StrikeIron Management Team

David Linthicum

CEO

As CEO, Dave is responsible for driving the company's leadership position as the frontrunner in delivering critical Web services and data, on demand, for the emerging Internet. Prior to StrikeIron, Dave was the CEO of the Linthicum Group, LLC, a leading think tank in the area of enterprise architecture and use of next generation Internet. Moreover, Dave was the CTO of Mercator Software and has held key management roles with a number of organizations including CTO of SAGA Software, Mobil Oil, EDS, AT&T, and Ernst and Young.

Dave was also an associate professor of computer science for eight years, and continues to lecture at major technical colleges and universities. Dave keynotes at many leading technology conferences, and has several well read columns and blogs. Dave has authored 10 books, 3 which were best sellers, including the ground breaking books “Enterprise Application Integration” and “B2B Application Integration.”

In addition to his entrepreneurial leadership Dave is an internationally known application integration, service oriented architecture (SOA), and Web 2.0 visionary. In his career David has assisted in the formation of many of the ideas for modern distributed computing including EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and B2B application integration, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and synergies between existing enterprises and the emerging Web, approaches and technologies in wide use today. Read Dave's Blog

Bob Brauer

President and Co–Founder

Bob Brauer is the visionary behind StrikeIron with a zeal for exploiting new technologies to create exciting products and services. As President, he is responsible for StrikeIron’s product vision and strategy, as well as providing an integrated direction of sales, marketing, and technology.

Prior to StrikeIron, Mr. Brauer was the founding Chief Executive Officer for the DataFlux Corporation, an innovative database management software company launched in 1996, financed by the Aurora Funds and several private investors, and acquired by SAS Institute in June of 2000. Prior to DataFlux, Mr. Brauer was a software engineer with Seer Technologies.

Mr. Brauer is a frequent guest speaker at software industry technology conferences and has appeared as an author in several industry publications, including Web Services Journal and Webservices.org. In 2004, Mr. Brauer received the Triangle Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Leadership Award. He was nominated for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2001 and 2004, and was chosen to the Research Triangle area’s Impact 100 presented by Business Leader magazine. Mr. Brauer holds a B.S. in Computer Science from The Ohio State University. Read Bob's Blog

David Motsinger

Chief Technical Officer

David Motsinger leads the design and development of the Web Services Marketplace with a focus on making systems easier to use and scalable to the industry. As Chief Technology Officer, he manages a team of developers that is responsible for all aspects of product development, delivery and post sales technical support.

A serial entrepreneur with over 20 years experience, Mr. Motsinger was a co-founder and former CTO of Covelight Systems. Prior to co-founding Covelight, Mr. Motsinger was President and CEO of GadgetSpace, a wireless application infrastructure software company that he co-founded in 1999 and sold to InPhonic in 2001. He was also Director of Business Development for HAHT software, was Director of Software Development for Relativity Technologies, and held senior software engineering positions at Versata (VATA). Mr. Mostinger holds a B.S. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University.

Brett Farabaugh

Chief Financial Officer

As Chief Financial Officer for StrikeIron, Brett oversees the financial direction for all the company's operations. Prior to StrikeIron, he was the Vice President, Finance and served as the chief financial officer for Icoria, Inc. (formerly Paradigm Genetics, Inc.), a publicly traded biotech company that was sold to Monsanto in 2005.

Mr. Farabaugh has a diverse background in working with entrepreneurial companies in both the public and private arenas. He was the former Vice President of Finance for Nuada Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to joining Nuada Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Farabaugh served for 12 years in various positions at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), most recently as Senior Manager – Global Technology Industry Group. Mr. Farabaugh’s experience includes financial management, analysis and reporting, initial public offerings and other exit strategies, extensive due diligence related to investment and acquisitions and fundraising in both the public and private markets. In addition, Mr. Farabaugh was the technical director, editor and contributing author of the benchmarking study Financial Operating Ratios for Software Companies, 1997-98, published by Culpepper and Associates. Mr. Farabaugh earned his degree in Accounting from the University of Virginia.

Bryan Holjes

VP Sales

Mr Holjes leads StrikeIron's strategy for getting data into the enterprise. He has over 15 years of experience in strategic marketing and sales management. Prior to joining StrikeIron, Bryan held executive sales and marketing positions with several successful technology startup companies, including Accipiter, an Internet Ad Management company, Alerts,Inc., an alerting infrastructure company where he was responsible for creating high profile relationships with companies such as Glaxo, Pfizer, CBSMarketwatch and CNNSI.

Prior to Alerts, he led the sale of enterprise software development tools to companies such as EDS, USAA, Chevron and WorldCom for RogueWave Software. Before that he was at ArcaMax, Inc. where he helped lead the growth from pre-revenue to more than $7 million in annual sales.

Richard Holcomb

Chairman of the Board and Co–Founder

Richard Holcomb is responsible for the entrepreneurial vision and drive behind StrikeIron. Mr. Holcomb has 20 years of experience and is widely respected as a software industry leader and visionary.

Mr. Holcomb is a serial entrepreneur in the Research Triangle Park area and prior to founding StrikeIron in 2002 he served as the Interim CEO of GadgetSpace, a wireless technology company, and oversaw its successful acquisition by Inphonic in 2001. He was a founder of HAHT Commerce in 1995, a major e–commerce application provider, and served as HAHT’s first CEO and Chairman. Prior to HAHT, he was a founder of Q+E Software in 1986, a supplier of client–server database access technology, and served as that company’s CEO, president, and chairman from inception to its acquisition by Intersolv in 1994.

Mr. Holcomb is an active venture investor in several technology companies. He also serves on the corporate boards of several public and private technology companies including Neon Systems, ChannelAdvisor, IITS, and Ultimus.

Mr. Holcomb has served on several public advisory boards including the NCSU Graduate School Board of Advisors, the North Carolina Electronics and Information Technology Association (NCEITA), the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), NCSU Engineering Entrepreneur’s Program Advisory Board, and is a former appointed member of the North Carolina Information Resource Management Commission (IRMC).

During his career, Mr. Holcomb has won several awards including the 1993 Ernst and Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year for North Carolina and the 1996 Business Leader Top Gun Entrepreneur of the Year. Mr. Holcomb received a B.S. from the University of South Carolina and an M.S. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University.