate in Business Administration from Northwestern University, a Master of Business Administration-Marketing from UCLA and Psychology from Duke, and a B.A. from the University of Puget Sound in Public Administration.
