Friday, September 12, 2008

The Mover

Contract CFO takes on that role at Vault USA

By Jay Rizoli, Special to Mass High Tech

There are freelance writers, freelance designers, freelance programmers and freelance soldiers. Tom Trometer is something of a freelance CFO, if you will — and the new chief financial officer at data recovery provider Vault USA LLC.

Trometer brings more than 25 years of financial management experience with smaller companies, the last nine as a consulting CFO to startup companies primarily in high technology and at different stages of development. The new executive uses a development model with two components — revenue with related cost and operating cost.

“The revenue side is unique to each client depending on the nature of their product,” he said. “The operating cost is pretty similar from client to client, driven primarily by head count. Vault is a good example — from a development perspective they need a lot of help, but from a cost perspective it’s where it needs to be.”

He adds, “A number of companies have been fresh out of the box, and I haven’t spent a lot of time with them because there’s not a lot to do. Vault is closer to maturity.”

Trometer began his accounting career in Texas, before moving to Boston to join the small-business practice at Price Waterhouse. He took that experience to the role of vice president of finance at Opta Food Ingredients Inc. of Bedford in 1992, and helped raise $40 million in equity funds but left after the company went public. “I just did not enjoy being in a public company,” he said. He landed in the CFO position at CableSoft Corp., a developer of interactive television software in Burlington.

When Motorola Inc. bought CableSoft, Trometer says, it put him at “a crossroads.” With two CFO positions under his belt, “I wanted to try something on my own, so I began consulting — CFO stuff, primarily with technology-based businesses.”

Working with a limited number of clients at a time and allotting time to each company depending on need, Trometer has worked with more than 100 client companies.

“There’s been a ton of need for it, and I only wish I’d started it sooner,” he said. “I’ve met some great people. It’s been a great experience and I couldn’t be more positive about it.”

Among those people were Vault USA founder, president and CEO Thomas Gelson and chairman Allen Deary, who lured him to Vault.

All in all, Trometer notes, “I would say the highlight (of my career) was when I made the decision to do this type of work. It’s like a family, like raising children. You watch them grow and mature and become successful.”

 

Jay Rizoli is a freelance writer in Franklin.