Board Of Directors

Tim Curran, CEO

Prior to joining Vela, Tim served as CEO of Eleven Technology, the leader in next generation mobile field applications for the retail & consumer goods industry. Eleven was venture-backed by Highland Capital Partners and Friedman, Billings, Ramsey and was successfully acquired by Trimble in April 2006.

Prior to Eleven, Tim spent five years as the number two executive of I-many, Inc., an enterprise contract management software company that grew from $6MM to $60MM in sales and went public during his tenure . Tim's roles at I-many included EVP of Sales and Marketing and EVP of Corporate Development. Prior to I-many, Tim spent eight years with Accenture and a year with EMC Corporation. Tim holds a BS degree in Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Josh Kanner, VP of Marketing and Business Development, Co-founder

Josh Kanner has focused his career on the development and marketing of innovative technologies. He graduated with honors from Brown University, then worked as a consultant to various heavy industries, helping to market cost and environmentally-preferable process technologies. After a year in Madrid on a Rotary Foundation scholarship to study Total Quality Management at one of Spain's largest construction firms, he then pursued an MBA from the Sloan School at MIT. Upon graduation Josh was hired as the first marketing employee at Emptoris, Inc., a web based software provider, and assumed responsibility for product management. After assisting with early sales at Motorola and elsewhere, Josh was promoted to develop and manage Emptoris' entire product strategy. During his tenure, Emptoris grew from one to twelve products, from 20 to 200 employees and from 1 to 100 customers, including Heinz, GlaxoSmithKline, and Vodafone. Emptoris became the only privately-held company in its segment to be annually placed in the 'visionary' quadrant by Gartner Research, and was selected by IBM and Accenture as their global strategic sourcing platforms over industry “heavyweights” Oracle and SAP. Josh was a 2004 recipient of the prestigious Franz Edelman Award for technology innovation.

John Macomber

John Macomber is a Chairman of the George B. H. Macomber Company, a Boston-based General Contractor with clients including Cisco, EMC, Fidelity, Dartmouth College, Children's Hospital, and others. He is particularly interested in reducing the first cost of building design and construction, including using innovative insurance and contracting methods and adopting e-commerce and Internet technologies from other industries. He has been an Internet entrepreneur and investor, and for 15 years has taught Strategy and E-Commerce in Real Estate and Construction at MIT and Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.

Elliot Katzman

Elliot Katzman is a general partner of Commonwealth Capital Ventures. Elliot has more than 25 years of high-technology experience and has been instrumental in building some of New England's most successful software companies. He focuses his investment activity in software, internet-related, and new media companies. Prior to joining Commonwealth Elliot was a general partner at Kodiak Venture Partners where he led investments in companies such as Groove Mobile, Mindreef, Newforma, Pragmatech Software, Spaceclaim and Wis.dm. In addition, he was on the board of Watchfire.

Before becoming a venture capitalist, Elliot spent more than twenty years as a senior operating executive. He founded and led Myteam.com, a direct marketing/new media company now part of the Active Network. Prior to Myteam.com, he was Senior VP and CFO at SolidWorks, where he led the merger with Dassault Systemes. As CFO of Atria Software, he led an IPO and a $1 billion merger with Pure Software, the largest software merger of its time. Earlier, Elliot served as CFO of Epoch Systems, where he had senior operational responsibilities and managed the company's merger with EMC. He was also an executive with Prime Computer during its significant growth phase in the mid-1980s. Elliot holds a BSBA summa cum laude from Salem State College. He is also involved in a variety of community activities including the Board of Trustees of St. John's Prep High School and the Board of Fellows for Trinity College.

Jon Hirschtick

Jon serves as an active Board Member at Vela Systems and advises a select group of Boston-area startups. Jon spent 18 years as founder, CEO and Board Member of SolidWorks Corporation, a subsidiary of Dassault Systemes. SolidWorks is the leading provider of mainstream 3D Computer Aided Design (3D CAD) software. SolidWorks software is used by over one million people worldwide to design consumer goods, electronics, medical devices, and factory machinery. Prior to SolidWorks, Jon worked at Premise, a CAD company he co-founded in 1987, and Computervision.

Jon has Bachelor's and Master's degrees from MIT, where he was a member of the MIT Blackjack Team popularized in the movie and book "21." Jon has served the community as a member of the MIT Visiting Committee for the Mechanical Engineering department, President of the New England Region of the American Technion Society, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Boston University College of Engineering. He has also served on many other corporate boards, including Revit, Liquid Machines and Z Corporation.

Charles R. Lax

Charley is a Co-Founder and Managing General Partner of GrandBanks Capital, focusing on investments in Internet infrastructure, software and software services, security and storage applications, mobile media, financial technologies and services, and wireless technologies and services. Charley's investment career includes investments in 43 portfolio companies, which have resulted in 33 exits thus far. His track record includes 15 companies that went public, of which 10 achieved market caps in excess of $1 billion. The combined value of exits during Charley’s venture career has been over $6.1 billion which includes the $4.3 billion purchase of GeoCities by Yahoo!. Charley was recently named one of the top 50 venture capitalists on the east coast by AlwaysOn.

Observers

Adam Omansky, Co-founder

Adam H. Omansky is the Co-Founder and Vice President of Product Strategy of Vela Systems. As a recognized thought leader in design and construction technology, Adam applies his diverse domain knowledge, project management expertise, and creative and analytical talents as a strategic innovator at Vela Systems.

Prior to Vela Systems, Adam helped spearhead the creation and successful operation of a design and project management group, part of Gresco Rt., an international real-estate development and investment group, in Budapest, Hungary. During his tenure abroad, Adam played a critical role in the design and construction management of the celebrated Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace, winner of the Tatler Award 2005 and ranked in the top ten best hotels in Europe, and many other projects. In Budapest, Adam also co-authored design and construction standards for Habitat for Humanity Europe & Central Asia. Prior to Budapest, Adam practiced architecture in Boston.

Adam holds a Master in Design Studies in Project Management with Distinction from Harvard University, with coursework at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Real Estate – Construction Engineering & Management and the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School. Adam earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, with Construction Planning & Operations coursework at the College of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Additionally, Adam has lectured at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rhode Island School of Design, Boston Architectural Center and many construction and technology industry conferences, seminars and events.

Adam is an Associate Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Construction Institute, a member of the American Society for Quality, OmniClass Development Committee and agcXML Committee. Adam also completed the Benchmarking Associates Training in the CII Construction Industry Institute Benchmarking and Metrics Program. Adam blogs about field process innovations, theory and practice of quality management, and industry best practices.

James Geshwiler

James Geshwiler, Managing Director, CommonAngels. As Managing Director of CommonAngels, James runs one of the first formal venture capital investing networks and the largest in the Northeast. He joined CommonAngels in 1999 when it was an informal group of private investors, and since that time has grown it into a structured network that has invested $37 million from individual investors supplemented by two $10 million co-investment funds. He has funded 31 companies and worked with them through over 85 rounds of financing totaling over $200 million. Day-to-day, James manages deal flow, due diligence and the investment process. James also was the founding chairman of the Angel Capital Association, the professional alliance of angel groups that has grown from 46 groups as charter members to now over 125, representing over 5,000 investors. He also was the founding chairman of ACA's sister organization, the Angel Capital Education Foundation, in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation. AECF works with angel investors, venture capitalists, academic leaders and entrepreneurs around the country to provide research and educational programs on angel investing. He is a contributing author to Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing, published in October 2003 by Darden Business Publishing of the University of Virginia, has written papers and various articles on angel investment processes, and regularly speaks on entrepreneurship and private investing. He holds a bachelor's degree with highest honors from the Liberal Arts Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin, a master's degree in political science from UCLA, and an MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management. James also is an avid rower and a member of Cambridge Boat Club.