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Company
Executive Team
Ronald Willis
President and Chief Executive Officer
As president and CEO of CipherOptics, Ron Willis builds on a twenty-year career focused on executing successful business ventures through sales, marketing, business and management leadership positions in information technology and networking markets. With a keen understanding of how technology can be used to drive business growth and innovation, Willis provides the vision and direction to the CipherOptics team, ensuring that customers around the globe are armed with the products and services they need to deploy scalable and manageable data protection solutions enterprise-wide.
Formerly the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Cisco, where he directed key programs including the development of secure, high-speed Internet and intranet access from public access facilities, Willis comes to CipherOptics with the knowledge and firsthand experience that networking and security can change the way businesses operate and grow. Willis joined Cisco through the acquisition of Aironet Wireless Communications, where he was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. While at Aironet, Willis observed that a lack of objective security application was thwarting the success of global businesses a belief that has now become the cornerstone of CipherOptics' industry commitment and product development direction.
Willis sees himself at the helm of a dynamic team working to protect data at its most fundamental and critical level, enabling organizations to support business processes with a strong but unobtrusive security. Under Willis' leadership, CipherOptics is changing the way businesses apply security to manage the complex business processes they face today, and will face tomorrow.
Dennis Toothman
Co-founder, Chief Technical Officer and Senior Vice President of Engineering
Dennis Toothman co-founded CipherOptics after a 30-year career that spanned software and hardware engineering experience with multi-billion dollar corporations and start-up organizations, where he developed and pioneered innovative high-technology products. With considerable project management and planning experience in the fields of ATM, communications and security, Toothman drives product innovation at CipherOptics, developing the high-performance solutions enterprises need for protecting data in motion.
Over the course of his career, Toothman has spent considerable time in the field talking to customers and translating their business needs into viable, market-changing technology solutions. As Vice President of Engineering for Celotek, a high-speed encryption company, Toothman re-engineered the technology and successfully shipped a high-speed encryption product, positioning the company for acquisition by Cylink in August 2000. Additional senior management positions with NCR and Netlink (acquired by Cabletron), Tri-Data Systems, Nortel Networks and Connectware, an ATM company, contributed to Toothman's vast industry experience and drove his move into wide-area-network communications and IP.
Recognizing the importance of performance latency issues, Toothman founded CipherOptics with a commitment to solving real-world problems for customers with a solution that would combine ease of installation with robust AES encryption capabilities to outperform router and firewall add-on solutions in price, performance and network transparency. With endorsement and validation from government test laboratories, OEMs and a growing customer base, Toothman has delivered on this vision as global enterprises around the world benefit from CipherOptics data protection gateways.
Toothman is a frequent contributor to industry publications, including Communications News and has been an IEEE member for over 33 years. Graduating Magna Cum Laude from West Virginia University, Toothman holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering. He has also done graduate work specializing in operating systems and communication systems at West Virginia University and University of South Carolina.
Richard A. Schell
Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Operations
CFO and Senior Vice President of Operations, Rick Schell builds on an extensive career that includes 21 years in auditing and 14 years focused exclusively on financial management. During this time, Schell has gained first hand insight on what it takes to run a successful company and applies his strategic counsel to drive and communicate CipherOptics' financial performance and market growth. Schell brings a unique combination of experience to his role at CipherOptics with a career that spans financial management positions at small entrepreneurial companies including Naviant, NetByTel, Inc. and Daleen Technologies, to serving as a partner with Big 8 firm KPMG Peat Marwick, where he ran the financial services and manufacturing practices. Schell also served as the primary recruiter and taught national training courses for that firm.
Schell is a graduate of Western Kentucky University and has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1973. He has also served as the President of the Nashville Chapter of Tennessee Society of CPA's, a Board member and an officer of the statewide organization.
Jim Doherty
CMO and Sr. Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Marketing
Jim Doherty brings to CipherOptics 17 years of engineering and marketing experience across a broad range of networking and communication technologies. Focusing on message simplification and marketing execution, Jim leads the CipherOptics marketing strategy, direction and personnel.
Prior to joining CipherOptics, Jim held leadership positions with Symbol Technologies, Cisco Systems and Ericsson Mobile Phones. Jim's marketing experience includes leading vertical marketing and technology solution teams. He has lead marketing campaigns on several technologies including Security, IP Telephony, Routing and Switching.
Doherty is the co-author of the "Networking Simplified" series of books from Cisco Press, which includes the titles Cisco Networking Simplified, Home Networking Simplified, and several other titles. Jim is a former Marine Corps Sergeant. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from N.C. State University and an MBA from Duke University.
Scott Palmquist
Senior Vice President of Product Management
Scott Palmquist has extensive experience in developing and implementing large-scale, mission-critical network systems. Before joining CipherOptics, Palmquist directed market education for Cisco's Mobile Wireless Group and led the team evangelizing convergence of IBM SNA and Cisco IP networking. Before joining Cisco, Palmquist held key management positions at several information technology industry companies, including McDATA Corporation, NCR Corporation and Sperry Defense Systems.
At CipherOptics, Palmquist leads the development team delivering high speed network security. Palmquist received his BA in Business, from the University of St. Thomas in 1983. He currently serves as the co-chair of the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA) Defense and Security committee and served on the Fibre Channel Industry Association board of directors in 1999.
Rod Starrett
Chief Security Architect and Senior Vice President of Technical Services
Rod Starrett has over 30 years experience in data networking and security in technical, marketing and sales roles. Prior to joining CipherOptics, he helped develop Cisco's Internet content strategy for service providers and led the delivery of Cisco's first content offerings. In earlier product management roles at Cisco, Mr. Starrett was responsible for product strategy and development of IBM SNA/IP migration solutions. Prior to Cisco, Mr. Starrett was the Director of Sales at Netlink, Inc. where he led an international sales team, including technical sales and business development. Prior to Netlink, he held a number of product development and engineering management roles in startups in the Raleigh, NC area.
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