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FULL RESUME
Professional Summary
Dr. Stryker is Founder and President of the Venture Development Center, Inc. The Venture Development Center (VDC) is an investment and advisory service that assists companies in the Information Services industry identify, define, and implement breakthrough innovations for their firm. VDC assists companies by identifying the breakthrough innovation, securing capital and human resources to implement these innovations effectively, and provides advice and counsel to ensure that these innovations are implemented to reach their full potential. VDC has performed these services for over 25 companies in the past five years including eight successful start-up businesses. Dr. Stryker was Chairman and Founder of Naviant, Inc. headquartered in Boca Raton, FL. He was responsible for leading the management team and providing the overall vision and direction for the company and was instrumental in the successful sale of Naviant to Equifax, Inc. for $135 million. Naviant's business is focused on providing information to marketers to facilitate precise targeting of their customers and prospects in both the physical and on-line worlds. Prior to his role with Naviant, Dr. Stryker was a divisional President of IntelliQuest Information Group, Inc. In this role he managed the rapidly growing and evolving market for targeting on-line users. IntelliQuest was focused on providing effective marketing information solutions to the technology market, including high-tech, telecommunications, utility and cable companies. Dr. Stryker was instrumental in completing the sale of IntelliQuest to WPP Group for $150 million. Prior to his role with IntelliQuest, Dr. Stryker was President and CEO of the Information Technology Forum, Inc., which he founded in 1992. Dr. Stryker built a successful management consulting practice specializing in developing content-based electronic products. He consulted with industry leaders such as American Express, American Insurance Services Group, Ameritech, Cincinnati Bell Telephone, Federal Express, First Data Corporation, Pacific Telephone, R.H. Donnelley, and Sprint. He assisted these companies with identifying and implementing "best practices" and assisted clients with new product development and innovation breakthroughs. In addition, his firm was instrumental in advising many venture backed start-up firms in the development of their business. Some of his clients were 24/7 RealMedia, Community of Science, Internet Capital, iSky, Prio, and Traffix. Many of these firms became successful private and public companies. Concurrent with his Presidency of Information Technology Forum, Dr. Stryker also founded the MkIS User Forum. As its Executive Director Dr. Stryker oversaw an international consortium trade group composed of executives responsible for the design and implementation of corporate Marketing Information Systems (MkIS) for their global enterprises. Among its prestigious list of over thirty active corporate members were American Express, Automatic Data Processing, AT&T, BellSouth, Cigna Insurance, Grainger, Hewlett Packard, Ingersoll-Rand, Lotus Development Corporation, Moore Business Forms, Philips Lighting, Pitney Bowes, Southern California Edison, Sprint, Steelcase, and Yellow Freight Systems. Dr. Stryker's first entrepreneurial venture was the founding of Trinet America in 1978. Trinet became a leading supplier of business information to support marketing and sales applications. Dr. Stryker served as President, Chairman, and CEO of the firm. In January 1991, Trinet America was acquired by American Business Information of Omaha, Nebraska (now called InfoUSA). Dr. Stryker's efforts were instrumental in the successful public offering of InfoUSA in 1991. In the thirteen years that Dr. Stryker directed the activities of the company, the firm grew from a true start-up to achieve sales in excess of $50 million. Prior to founding Trinet America, Dr. Stryker was employed by American Telephone and Telegraph Company. He managed a group of technical professionals responsible for the design, development and implementation of marketing and sales support for the Bell System selling entities. Dr. Stryker joined the firm to form the Business Information Group within the Marketing Department of AT&T. In addition to his professional activities, Dr. Stryker accepted an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He has lectured for over nine years in the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center, where he taught graduate courses in Entrepreneurial Studies. Academic Summary Dr. Stryker has received the Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. in Operations Research from the School of Science and Engineering of New York University. His Ph.D. course work was in the computer science curriculum. His doctoral thesis designed and built a computer-based workstation for the advanced study of visual perception phenomena. Following the successful implementation of the workstation, the system was used to study visual responses through the testing of several hundred subjects. Through his system, these visual phenomena were studied for the first time using a precise computer-controlled environment. Dr. Stryker has published over 35 articles in the scientific and professional literature arena and has been an invited guest speaker at well over 50 professional conferences. |
