Team

The Kachingle Team is an eclectic mix of talented people from the United States, Germany and France.

Many of us previously worked together and most of us previously worked at Sun Microsystems.

• Cynthia, Fred, Andreas and Jens all previously worked at Sun Microsystems
• Andreas and Jens previously worked together at OpenGrid
• Cynthia and Yves previously worked together at GolfWeb

Cynthia Imig Typaldos

Chief Kachingler - Inventor & President

cynthia@kachingle.com Office: 408-867-8875 Mobile: 650-215-8406

See Cynthia's kachingling history Follow Cynthia on Twitter Read Cynthia's and Bunny's blog

Cynthia is a successful serial entrepreneur in social web endeavors. Her first internet venture was GolfWeb, which she co-founded despite not being a golfer. On the day of launch in January 31, 1995, GolfWeb included reader reviews of golf courses and a find a playing partner social networking service. GolfWeb became a major presence in the golf world and was acquired by CBS Sportsline in 1999. While at GolfWeb Cynthia envisioned and led the development of the GolfWeb Players Club, a subscription-based social application for golfers launched in August 1997. The Players Club had member profiles, a reputation system, integration with the golf course data base, and a sophisticated social application that allowed players to track their golf game statistics (in 20 different ways!) and compare themselves to others in groups.

Based on what she learned about social interaction at GolfWeb Cynthia founded RealCommunities, a way-too-early platform for social networking and online communities. Her 2001 manifesto on The 12 Principles of Civilization became a major white paper on defining the successful web features for online social interaction.

See also the article about the 12 Principles in Fast Company magazine, September 2000.

After doing some random consulting work in a variety of tech industries she got the idea for what is now Kachingle in 2004.

Although Cynthia has always been a technologist, not a journalist, ever since GolfWeb she felt that the content and service sites weren't getting their fair share of the revenue (or valuation) vis-à-vis search engines. Cynthia does have some experience as a journalist however a bee photo was published in the SF Chronicle, and a set of a classic articles written for GolfWeb in February 1995 at Pebble Beach:

• Ken Everett, Official Scorekeeper
• Technology in the AT&T National Pro-Am Press Room - Part A
• Technology in the AT&T National Pro-Am Press Room - Part B

Cynthia is a former director of product marketing & management, and director of standards at Sun Microsystems. She has taught courses in these subjects and online communities at the University of California Berkeley Extension. At Kachingle, she is particularly passionate about applying her knowledge and experience in creating de-facto standard platforms. Earlier in her career, she was a software developer at Bank of America.

Cynthia has a B.S. in chemistry from UC Berkeley, where she also attended graduate school in computer science, and an MBA from MIT.

Languages: American English, pathetic Spanish. Cynthia is a native Californian but has lived in Pasadena, Boston, Ivrea (Italy), Mount Vernon (MO), Panama and Silicon Valley.

Fred Dewey

Head Kachingler - CEO

fred@kachingle.com

See Fred's kachingling history Read Fred's blog

Fred is a veteran engineer, entrepreneur and executive. He started and ran several software companies, as well as worked for many successful large and small companies including Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Portal Software (now a division of Oracle), Veramark, ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) and AT&T/Convergent Technologies. Prior to becoming CEO of Kachingle, he bought an internet marketing and fulfillment company out of bankruptcy, turned it around, and handed it off to his successor.

In the 1990s, Fred was the VP of Worldwide Technical Sales at Portal Software, where he started and led a global sales engineering force that grew to 110 sales consultants in 25 countries, taking the company from $5 million to $250 million in annual revenue in just six years. He has been on the board of eight technology start-ups. He has served as an executive coach at places like Microsoft; and has been a guest speaker several times each year at the University of Rochester Simon School and the RIT College of Engineering.

Languages: American English, some French. Originally from Rochester, NY.

Sharon Minsuk

In Silico Kachingler - Director of Software Engineering

See Sharon's kachingling history

Read Sharon's In Silico blog

Sharon developed educational software and clinical data analysis software during the good old days of the Apple ][, before launching into a second career as an academic research biologist, with particular interest in embryos and evolution and in simulating life in software.

Sharon's hobbies and interests include Aikido (2nd-degree black belt) and etymology.

Sharon has a BS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from University of California, Berkeley.

Languages: American English, passable German (lived two years in Vienna, Austria), some Spanish and French and Yiddish.

Andreas Junge

Ops Kachingler - CIO

See Andreas' kachingling history

Visit Andreas' website: N6NU

Concurrent with working at Kachingle, Andreas is VP Engineering at Penguin Computing. Previously he was an engineering manager at Sun Microsystems, and Director Network Operations at OpenGrid.

Andreas hobbies include amateur radio and aviation (fixed wing and rotorcraft).

Andreas has degrees in Information Technology/Business and Administration from Staatliche Handelsschule City Norde University, Hamburg, Germany.

Languages: German (native speaker), American English. Originally from Lueneburg in Germany.

Rob Blackwelder

QA Kachingler - QA Engineer and Customer Support

See Rob's kachingling history

Rob's background is in film journalism. He spent 10 years writing self-syndicated film reviews and interviews for print, web and radio before taking a "3-month hiatus" that led to a new career as a QA and UX engineer, building from his critical-scrutiny skills and experience designing and managing the film sections of several client websites. He's previously worked for Xoom.com and Wine.com, and on other smaller web projects and start-ups. Originally from Boulder, Colorado, Rob has lived in Oakland, California for 20 years and also works part-time as a freelance editor.

Kathy Voutyras

Artist Kachingler - Website Operations Manager

See Kathy's kachingling history

Kathy handles domain name management, medallion requests and support for email marketing. She worked in an administrative capacity for one of the nation's most progressive colleges, New College of California, prior to joining the Kachingle team. A longterm member of the New College community, she handled labor relations matters for the President's Office and was Director of Alumni Relations for the College from 2002 - 2008. She received a law degree from New College's public interest law school in 1982 and a Bachelor of General Studies from Ohio University in 1971. Kathy works as an artist in her free time and has exhibited her paintings, short films, and mixed media art that moves in SF Bay Area gallery shows.

Anika Erdmann

Cool Nerd Queen Kachingler - Social Media Marketing Manager

See Anika's kachingling history

Anika was born and raised in the north of Germany. Her strength lies in social interaction and inspiration - she tends motivate those around her, and hopes to help develop a world where skills and qualifications are valued more than having friends in the right places, and where people are motivated to work not "because I get paid to do it," but "because I love to do it." She is a journalist and a graduate industrial engineer, and has studied computer science, choir singing, and social work. Prior to coming to Kachingle, Anika has worked in German national public radio and was editor of a German blog based in the Silicon Valley, among a number of other endeavors. She has lived in Germany, Netherlands and the United States, and is fluent in several languages, including German, Dutch and English.

Paul Lefrois Jr.

Financial Kachingler - CFO

Paul is a results-oriented, multi-faceted senior finance manager with an outstanding fifteen years-plus track record of financial and operational accomplishments. His previous posts include Controller at startup nanotechnology company which he helped to take public; Director of Finance for a startup stem cell research company and at three intellectual property incubator companies; and, co-founder and Vice President of Finance and Administration of a fulfillment provider.

Paul graduated from St. Bonaventure University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance. He was honored in 2008 by the Rochester Business Journal as a recipient of the prestigious Forty under 40 Award.

Jens Horstmann

Grand Poohbah Kachingler - Chairman of the Board of Directors

Jens is the VP Entertainment Technology at NCR. Previously he worked at Sun Microsystems, LSI Logic, Siemens, OpenGrid, Ensemble, DVD Play (now NCR).

Jens hobbies include piloting his own plane, photography and travel.

He has a BS & MS in EECS, University of Brauschweig, Germany and Stanford University.

Languages: German (native speaker), American English. Originally from Braunschweig in Germany.

Yves Huin

Euro Kachingler - Director Kachingle Europe

yves@kachingle.com

Yves has deep international business development experience for U.S. and European companies in software, computer services, internet and communications. He also has expertise in business engineering and internet business models, international trade, and multi cultural project management.

He worked for many years for British Petroleum (BP) and has consulted for France Telecom, Oracle, NTT, EDF, Alstom, ABB, Siemens, Thomson, and the European Union. He has also served as a Foreign Trade Advisor for the French Government.

Yves currently spends about two-thirds of his time in Paris, and one-third in the U.S. He speaks English, French and Romanian. He earned a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Ecole Centrale Lyon, and a MBA from IAE Paris.

Bunny

K9 Kachingler

See Bunny's kachingling history

Read Bunny's blog

Bunny is a former stray puppy from rural Missouri. He is a one-of-a-kind mutt, and will stay that way since he was neutered at 4 months of age. He has a rodent obsession and particularly loves to read news about squirrels and their ilk.

Additional Team Members

Of course there are additional team members in the functional areas of engineering, operations, customer care, quality assurance, product marketing and management, and finance. If you wish to contact anyone else on the team please ask Cynthia or Fred.

You can reach any of us at firstname dot lastname at kachingle dot com. General contact information in contact section.