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my career
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CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Executive and Board
Positions
President and Chief
Executive Officer, Spiral Funds, Inc.
President, Chairman, and Chief
Executive Officer, Omni-Vista, Inc.
Acting Vice President,
Marketing, Omni-Vista, Inc.
Founding Director, Requisite, Inc.
Member, Board of Directors,
GreenGold Lubricants, LLC (2011-present)
General Partner and Founding Member, Board of Advisors, Catalyst InfoTech
Development Fund, L.P.
Vice President, BTG, Inc.
President, The Davis Company (1991-1998; 2002-present)
Middle Management Positions
Director,
Common Systems Development, GTE Communications Systems
Director, Software
Technology Center, GTE Laboratories
Academic Experience
Professor of Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
European Union Erasmus Mundus Professor, Universidad Politécnica
de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
(Summers 2009 and 2011)
Visiting Professor of Business and Economics,
Atma Jaya University, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia (Fall 2007)
Visiting Professor
of Software Engineering,
Universidad Politécnica
de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
(Summer 2006)
Visiting Professor of Information and
Computer Technology,
University of Jos, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria
(Summer 2005)
Visiting Scholar of Information Technology,
University of Technology, Sydney,
Sydney, Australia, 2004-2008
(Summers 2004 and 2005)
Visiting Professor of Information Systems,
University of
the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
(Fall 2003)
El Pomar Chair in
Software Engineering, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Professor of
Computer Science, George Mason University
Professor of Information
& Software Systems Engineering, George Mason University
Acting Chair of Computer
Science, George Mason University
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Tennessee (1975-1977)
Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois (1975)
Public
Speaking
Delivered lectures 2,000+
times in 27 states of the USA and
28 countries (See details
here and here).
Writing
Author of five
books.
Author of 60+
journal
and conference publications, and 50+ published
essays and editorials.
Other
Recipient of 40
awards.
Over 3,100 citations in
professional literature.
CAREER TIMELINE
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1970-1974 |
1975-1979 |
1980-1984 |
1985-1989 |
1990-1994 |
1995-1999 |
2000-2004 |
2005-2009 |
2010-2011
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Academe |
U Illinois |
U Tenn |
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GMU |
UCCS |
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Industry |
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GTE |
BTG |
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Requisite |
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Omni-Vista |
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Spiral Funds |
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DETAILED EXPERIENCE
1991-present:
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs,
Colorado
Academic Chair, Executive MBA Program, University of Colorado (Denver)
(2009-2011)
Professor, Executive MBA Program, University of Colorado (Denver) (2006-present)
Professor of Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship (2005-present)
Professor of Information Systems (2000-2005)
Professor of Computer Science (1991-2000)
El Pomar Chair of Software Engineering (1991-2000)
Director, Center for Software Systems Engineering (1991-1998)
As a
faculty member, Dr. Davis teaches courses and performs research.
Since 2005, he has emphasized entrepreneurship and business strategy in his
teaching; and business strategy, entrepreneurship, requirements management, new
product planning, and value creation in his research. He also spends
considerable time promoting economic
development in Colorado by assisting entrepreneurs in creating and managing new
companies. He chaired the committee to
establish the
master’s degree
in software systems engineering. He has also acquired over $1.6M in
grants.
2010-2011: Spiral Funds,
Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado
President and CEO
A 2009 start-up, Spiral Funds enabled consumers to direct a percentage of their on-line purchases to their favorite
charity, at no cost to them. Most on-line
merchants already pay referral (aka affiliate marketing) fees to third parties.
We used proprietary software to direct those fees to us, and then we passed most of
it on
to the consumers' charities. During the 8 months in this position, he extricated
the company from a long list of legal and IP entanglements, focused the company
on just one rather than three businesses, created equity and financial plans,
and created internal processes for product development, customer interface, and
merchant management.
1998-2002: Omni-Vista,
Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado
Chairman and CEO (1998-2002)
President (1998-2001)
Acting Vice President, Marketing (1999-2000)
Omni-Vista was dedicated to
helping companies prevent software management disasters through innovative
products and services centered around product planning and requirements
management. The tools assisted
companies in balancing their desired product features with a target market
window and available R&D dollars. Such complex, multi-dimensional
problems were previously solved only by
“gut” or “instinct” of decision-makers. Omni-Vista raised $2.5M in five rounds of private placements, released three products (called Omni-Vista SP, OnYourMark and
OnYourMark Pro). At its
peak, the company had 150+ customers and 14 employees.
The assets
of Omni-Vista were sold in mid-2002.
1995-2000: Catalyst InfoTech Development Fund, L.P,
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Non-Managing General Partner (1995-2002)
Member, Investment Advisory Board (1995-2002)
In addition to being a general partner of this venture capital company, I served on the board that assessed
candidate portfolio companies, and made investment recommendations to the
managing general partners.
The assets of this company were distributed to the general and
limited partners in 2002.
1995-1997: Requisite, Inc., Boulder, Colorado
Founding
Director
I was a member of the Board of Directors
throughout the life of Requisite, Inc., a start-up focused on providing
innovative software tools to support requirements management.
Requisite
was acquired by Rational
Software Corp. in 1997 and IBM in 2003
1989-1991:
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
Professor of Information and Software Systems
Engineering (1989-1991)
Professor of Computer Science (1990-1991)
Acting Chair, Department of Computer Science
(1990-1991)
As a
faculty member in two departments, Dr. Davis taught graduate level courses,
performed research, and worked on research grants in
software systems engineering. During
his 2.5 years at GMU, he was awarded four grants (two U.S. Army, Sun
Microsystems, and Digital Equipment Corporation) totaling $660,000. He was also instrumental in reshaping the master’s degree in software systems
engineering.
As chair of
the department of computer science, Dr. Davis
was responsible for administration, planning, scheduling, and personnel
management of the 18-faculty member department.
1984-1991: BTG, Inc.,
Vienna, Virginia
Vice President, Engineering Services (1984-1986)
Vice President, Director of Research (1986-1987)
Vice President, Engineering Technology (1987-1988)
Internal Consultant (1988-1991)
As Vice
President of the two divisions, Dr. Davis was responsible for all financial,
technical, administrative, marketing, and planning aspects of BTG's $4M
annual services business. Business included
systems engineering, configuration management, program management support,
consulting, training, and software engineering research. During this time, Dr. Davis:
Won 10 new contracts
in configuration management, training, and software technology
Program manager for training courses for the
Naval Surface Warfare
Center and
the U.S.
Army Computer Science School
As Director
of Research, Dr. Davis reported to the President of BTG and was responsible for
all aspects of corporate research: writing proposals, participating in
Independent Research and Development (IRAD) funding decisions, performing
research, publishing and consulting.
As internal
consultant to the President of BTG, Inc., Dr. Davis performed a wide variety of
assignments including writing speeches, performing joint research with BTG staff
members, teaching internal classes, and performing
management and technical consulting on an as-needed basis.
BTG was
acquired by Titan, Inc. in 2002 and L-3
Communications in 2007.
1983-1984:
GTE Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona
Director, Common Systems Development
As Director
of the Common Systems Development (CSD) Department, Dr. Davis had
responsibility for half of all product development in GTE Communication
Systems. This included digital
hardware, operating systems, and systems diagnostics and recovery for all
central office and PABX switching systems. CSD had a budget of over $16 million and employed 150 people.
GTE merged with Bell Atlantic in 2000 to create
Verizon.
1977-1983: GTE Laboratories, Waltham, Massachusetts
Member of Technical Staff (1977-1978)
Manager, Software Engineering Department (1978-1981)
Director, Software Technology Center (1981-1983)
As member of technical staff, Dr. Davis
developed tools for automation of software development.
As
department manager, Dr. Davis was responsible for all aspects of software
R&D and computer-aided design (CAD) R&D functions of GTE
Laboratories. The Department created automated
tools and techniques for development of software and integrated circuits
throughout GTE Corporation. Under his
leadership, the department grew from 10 to 40 people.
As Director
of Software Technology with an annual budget of $3 million, Dr. Davis directed
45 professionals exploring techniques to automate software and hardware
development. He was responsible for
long-term strategic planning in software for GTE. He also served as
Liaison to two GTE divisions: Telecomunicazioni (Milan) and Automatic Electric;
responsible for technology transfer of telecommunications, materials, software, and
components.
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