Nick Owen
Nick has been involved with Internet start-ups since 1994 when he co-founded Interweb. This Web-site design and application development firm was originally funded with less than $100,000 and was sold four years later for over $13 million. He subsequently joined Derivion (now part of Metavante, where he was Chief Operations Officer. In this capacity, he was responsible for building the Technical Operations and Account Services teams, developing and architecting the data center, as well as customer service operations.
In August of 2000 Nick co-founded iTendant, Inc. (now part of Abrahms Industries (ABRI). Using the Internet and wireless hand-held devices, iTendant provides property service and maintenance management solutions. iTendant was purchased by Abrahms Industries (ABRI) in late 2003.
Nick was also an Entrepreneur-in-residence at the ATDC. He has invested in many companies including SPI Dynamics (now part of HPE), TogetherWeb (now part of Proficient Systems), Connecture , RF Solutions (now part of Anadigics, and Servigistics . Nick earned his undergraduate degree in history from the University of Virginia. He also holds an MBA in finance and real estate from the University of Georgia. He is married with three children.
Eric Shoemaker
Eric has been working with Internet technologies professionally since 1988 when he supervised computing facilities for Academic Computing Services at Appalachian State University. After completing a bachelors degree in physics in 1990, Eric accepted a position with Atlantic Research Corporation providing consulting to the US Department of Defense. In this capacity he performed application development and maintenance on flight simulator systems at the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, N.C. In 1991, Eric relocated to Augusta, GA where he began work for Amoco Performance Products, a subsidiary of Amoco Oil, Inc. Eric designed and deployed the company's campus network and also introduced and managed a series of client/server systems.
In 1993, Eric accepted a consulting position with NationsBank in Atlanta, GA where he began work as a network integration specialist. In this role he designed and deployed distributed LANs throughout the NationsBank wide area network. In 1994, Eric began a consulting engagement with BellSouth Corporation providing networking services at the company's headquarters in Atlanta. Continuing engagements with BellSouth placed him in the positions of Strategic Information Systems Planner and Special Projects Implementer.
In 1995, Eric co-founded Professional Web Authoring; an Inter/intranet development company providing custom application solutions built on emerging Internet technologies. Professional Web Authoring merged with Interweb, Inc., an Atlanta based Internet design and communications firm in 1997. Continuing with Interweb as the Director of Research and Development, he contributed to the design of key proprietary technologies in the Internet application arena. In 1998, Think New Ideas, Inc., an international and publicly traded company, acquired Interweb. From there, he become Chief Technology Officer for Brightlane, a start-up focused on small business financial services, which was acquired by Teamstaff in 2001.
Throughout his career, Eric has helped companies leverage the power of emerging technologies to meet the needs of rapidly changing business environments. Eric has designed and deployed technology solutions for such companies as NationsBank, Amoco, BellSouth, IBM and many others. He continues to pioneer innovative solutions today as the Chief Technology Officer for WiKID Systems.
