‘I wanted to share some background information with you so you’d know a little bit about me on a personal level.

My professional credentials are available on LinkedIn:

I grew up in Newton MA, a suburb just west of Boston. My childhood memories are filled with great friends, family camping trips with my two brothers and our black lab ‘Buddy,’ and times spent playing many different sports. Throughout junior high and high school I also played clarinet and saxophone in many different venues and settings. I took lessons at the famed Berklee College of Music and I even got to play the clarinet at Boston’s Symphony Hall as part of the “American Youth Performs” orchestra. But, neither sports nor music was to be my ultimate calling.

After graduating Newton North High School I went on to Boston University (BU); initially I was a liberal arts major but ultimately I ended up at the School of Management where I majored in microeconomics. College was a blast and I met a number of people there who have become lifelong friends. While at BU, I had starring roles in a number of now classic student films but, more importantly, I found out while working through numerous Harvard Business School case studies, that I had a gift; a God-given talent for assimilating facts and data about a negative “condition” at a company and then knowing just what should be done to fix it; I was a born business consultant!

But, before embarking on my business career, I made a quick pit stop (nine months from beginning to end) at Babson College in Wellesley MA (one of the country’s top colleges for entrepreneurial studies) to get an MBA in accounting. The dream of many of my fellow accounting students was to be hired by Arthur Andersen & Co. (Remember this was 1977!) and I was one of the lucky few who were able to make this dream a reality.

At Arthur Andersen, which was at that time a single company with a separate audit, tax and consulting division, I got myself into a unique position as a combo Audit Manager and Personal Computer (PC) Specialist. I fondly remember conducting PC training classes throughout New England for company executives who wanted to learn how to use VisiCalc, dBase and WordStar on their $10,000 PCs with 10k of memory and 2 floppy disk drives. Throughout my five-year career with Arthur Andersen, my love for PC technology grew and ultimately this love along with my broadcast industry (TV & Radio) business expertise led to my departure from the firm in 1982.

For the next four years, as I moved from Boston to San Francisco, then Atlanta and finally Denver, I became one the foremost experts in the use of PCs within the broadcast industry. Along the way, I completed consulting engagements for several large companies, (including Tribune Broadcasting, The Washington Post, New England Broadcasting and Cox Communications) and while working for the #1 provider of “traffic” systems (the system that manages a broadcaster’s commercial time slot inventory), I designed a variety of very well-received PC-based business solutions.

However, not long after settling in Denver, my entrepreneurial spirit got the better of me and I went off on my own. My first company sold multi-user financial systems to small and mid-sized enterprises and my second company ventured into DOS and UNIX-based Contact Management Systems; (Does anyone out there remember how great those DOS versions of TeleMagic, ACT! and GoldMine were?)

So there I was at the beginning of 1990 as one of the first full-time dedicated Sales Force Automation (SFA) business consultants; all of my consulting skills were now being tested “to the max.

After 5 years of learning the dos and don’ts of SFA, many of my clients began realizing significant profit improvements as a result of our work together. When word got around of our mutual successes, I was recognized by “Reseller Management” magazine as one of the top SFA consultants in the country. Unfortunately many others weren’t as successful with SFA so, partly for image enhancement, the industry morphed itself into what today is known as Customer Relationship Management, CRM.

In 2000 I was ready for another change. During 1999 and 2000 I had developed a great deal of interest in business intelligence/analytics technology. From 2000 through 2003 as the CRM Practice Leader and Senior Analytic CRM Product Manager with SPSS, Inc., I headed up a team that designed, developed and launched a mid-market analytic CRM solution; the “Customer Focus Suite”. This truly unique system measures, monitors, analyzes and predicts customer value, loyalty and retention. In 2001, the Customer Focus Suite was hailed by a senior IBM executive as one of the best analytic CRM solutions that he’d ever seen.

So where has all of these life experiences led me? Well, let’s see! I’m passionate about CRM. I love applying technology to marketing, sales and customer service issues. I totally believe in the power of being customer-focused and I take great pride on being able help my clients succeed.

On a more personal note, I’m a direct, high energy individual who is always learning and who, after almost 30 years away from the Northeast, still hasn’t totally lost his Boston accent. I scour the Internet for information of interest on a daily basis and get a lot of satisfaction in sharing my knowledge as a consultant, coach and mentor.

I hope this bio has given you a little insight into who I am and how my experiences may be of value to you. So, if you believe that I can be of any assistance to you with your CRM initiative, I hope you’ll get in touch with me. I pride myself on following up with everyone who seeks to communicate with me.