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Voyant Executive Team
Dana R. Waldman
Chief Executive Officer
Director
Mr. Waldman has over 20 years experience building and leading businesses in the communications, signal processing, software and other technology areas. He has created and led businesses focused on government markets as well as the commercial sector in both start-up and Fortune 500 environments. He has built businesses from the ground up to over $100M in annual revenue.
Dana has served on a number of Boards of Directors and advisory boards as well as working with incubators, where he has guided entrepreneurs through launch, growth and liquidity events for their companies. Dana has also consulted for several mid- to large-cap companies on how and where to invest in new technologies and start-ups that have led to significant returns.
Dana spent 13 years in various management roles at Ford Aerospace, Loral and Lockheed Martin where he focused on creating value by developing key technology areas and then delivering value from those areas. During this time, Dana worked extensively on bridging the commercial-military technology gap and creating commercial businesses. Throughout his career, Mr. Waldman has focused on creating value from technology. He has led numerous product development efforts ranging from satellite communications systems to laptop computers to network management to medical imaging systems; and delivered valued products through a strong methodology of team building and execution. As founder and CEO of Centerpoint, he spun technology out of Lockheed Martin, raised over $200M of venture capital from leading private equity firms and created a business that was valued in excess of $1B.
Since Centerpoint, Dana formed Waldman and Associates to provide strategic services, including development of corporate strategy and business plans, interim leadership, executive mentoring, fund raising, strategic relationships and M&A. The firm works with companies ranging from early stage start-up to Fortune 100 companies. Dana has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tulane University and an MBA. He has been featured in numerous publications, including Fortune Magazine, and has appeared several times on television news networks. He is also a Trustee and an Adjunct Faculty Member at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, where he teaches MBA courses in leadership and other subjects.
W. Herschel Stiles, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Stiles has over 30 years experience leading and managing a broad spectrum of technology developments and R&D for wireless and fiber-optic hardware and systems, satellite communications systems, and remote sensing systems; including systems engineering, technology identification and technology selection. He has managed technology developments and built engineering teams in startup environments.
For the last four years, Herschel has been providing consulting services to a variety of companies, including market assessment, technology assessment, and engineering management. During this time, he has also acted as the VP of Engineering for Phasebridge, Inc., a hybrid optical packaging and technologies company targeting government technology and production contracts for FOG transceivers, RF transport over fiber and Terahertz. This activity led to an acquisition by a public company.
Herschel spent thirteen years at TRW (NGST) in various technical, systems engineering and management positions ending with Advanced Systems Manager, where he led strategic planning for communications/electronic subsystems for their core government customers, and was responsible for winning over $20M in key technology developments. Subsequently, he held various positions at two Loral companies over four years. He was Director Development and Systems Engineering for CyberStar responsible for technologies and systems to support satellite based broadband multimedia services and later, Deputy for Technology and Systems at Space Systems/Loral responsible for technology and R&D plans to support strategic positioning for future satellites and systems.
Dr. Stiles was the CTO and SVP Engineering for Centerpoint Broadband Technologies, Inc. and built an engineering team to a peak of over 250. Herschel was responsible for technology and implementation for high-speed modem products, optical sub-carrier multiplexing products, DWDM and switching/grooming products. At Centerpoint his team developed the highest-rate QAM modem available in the industry (to 1 Gbps) for an OEM application, an optical networking and transport system level product for telecom carriers that was in trials, and completed development and deployment of a carrier-class DWDM transport system. Herschel also oversaw the integration of merged engineering teams that resulted from corporate acquisitions.
Dr. Stiles has a BSEE and an MSEE from the University of Arkansas, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas, where he was an Assistant Professor for two years prior to moving to TRW.
Steffen D. Koehler, Ph.D.
Chief Marketing Officer
Dr. Steffen Koehler is a strategic marketing and business development specialist with a background in telecommunications and photonics. He has worked at many levels of the industry supply chain, from telecommunications carriers to systems suppliers to components manufacturers. In the past 12 years, he has worked with both large, established companies and technology startups.
He began his career with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and then M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrophysics from the University of Southern California. During his Ph.D. studies, and afterwards as a Visiting Scientist, he worked at the Hughes Research Laboratories. Dr. Koehler finished his academic studies with a post-doctoral research position at Princeton University.
Dr. Koehler then joined Technology Resources, Inc., the advanced technology subsidiary of SBC, where he evaluated and introduced the first generation of DWDM and 10 Gb/s transport equipment to the telephone company. Dr. Koehler then went to Ciena, where he was the Principal Systems Engineer responsible for developing the company’s first ring-based DWDM system. After developing the first release of the system, Dr. Koehler joined Ciena’s product management organization as Director of Product Management for metro products.
He then served as vice president of marketing for a series of technology startup companies, all of which were successfully acquired. These companies included Kymata (sold to Alcatel Optronics), Sparkolor (sold to Intel), Ignis Optics (sold to Bookham), and Phasebridge (sold to Emcore). At each of these companies, Dr. Koehler was responsible for setting strategic product roadmaps, overseeing tactical marketing and customer relationships, positioning the company for exit, and assisting with M&A activities.
David R. Wells
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Wells possesses over 20 years experience in finance, operations and administrative positions. While mainly focused on technology companies, he has also worked in supply-chain management, manufacturing and the professional services industry.
Most recently, Mr. Wells served as VP Finance for several firms including PowerHouse Technologies Group, Inc. and the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX.com) where he was responsible for performing internal audits, establishing appropriate financial reporting, and extending corporate governance procedures. He has experience working with auditors and regulatory agencies to rapidly address non-conforming situations and assisting companies who desire to increase their internal controls.
Mr. Wells also has cross-functional training in sales from IBM, and commercial credit experience from Bank of America, and has advised start-up companies and turnarounds of high technology firms. His background contributes real world experience in the areas of entrepreneurship and management in rapid growth situations, which encompasses a number of diverse business functions including information systems, information management, planning and forecasting, systems and controls, operations analysis, intellectual property, cash management, and organizational development in high-stress circumstances.
He earned a BA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the Seattle Pacific University, and holds an MBA from Pepperdine University.
Mark M. Laisure
Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors
President of Voyant Productions
Contributing more than 15 years of strategic and financial advisory experience, Mark M. Laisure has been a guiding force behind several major successes in technology, media and entertainment.
Mr. Laisure’s early career started in securities brokerage and investment banking, serving as a principal for both UBS PaineWebber and Shields & Company. He later experienced success as a member of the founding team of Inktomi Corporation, a leading provider of OEM Web search and paid inclusion services. Inktomi, which was acquired by Yahoo!, brought Amazon.com, eBay, HotBot, MSN, and WalMart.com as partners and customers.
Beginning in 1999, Mr. Laisure joined the team at Military Commercial Technologies, Inc. (MILCOM), a venture-backed company that conceives, creates and launches technology companies in partnership with defense contractors, commercial companies, federal laboratories and other leading-edge research and development sources. Working with MILCOM, Mr. Laisure participated in the launch and growth of several affiliate companies including Triton Network Systems, Teranex, Theseus Logic, Skycross, and Mesh Networks (now Motorola), and continues to serve on the Board of Directors. Concurrently, Mr. Laisure co-founded iNetNow, Inc. which pioneered the enhanced information delivery space and established alliances with Lycos, Telefonica and i3Mobile, and was part of the acquisition group responsible for the successful turnaround and revitalization of National Lampoon.
As a principal with the aforementioned companies, Mr. Laisure has been the recipient of numerous distinguished awards, including the R&D 100 award for the most technologically significant new product, as well as Business Week magazine's wireless product of the year and a prime-time Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development (Film and Television Processing).
Scott Fairbairn
Founder of RocketStream
Director
Mr. Fairbairn is a 20-year veteran of the technology industry. Since 1985, he has contributed to the design, development, and delivery of innovative solutions across a wide range of industries including telecom, financial services, multimedia, security, and internet commerce. From 1985 through 2005, he founded, funded, and operated four entrepreneurial startups and facilitated their successful merger through acquisition into both private and publicly traded entities. His firms have consulted and delivered technology solutions for clientele ranging from Fortune-level corporations to startups, including Ford Motor Company, Synovus Financial, Total System Services, Wachovia-First Union, Turner Broadcasting, iNetNow, Southern Company, Standard & Poors, BISYS, H&R Block, Sungard Trust Systems, iLumen, Encapsulon, and Magner Financial.
In 1996, Mr. Fairbairn founded Breakthrough Technologies, Inc. and became a recognized leader in enterprise-class rapid application development services specializing in XML-based content delivery, caching services, and data-driven internet applications. Breakthrough also incubated and developed RocketStream, a suite of technologies capable of accelerating the delivery of files and rich-media over congested networks at speeds up to 200 times faster than FTP. RocketStream is a second-generation packet delivery platform designed for fast file transfer, distributed content delivery, WAN acceleration, and real-time interactive applications.
Mr. Fairbairn has also served as a keynote speaker to the American Banker’s Association on the topics of check fraud prevention, internet technologies, and network security; provided editorial content to EDS on the topic of regulatory compliance and insider lending controls; and serves as an advisor and board member to Voyant and several ventures.
He holds a BSEE degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Ed Gerhardt
General Manager of Wireless Systems
Mr. Gerhardt has an extensive track record of engineering management and entrepreneurship, having founded successful wireless startups that were acquired by Scientific Atlanta, Comsat, and PCOM. Most recently, he was president and co-founder of Adapt4, where he developed the first cognitive radio licensed by the FCC in the US.
Mr. Gerhardt has managed engineering teams with over 250 people and design centers in the US and Europe. Products from his companies have achieved annual sales up to $40m and yielded over $700 million in revenue to date.
His engineering accomplishments include leading the development of the first VSAT, PTM, Spread Spectrum, and broadband millimeter-wave point-to-point radios. Currently, he is responsible for the development of Voyant’s wireless products and systems, including software-defined radios and RF Transceivers, for Voyant’s white space radio and aviation broadband markets.
Mr. Gerhardt holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.
Jay Elliot
General Manager of Software Products and Services
President of RocketStream
Mr. Elliot is a Silicon Valley software veteran, with more than 30 years of operations experience with such corporate giants as IBM, Intel and Apple Computer.
He served as the senior vice president of Apple Computer responsible for all corporate operations plus overall corporate business planning reporting directly to Steve Jobs. Also as a member of the Macintosh Development Team, he oversaw the software development of the Macintosh software. During his tenure at Apple, sales grew from $150 million to more than $2 billion.
After graduating from San Jose State and the University of California, Mr. Elliot joined IBM as a programmer working on the airline reservation system and moved into management in several key projects in the Disk drive development business, development of the ATM system, the Fair Transaction System and eventually managed the company’s 16,000-employee software division as the director of the IBM Santa Teresa software Laboratory. Mr. Elliot left IBM to join Intel and at Intel was the director of the California operations reporting to Intel’s CEO, Andy Grove. More recently, Mr. Elliot was the founder, chairman, and CEO of Migo Software, a pioneer of content synchronization software and a global provider of content mobility software.
In addition to his vast technology background, Mr. Elliot has extensive experience in both the entertainment and healthcare industries. He served as CEO of San Francisco Studios, where he produced the Academy-Award-nominated documentary, “Berkeley in the Sixties,” and the NBC television series, “Midnight Caller.” In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles and became the president of Acclaim Entertainment and created some very successful Hispanic TV shows that eventually helped Telemundo become competitive with Univision.
In the healthcare industry, Mr. Elliot was CEO of New Health Systems, a network technology group connecting physicians and payers to patients and affiliated hospitals. As part of New Health, he spent one year with the UCLA Medical Center and UCLA Computer Science Department helping to develop a software system for the operation of Tele-medical centers.
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