Bluestone Alumni
Barbara Murnane organized a little Bluestone alumni get-together on Friday night at Prospectors. You could recognize the Bluestone people in spite of how long it had been - we were the ones not wearing cowboy hats... There were probably 25 people or so that filtered in and out.
Tom Stiling noted that the 10th anniversary of going IPO is only 2.5 years away. Charlotte Cobb was not sure if she wanted to return to the rat race again and does not feel guilty about it. Mark Herlich is a storage consultant - doing work in the legal industry. Barbara is working down in Wilmington. Ron Welsh and Al Shaffer are working at Commerce Bank. Tom Styles is at CSC in Mt. Laurel. John Maron is still at Oracle - he and Laura have two kids that are more mature than him. Most of the Oracle folks are still over there he reports, including Erik Bergenholtz who went back after getting highjacked back to HP by Al Smith for a brief time. Greg Pavlik is a rising corporate star at Oracle because he loves flying back and forth to Redwood Shores so much (and he is getting his MBA at Wharton so he can be like Erik). Bill Durant was there wearing his old Bluestone logo shirt. Bruce Keim proved he had moved on with a new logo shirt - with both CA and EMC logos - I guess he is playing the field. Sam Martinelli was there in suit and tie - still at HP. Jason Dichter also made an appearance (sorry not to see his old side-kick Mark Parsonage), as did Dave Isaacson - two old-time Bluestone guys. Dave is still at HP, although hunkered in his basement working from home...
Also on the old Bluestone alumni front, Marlise and I had dinner with Al and Ginny Smith last weekend. Al is up at Princeton Softech - the company is doing very well in spite of hiring him a year ago. There is a pretty big Bluestone alumni club up there - Bruce Kratz, Jay Hiremath, Pete Petersen, Jim Sinisgalli, and a few more - making sure Al does not get into too much trouble...
The JBoss-Bluestone contingent seems to be doing well after the Red Hat acquisition. Friedman, Mazz, Jess, and Shaun Connolly are all still there. Tom Leonard and Joe McGonnell both left and have joined some other JBoss folks at OpenSpan in Atlanta.
As some of you may know, Cappy is the President of MEDicision(http://www.medecision.com/Management.asp). Danielle Russella is over there running sales. They went public a couple of months ago - so Cappy is in the quarterly rat race deep! Kevin is still at Baker Capital and doing VC investing stuff. Craig is the CFO of some company I can not recall off the top of my head, but I think they are going IPO as well. Kevin Harris is the CFO at a small public company, I-Many (he lives in Moroestown as well and we run into each other once in a while). Mark Nigro (still the smartest person I ever met) is also in Moorestown and still retired. Joe Krivickas was the CEO of Seque, which got bought by Borland last year. Andre Pino was with him as the head of marketing and is now head of marketing for Acsis. Tony Wasserman is the Director of the Software Management Program at Carnegie Mellon West (http://west.cmu.edu/who_we_are/faculty_staff/?category=&cid=1690507) and an open source expert. Dave Hunt and Joe Antonio are still at HP making sure their software acquisitions run just as smoothly as the Bluestone acquisition did. On the old, old Bluestone front, I just heard from Chuck Patrick that he and Christie had their 5th child - a boy, after 4 girls. Strangest of all is Rich Frisbie (not surprising), who is running a trucking company!
While the Bluestone days were great, it was good to see that everyone has moved on and explored new things. But it brought back a lot of very good memories of working with very good people. I was lucky to have been a part of it - thanks everyone!
Bob
Tom Stiling noted that the 10th anniversary of going IPO is only 2.5 years away. Charlotte Cobb was not sure if she wanted to return to the rat race again and does not feel guilty about it. Mark Herlich is a storage consultant - doing work in the legal industry. Barbara is working down in Wilmington. Ron Welsh and Al Shaffer are working at Commerce Bank. Tom Styles is at CSC in Mt. Laurel. John Maron is still at Oracle - he and Laura have two kids that are more mature than him. Most of the Oracle folks are still over there he reports, including Erik Bergenholtz who went back after getting highjacked back to HP by Al Smith for a brief time. Greg Pavlik is a rising corporate star at Oracle because he loves flying back and forth to Redwood Shores so much (and he is getting his MBA at Wharton so he can be like Erik). Bill Durant was there wearing his old Bluestone logo shirt. Bruce Keim proved he had moved on with a new logo shirt - with both CA and EMC logos - I guess he is playing the field. Sam Martinelli was there in suit and tie - still at HP. Jason Dichter also made an appearance (sorry not to see his old side-kick Mark Parsonage), as did Dave Isaacson - two old-time Bluestone guys. Dave is still at HP, although hunkered in his basement working from home...
Also on the old Bluestone alumni front, Marlise and I had dinner with Al and Ginny Smith last weekend. Al is up at Princeton Softech - the company is doing very well in spite of hiring him a year ago. There is a pretty big Bluestone alumni club up there - Bruce Kratz, Jay Hiremath, Pete Petersen, Jim Sinisgalli, and a few more - making sure Al does not get into too much trouble...
The JBoss-Bluestone contingent seems to be doing well after the Red Hat acquisition. Friedman, Mazz, Jess, and Shaun Connolly are all still there. Tom Leonard and Joe McGonnell both left and have joined some other JBoss folks at OpenSpan in Atlanta.
As some of you may know, Cappy is the President of MEDicision(http://www.medecision.com/Management.asp). Danielle Russella is over there running sales. They went public a couple of months ago - so Cappy is in the quarterly rat race deep! Kevin is still at Baker Capital and doing VC investing stuff. Craig is the CFO of some company I can not recall off the top of my head, but I think they are going IPO as well. Kevin Harris is the CFO at a small public company, I-Many (he lives in Moroestown as well and we run into each other once in a while). Mark Nigro (still the smartest person I ever met) is also in Moorestown and still retired. Joe Krivickas was the CEO of Seque, which got bought by Borland last year. Andre Pino was with him as the head of marketing and is now head of marketing for Acsis. Tony Wasserman is the Director of the Software Management Program at Carnegie Mellon West (http://west.cmu.edu/who_we_are/faculty_staff/?category=&cid=1690507) and an open source expert. Dave Hunt and Joe Antonio are still at HP making sure their software acquisitions run just as smoothly as the Bluestone acquisition did. On the old, old Bluestone front, I just heard from Chuck Patrick that he and Christie had their 5th child - a boy, after 4 girls. Strangest of all is Rich Frisbie (not surprising), who is running a trucking company!
While the Bluestone days were great, it was good to see that everyone has moved on and explored new things. But it brought back a lot of very good memories of working with very good people. I was lucky to have been a part of it - thanks everyone!
Bob
Comments
a) "Greg Pavlik ... loves flying back and forth to Redwood Shores so much"
I just want to point out I learned this behavior from you.
b) "(and he is getting his MBA at Wharton so he can be like Erik)."
That part is completely true. Who wouldn't want to be like Erik?
Found your blog online, good to see you are doing well... My brother lives in Moorestown, we should get together sometime.
Al Perhacs- www.advancedmindpower.com