Vocollect | Senior Management

Senior Management

Roger G. Byford, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Al Turnauer, Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Service
Vaughn Dempster, Chief Financial Officer
Donna Mastandrea, Vice President, Operations
Rakesh Thapar, Vice President, Engineering
Tim Eusterman, Vice President, Business Development (Americas & Asia Pacific)
Gary S. Glessner, Vice President and Managing Director of European Operations
Gary Oldham, Vice President of North American Sales
Henry Wright, Senior Director of Marketing and New Ventures
Larry Sweeney, Founder and Chief Customer Advocate

Roger Byford
Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Roger Byford is Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. Mr. Byford’s career spans more than 20 years in the industrial application of voice technologies.

Since the company’s inception in 1987, Mr. Byford has held many roles in the company. Prior to assuming the role of Chief Executive Officer in 2007, he held positions including Chief Operating Officer, the first President of Vocollect Healthcare Systems, Vocollect’s new venture into the healthcare arena. He also served as Vocollect’s Chief Executive Officer from the company’s founding in 1987 until 2001. He was Vocollect’s Chief Technology Officer, in charge of all aspects of the design and engineering of Vocollect Voice offerings, from 2001 until 2004.

Prior to joining Vocollect, he was a member of the senior management team at Westinghouse Voice Systems, which was known for pioneering work in voice technology applications. He also worked for Westinghouse’s corporate Research and Development Center, where he collaborated to develop a voice-based access control system for apartment building elevators.

Mr. Byford resides in the Pittsburgh area. He holds one United Kingdom and three U.S. patents, and earned his M.A. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cambridge University.

Al Turnauer
Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Service

Al Turnauer is Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Service with Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. In this role he has executive responsibility for the company’s global direct and indirect sales and support operations. Prior to this role, he held the role of Vice President of Sales in charge of Vocollect’s North American direct sales operation. He has over 30 years of sales and executive management experience with various technology companies.

Mr. Turnauer came to Vocollect most recently from two Chicago-area start-up companies in e-commerce and wireless systems management. In 2001, as Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Callisto Software, he was instrumental in growing sales revenues by 250 percent over the previous year. As Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Mercantec, an e-commerce internet software provider, Mr. Turnauer increased license activation by more than 200 percent and developed an international market strategy that resulted in major wins.

Previously, he spent five years at Symbol Technologies (now Motorola) as Vice President of the central area. Mr. Turnauer rapidly grew the central area to more than $100 million in sales during his tenure, making it Symbol's leading region. He also implemented what became Symbol's major account sales training program.

A resident of Naperville, Ill., Mr. Turnauer holds a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University and an MBA from Keller Graduate School in Chicago.

Vaughn Dempster
Chief Financial Officer

Vaughn Dempster is Chief Financial Officer at Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work®. In this capacity, he is responsible for the company’s accounting and finance, human resources and information services functions. He has more than 20 years of finance, accounting, information technology, human resources and executive management experience in a wide range of industries.

Before joining Vocollect in early 2000, Mr. Dempster was a senior consultant and group manager for American Management Services, a management consulting firm that provides operational and financial assistance to small and mid-sized companies in the in the eastern United States. The company's clients included both service and product-based firms in a wide variety of high tech and traditional industries.

Previously, he was chief financial officer at Innovative Solutions & Support, a manufacturer of digital electronic instrumentation for the aerospace industry. Before that he was corporate controller, responsible for all finance and accounting functions at Tetra Laval, Inc., a leading manufacturer of mechanical separation equipment for industrial, municipal and power generation markets.

Mr. Dempster resides in the Pittsburgh area. He holds a B.S. degree in finance from Penn State University.

Donna Mastandrea
Vice President, Operations

Donna Mastandrea is Vice President – Operations with Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. She is responsible for overall leadership of the company’s global supply chain, assembly, order fulfillment, global repair and facilities management. Her functional oversight responsibilities include customer service, production planning, materials management, purchasing, production, manufacturing engineering, repair and facilities.

She joined the Vocollect organization in 2003 as Customer Service Manager. In 2006 she was promoted to Senior Manager of Demand Fulfillment. She received her promotion to Vice President in 2007. Prior to joining Vocollect, she held a variety of customer service and planning managerial roles with Marconi Communications, Inc., a Pittsburgh area telecommunications firm. She also held multiple roles culminating in Division Planning Manager with Westinghouse Electro-Mechanical Division, also in Pittsburgh.

Rakesh Thapar
Vice President, Engineering

Rakesh Thapar is Vice President, Engineering with Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. In this role, he has executive responsibility for hardware and software development, quality assurance (QA), technical publications, project management and custom system development.

Mr. Thapar’s career spans over 20 years in engineering leadership and academia in the United States and India. He served as technical director of the ATM Consortium at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab in Durham, N.H., a cooperative research and testing environment, and from there was hired into Fore Systems, which became Marconi, where he managed and directed its QA and software development teams. He then led a team of nearly 150 that developed what was, at the time, one of the largest, fastest ATM network switches. He next served as Vice President of Engineering with two high tech start-up companies, and held a leadership role with Network Appliance, Inc., a network storage and data management company. Mr. Thapar also founded and worked in a high-tech company in India from 1987-1994.

Augmenting his business career, Mr. Thapar has been an adjunct faculty member with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh since May of 2005, also serving in 2004 as Assistant Dean with CMU’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. He was also an Associate Professor for Computer Science and Engineering at IIT-Roorkee (India) from 1987-1994 and an adjunct faculty member with Boston University and Northeastern University from 1983-1994.

He holds a Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from Boston University, an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., and a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Roorkee (IIT-Roorkee) in India.

Tim Eusterman
Vice President, Business Development

Tim Eusterman is Vice President – Business Development with Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. In this capacity, he has executive responsibility for corporate channel strategy and developing and managing the company’s network of resellers and supply chain systems integrators in the Americas and Asia Pacific. Mr. Eusterman has held multiple executive leadership positions at Vocollect in marketing, product management and business development. His contributions have included development of product and market strategy, strategic product development alliances, global reseller channel programs, and a variety of broad international market development programs. Mr. Eusterman is a director of the Vocollect subsidiary in Japan.

Prior to joining Vocollect, Mr. Eusterman served as Vice President of Product Marketing for Telxon Corporation, the number two global provider of wireless mobile industrial handheld computers, wireless LANs and advanced imaging data capture devices, with over $350 million in annual revenues.

Mr. Eusterman also held multiple senior leadership roles in software product management, marketing and sales at Zebra Technologies, the world's leading provider of specialty bar code label printing systems. During his tenure, Zebra grew from $185 million to over $400 million in annual revenues.

Mr. Eusterman began his career in product and international marketing roles at Spectra-Physics (now Datalogic), the global leader and pioneer in fixed barcode scanning systems. He holds a B.A. degree from Oregon State University and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

Gary S. Glessner
Vice President and Managing Director of European Operations

Gary Glessner is Vice President and Managing Director of European Operations with Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. In this capacity, he is responsible for expanding the company’s presence and brand awareness throughout Europe, growing its network of resellers and supply chain performance experts, and increasing opportunities for Vocollect Voice in newer geographic markets of the world, including the Middle East and Africa. He is based in the company’s European headquarters office close to London’s Heathrow Airport.

Gary joined Vocollect in September 2002 as a Business Development Director based in Atlanta. In that role, he managed Vocollect’s relationships with some of its largest North American based global partners who helped to fuel Vocollect’s growth from $30 million to over $110 million over the past five years. In the process, he has worked extensively with Vocollect’s headquarters, EMEA and APAC teams, and helped to shape some of the global channel models in place today.

His career spans 25 years of progressive experience in sales and general management roles with both large and small entrepreneurial companies: General Electric – Robotics & Vision Systems, Hewlett-Packard – Computer Products, Comark, Abaco Mobile and Element K.

He holds both a B.S. degree in Engineering and a B.A. degree in Economics from Swarthmore College and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Gary Oldham
Vice President of North American Sales

Gary Oldham is Vice President for the North American sales operation of Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. In this capacity, he is responsible for sales and professional services for Vocollect clients in North America. Prior to his promotion to this role in 2007, from 2003 to 2007 he was the Regional Sales Manager for Vocollect’s western sales operation, overseeing sales efforts in 11 Western U.S. states and three western provinces of Canada.

Mr. Oldham’s career spans 28 years of leadership in international and domestic sales management for the North American and Asian markets for companies including Esso Eastern and Wang Laboratories. Prior to joining Vocollect, he served as Regional Sales Manager at Cisco Systems, where he led the company’s sales efforts in the automotive marketplace, a $100 million operation. Mr. Oldham also held senior leadership roles at Symbol Technologies including Vice President, Channel Management and Business Development, leading the transition from a predominately direct selling model to a blended indirect model, with indirect revenue of $135 million.

A resident of Castle Rock, Colorado, he holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Guam.

Henry Wright
Senior Director of Marketing and New Ventures

Henry Wright is Senior Director of Marketing and New Ventures at Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. An experienced strategic leader with over 20 years of experience in market, industry, and product-focused companies in software, product and information technology fields, at Vocollect he has overall management responsibility for the company’s marketing function and new ventures activities.

Before joining Vocollect in 2007, he was Director of Vertical (industry) Marketing and Development with SpectraLink Corporation in Boulder, Colo. where he managed strategies and tactics to grow the company’s wireless industry sector. For 10 years he held senior strategy, product and marketing management roles with Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Based in the company’s headquarters office in Pittsburgh, he holds an M.B.A. from Leeds Business School, University of Colorado, and a B.A. degree in sociology from Union College, Schenectady, New York.

Larry Sweeney
Founder and Chief Customer Advocate

Larry Sweeney is Founder and Chief Customer Advocate with Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work. In this capacity, he acts as the strategic public interface with Vocollect’s external audiences worldwide and also drives internal cross-functional teams in the assessment of global business opportunities. A co-founder of the organization in 1987, Mr. Sweeney has held a variety of positions with the company. Prior to his expanded role in this new position, he served as Vice President of Product Management, where he had management responsibility for the company’s product strategy, product portfolio and new product development process.

Prior to joining Vocollect, Mr. Sweeney served as a product development engineer for Westinghouse Electric Company, where he helped create a line of voice-activated quality control systems for manufacturing applications. His early work at Westinghouse provided the foundation for co-founding Vocollect and driving Vocollect Voice throughout the global supply chain arena.

Mr. Sweeney resides in Pittsburgh, Pa. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.