Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
Cable, telecom companies see net neutrality battle
MHT's Galen Moore: Charity reseller takes sting out of overpriced tickets
Innerscope Research sensor vest tests biometric response to visual aids
Who he is: CEO, Witricity Corp., where he’s having fun demonstrating the company’s wireless electrical power technology for computers and other devices.
Track record: Chairman and CEO of Groove Mobile until its acquisition by Live Mobile Inc. in 2008. Best known as founder and CEO of Brooktrout Inc., which in 1984 launched a voicemail system for use in AT&T Merlin phones after the AT&T divestiture, and IPO’d in 1992.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and music, Carnegie Mellon University; MBA from Harvard Business School.
Favorite accomplishment: “Starting a company from three people and running the business for 20-plus years at each stage of growth, from concept through raising money to growing the business through profitability and taking care of our constituents. You take care of your customers and employees; if you do a good job there, the stockholders tend to be happy.”
The accidental CEO: “I was asked to join the board at Groove Mobile, become the chairman and mentor a CEO that the company had recruited. It was going to be a one-day-a-week kind of thing. But the CEO they recruited never came, so they asked if I could step into the full-time CEO role.”
Good times: “Groove Mobile was much more of an entertainment company than a tech company. Probably the most fun was getting to take my 14-year-old daughter to the Grammy’s in Los Angeles.”
Down time: “Between jobs, I had six months off each time. I used that time to be with my family, and I traveled around on my motorcycle quite a bit. I also went to Antarctica; I flew with a friend.”
Mentors: “I would put Ray Stata (Analog Devices Inc.) and Alex d’Arbeloff (Teradyne Inc.) at the top ... entrepreneurs who started their businesses and ran them for a very long period of time and grew with their businesses.”
High school days: “I sort of knew I was entrepreneurially focused. When I was 12 years old, I had my first business.”
Where is he going? “Witricity is the most fun I’ve had in my life. Fundamentally the world is changing. … Imagine, if you will, that you won’t need wires or batteries anymore.”
On Eric Giler, from Brooke Tunstall:
Brooke Tunstall was director of corporate planning for AT&T Corp. during the firm’s divestiture. He served with Giler on Brooktrout’s board for 15 years.
What makes Giler tick?
“It was a wonderful experience working with him from beginning to end. He’s a very gifted leader, respected by his workers. He has an incredible ability to cut through tech talk. Time after time in shareholder meetings he would hold the audience in rapt attention. He also was able to be one of the gang but still maintain the respect of his workers. He was a very generous guy in terms of health care and bonuses. There were a lot of tears on the table when he felt compelled to sell the company.”
If he chose to do something else, he would...
“I don’t know that I would want him to run a GM or anything because he has this touch with people. I think he is doing exactly what he wants to do.”
RSS Feeds
Comments
Please Login/Register to post comments.
No comments have been added or approved.