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MHT's Michelle Lang: Local tech execs tackle the Boston Marathon
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Flash Slideshow: Mass High Tech All-Stars Thought Leadership Roundtable
On any given morning, Gabriel Helmlinger may be seen running four miles along the Charles River or through Harvard Square en route to his job as director and global head, modeling and simulation, development, at Novartis AG in Cambridge. At the end of the work day, after managing disease and drug distribution modeling, he laces up again to begin the evening commute.
An eight-mile run is all in a day’s work — and a typical Boston Marathon training day — for Helmlinger and other busy technology executives like him. Most insist that the daily push to squeeze marathon training miles into their schedules ultimately improves their productivity.
“In the morning and evening runs, I think about work, but with no clouds around my brain,” Helmlinger said. “And that’s where I have my best ideas.”
This clarity of mind drives many of the 25,000 runners who will toe the line on Monday for the 113th Boston Marathon.
At 44 years old, Yuval Ramon, vice president and chief operating officer of Elbit Systems of America LLC, an aerospace and defense firm in Merrimack, N.H., is running on behalf of a charity this year, and thinks he has his best shot on Monday of running a qualifying time, 3:20 or better, to assure him a spot in the 2010 Boston Marathon. He’s had an injury-free season training with an informal running group of local professionals, including other business executives, a psychiatrist and the director of the Swiss consulate. Ramon insists running with the group has helped him maintain perspective in a work culture focused on long hours and large executive dinners.
“We’re committed to each other,” Ramon said. “You get up on a cold morning in January, and you know your friends are waiting for each other.”
The winter training and tough qualifying standards make the Boston Marathon a suitable challenge, but for Jason Jacobs, it’s a business opportunity he couldn’t refuse.
Jacobs is the founder and CEO of FitnessKeeper Inc., a startup that makes a GPS-enabled fitness tracking device, the RunKeeper, for the iPhone. He is now documenting the formation of the RunKeeper campaign, via online video, culminating with his running of the marathon dressed as an iPhone — a marketing opportunity he stumbled into with just three weeks to train. “It’s such the right thing to do on the business side, that if I have to be a martyr, I’ll do what I have to do,” Jacobs said.
At the end of the day, the Boston Marathon just may be another item to cross off on the ambitious technology executive’s to-do list. Holland & Knight LLP partner Larry Bradley, who has run the marathon 20 times, plans to cross the finish line, hit the showers and catch up on work e-mail in the office — all before heading home for supper.
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