Ron's career spans over thirty years of executive responsibilities mostly in information technology, with broad experience in both domestic and international operations. Since the late 1980's he has been mostly involved with start-up, emerging market and high growth operations. As a co-founder and CEO of LaViaz, Ron leads the management team providing direction, counsel and assistance wherever needed, and is the primary business development resource.

Early in his career he held increasingly responsible field sales positions including branch, district and regional management responsibilities with Honeywell Information Systems and Harris Communications Division. Later, Ron had national responsibility for Sales, Systems and Support groups of over 250 professionals for Pertec Computer and AST Research.

Yielding finally to his entrepreneurial nature, in 1987 Ron founded Princeton Grant Consulting, a Sales and Marketing Management Consultantancy to computer and communications hardware, software, and service companies. Frequently, his assignments entailed functioning as a general manager, vice president or director of the client company. Some of his personal clients included Compaq Computer, Bell Atlantic, C. Itoh, Fujitsu, Lockheed and Western Digital. Most recently, and before co-founding LaViaz, Ron was the Executive Vice President for a start-up equipment leasing company.

Ron has a BS in Psychology and Business from Western Michigan University and a Masters Degree in Psychology from Michigan State University.

Steve Pieper is a co-founder of LaViaz. He brings to the Company over twenty-five years of experience in the technology industry. At LaViaz, Steve works directly with the Chief Executive Officer in determining the direction of the Company. He also has primary responsibility for marketing, product management, deployment, and customer service.

Steve began his career with Pioneer Standard Electronics in Indianapolis, Indiana. He transferred with Pioneer to Houston where he opened their new office as the Operations Manager. In Houston, Steve recognized the power of networked personal computers and opened a successful systems integration company focusing on the healthcare and education marketplace.

After becoming one of Microsoft’s most successful integrators in Houston, Steve joined that Company in 1993. He worked for Microsoft for ten years in Houston and Indianapolis. At Microsoft, Steve held a number of sales and technical positions including the Worldwide Account Manager for Exxon Corporation and Managing Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services. At Microsoft Consulting Services, he focused on showing enterprise customers how to successfully use technology to drive business value and reduce cost. He retired from Microsoft in 2002 and was involved in new business ventures until co-founding LaViaz.

Steve holds a marketing degree from Indiana University.

Bill brings nearly 30 years experience in the petrochemicals industry with BP Amoco to LaViaz. This includes fourteen years in Research & Development, including eight years in R&D management, and fifteen years in various business and commercial assignments. His business experience includes positions in operations planning, logistics, product management, business management, business development and marketing.

Bill holds two patents and has engineering degrees from Clarkson University (B.S.) and from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (M.S., Ph.D.).

Derek is responsible for database design and development, web application implementatons and integrations, and is the author of our Content Management System product the LaViaz Mobile Connector.

Within college, Derek became a full-time web developer at ArvinMeritor's corporate office. Eventually his responsibilities grew to manage a team of employees that worked in India. During his time at ArvinMeritor, he was responsible for the development and management of very large web applications both internally and externally.

After working at ArvinMeritor Derek went on to become the Director of WebIT at Mediasauce. His role was to manage and lead his team in all areas of I.T. including hardware and software resources, personnel, web development, integration, and implementation.

Derek's strong skill set, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit have proven to be a timely addition to the companies professional resources.

Derek graduated with a BS from Indiana University Bloomington within the school of Business with a specializtion in Computer Information Systems, and International Studies. Derek has also spent many years studying Asian culture including the Janapenese language.

Chris brings his over 20 years of software engineering and design experience to our team. His career has followed his passion for integrating great user experience with web application technologies.

Chris began his software career designing interfaces for gas pump credit card terminals and DMV kiosks for auto registrations. Soon after, he began pursuing his interest in the then-new Macintosh platform, where beautiful interface design was evident. This led him to Siemens Medical Systems, where he designed Macintosh client applications.

With the advent of the World Wide Web, in 1997 Chris's talents as a Macintosh developer led to responsibility for development of the MacEddy award-winning web server applications NetCloak and NetForms. After that, his interface design experience and web application experience took him to Ameritech, where he designed a Java-based web app providing a unified interface to the legacy inventory control systems of its merged Bell companies. He returned to the medical industry in 2000 to develop web applications for Fuji Medical Systems, and then worked for McGraw-Hill redesigning web app user interfaces.

The release of the iPhone SDK reignited Chris's passion for user interface development on Apple's hot new platform, and he has quickly established himself as a key technical resource on the LaViaz team.

Chris has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman, and an MBA from Northwestern University.