Executive Biographies
Jim Frohlich, President and CEO
Jim Frohlich has over 28 years of professional experience including 17 years with IBM in advanced manufacturing technologies (robotics/automation), research and development, sales and marketing, large account management, software program development, and professional services. Jim served for five years as the CIO of Forest City Trading Group, a privately held $3B lumber wholesale company, and since August 2003 has served as Safetec’s President and CEO. Jim has extensive enterprise account experience, working on IBM’s Boeing account team and providing senior technology expertise to IBM Seattle’s sales team. He was promoted to lead development manager in a joint IBM/Boeing development center responsible for building Object Oriented software technologies/products to support Boeing’s 777 program. As CEO of Safetec Jim has led the transition to a Software as a Service (SaaS) business model, put in place an enterprise sales strategy, and recruited an expert executive team while also becoming a key subject matter expert for the Company and teaming with sales to close Fortune 1000 accounts. Jim holds a BSME (Summa Cum Laude) and MSEE (Magna Cum Laude) from the University of Arizona.
Duane Burkett, Founder and Chairman
Duane Burkett has 20 years of executive experience, including 15 years in the specialty field of environmental, health and safety technology. Duane’s focus has been on business management, strategic planning, enterprise level technology implementations and business analysis. Duane has an extensive start-up background as the co-founder of Geneva Data Systems and Eclipse Software. He has held various executive management positions including CEO, COO, VP of Sales and VP of Marketing.
Paul Burkett, President/CTO
Paul Burkett has over 20 years of software architecture and development experience. He has held senior and executive positions with several diverse companies, including 5 years as the Senior Microsoft Architect for Forest City Trading Group, a $3 billion lumber wholesaler. During his tenure at Forest City Paul was instrumental in architecting, designing and implementing custom ERP, CRM, transportation, and financial modules as well evaluating numerous core ERP packages including Lawson Software, JD Edwards, SAP, and Oracle, and ultimately integrating specialized applications with generic ERP/CRM/business analytic toolsets. Paul’s technical acumen extends to all facets of information systems design and implementation. His balance of technical innovation and business pragmatism allows him to build optimal solutions at exceptionally low cost profiles.
Dave Bundy, CFO
Dave Bundy began providing consulting services to the Company in 2005 and joined as Safetec’s CFO in 2006. He has over 25 years of experience in the finance, business development, operational, and administrative functions of large and emerging growth technology companies. Recent experience includes financial leadership, strategic planning, and business acquisition activities, as well as promoting and closing the IPO of OrCAD, Inc. while serving as CFO, VP of finance and corporate secretary from 1989 to 1999. After growing its revenue from $8M to $50M, OrCAD sold its assets to Cadence Design Systems in 1999, and Dave served from 1999 to 2002 as VP of finance for the $150M Cadence PCB Systems Division and then the $400M Cadence Systems Solutions Business. Dave holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Oregon State University and an MBA from Portland State University. He is an emeritus member of the board of directors of the Software Association of Oregon.
Kim Peterson, CHMM, Director of Environmental, Health & Safety
Kim Peterson has worked in the realm of environmental, health and safety for her entire 12 year career. Kim started out working as an environmental consultant assisting manufacturing companies with environmental compliance issues, as well as conducting Phase I and Phase II ESAs on behalf of various banks and law firms to assess the environmental liabilities and potential risks when acquiring properties or securing financing for various business deals. Kim then moved into the manufacturing arena and worked as the Director of Environmental Compliance for Graphic Packaging International (GPI) where she was responsible for the development and implementation of a corporate strategic initiative to ensure that the company met and exceeded compliance standards with Federal, State and local environmental laws and regulations for over 70 locations in North America. Additionally, her responsibilities also included EHS compliance auditing, interfacing with agency inspectors, negotiating NOVs, conducting due diligence on company acquisitions, and reporting (e.g. Title V annual emissions, compliance certifications, DMRs, SPCC plans, SWPPP plans, safety metrics, accident investigation, logout tag out programs, PIV programs, hazcom). Kim also successfully created an internal sustainability metrics tool to quantify natural resource consumption and implemented an electronic EHS task management system at GPI. She has been a key-note environmental compliance and sustainability speaker for organizations such as the Clean Tech conference and the law firm of Winston & Strawn, as well as an internal EHS trainer for GPI. Kim currently holds an MS in Environmental Management & Sustainability from the Illinois Institute of Technology and is a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager (CHMM).
Dr. U.N. Umesh, Advisor
Dr. Umesh has practical experience with a wide variety of entrepreneurial and start-up companies. His expertise is in the area of marketing, with a focus on Internet marketing, start up companies, financing and entrepreneurship. He has published articles in many publications including The Wall Street Journal, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Marketing Letters, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Psychology and Marketing, Decision Sciences, Sociological Methods & Research, Journal of Business Research, Psychometrika, and the Journal of Forecasting. He has presented papers at a number of national and international conferences sponsored by the American Marketing Association, Association for Consumer Research, Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences, and the Academy of Marketing Science. Dr. Umesh is a professor at Washington State University. He reviews papers for the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Journal of Business Venturing.
