Alumni Companies
Mike Smith, (BSBA 97, MSBA 99), founded AeroCom, Inc (www.aerocominc.com) in 2003, a telecommunications agency servicing small, medium and large size companies. AeroCom works with businesses throughout the nation, helping them increase profits and beat their competition by taking advantage of the latest innovations in telecommunications technology.
Lance Larson, (BS 03, MS 06), launched BuyBarracuda.com (www.buybarracuda.com) a venture that provides a one stop solution for enterprise virus and spam protection needs worldwide. BuyBarracuda is an authorized reseller of the award winning Barracuda Spam Firewall and Barracuda Spyware Firewall products.
Matt Walker (MBA 06) and Mike Shannon (MBA 06) launched Best Rank, Inc. BestRank.com (www.bestrank.com) a Search Engine Marketing company which specializes in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SEO friendly Web Design and Development, Internet Marketing Consulting, Pay Per Click Campaign Management, and other services related to internet marketing. Best Rank serves small to mid-sized businesses who are serious about attaining the best rankings possible in the three major search engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
Lance Larson, (BS 03, MS 06), launched Cpanel WebHostManager (http://www.buycpanel.com/) a venture that is an all in one system that allows simple administration over your web server, while offering the client a powerful web based interface to control all kinds of functions that the Cpanel ™ interface has to offer. The system also keeps itself up to date with the latest package upgrades and is always being enhanced to make it a more and more powerful system.
Veracity Wireless, Inc. (Formerly Field Technologies)
(www.fieldtechnologies.com)
Capitalizing on his success in Venture Challenge 2002, Yukon Palmer
(MBA ’02) launched Field Technologies in September
2002. Incorporated as Veracity Wireless, Inc., the company has already
attracted several customers throughout the country. Veracity Wireless
provides wireless asset tracking solutions and currently offers GPS
tracking solutions for fleets of all sizes. The company now has several
part-time employees and an office in Kearny Mesa. In addition, it has
prominent advisors from within the wireless industry and a strong legal
firm (Fish & Richardson). The company is using its experienced technical
resources to develop a promising new product to be released by December
2004.
Matt Treger, MBA '98 co-founded GOAL SUCCESS (www.goalsuccess.com), a San Diego-based specializing in training and development that maximizes the effectiveness of individuals, teams, and organizations. GOAL SUCCESS works with organizations from around the world, helping them to deal with change, improve decision-making, increase morale, and develop their people. Each of its organizational development initiatives is custom designed to meet the unique needs of its clients. Recent programs include: AT&T, Media Services, Starbucks, The Ken Blanchard Companies, Universal Music and Video, Boeing, LSI Logic, Pulte Homes, San Diego State University., SBC, The Sporting Club, TAP Pharmaceuticals, T.D. Waterhouse, Wacom Technology and the Business Bank of California.
Rany Polany, MBA '01, launched Diver Entertainment Systems (www.h2oaudio.com) in late 2001, a venture that developed a variety of electronic devices for aquatic and pressure resistant systems designed to enhance the acoustic experience for th SCUBA industry. Polany, who received the EMC's "Tournament of Driving Forces” fellowship in 2001, recently announced the closing of "A" round venture financing. Ryan Perry, a founding shareholder of Diver Entertainment Systems, and board directors Carl Pettersen and Kristian Rauhala are also SDSU MBAs (2001).
Toby Danylchuk, MBA ’99 co-founded Itza Galerias (www.itzagalerias.com). Established in 2002, ITZA Galerias is a specialty niche lifestyle retailer with an emphasis in Tuscan, Old World, and Spanish Colonial furniture and home décor. We offer handcrafted solid wood furniture, custom and ready-made window treatments and draperies, wall décor, sofa/upholstery furniture, hand woven rugs, lighting, table décor, interior design services and more.
Greg Olmstead, Executive MBA 2000, founded Mobile Thinking, LLC. (www.mobilethinking.com) in 2003. Mobile Thinking® develops innovative handheld software programs to help teachers help students. Its first product, mTrial®, enables parents and agencies to easily record, store, and report autism therapy data.
Lance Larson, (BS 03, MS 06) founded OC Hosting, Inc. (www.ochosting.com). OC Hosting provides reliable lightning-speed web hosting and colocation services to over 4,000 international customers. With a state-of-the-art network operations facility located in San Clemente, CA and 15 fulltime employees, Larson, at age 22, continues to increase company revenue well beyond the $2 million mark. OC Hosting provides web hosting services to mainstream clients such as Billy Idol, Pamela Anderson, the California State University, and several federal credit unions.
PacificGMP (http://www.pacificgmp.com), lauched in 2005 by SDSU alumni Leigh N. Pierce (BS, 1991) and Gary L. Pierce (MCP, 1999), is a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) and leader in the industry in single-use technology for development and manufacturing of biologics. PacificGMP partners with drug developers by providing a range of cGMP and non-GMP services from early stages of process design, development and scale-up, to preclinical and clinical manufacturing.
Pacific Ink, ( www.pacificink.com ) co-founded by Jaime Mautz (MBA ’00), continues to expand. Launched in Spring 2000, Pacific Ink recorded $7 million in revenue in 2003. The company offers over 550 products, including OEM, remanufactured, and compatible toner cartridges for a wide variety of printers, as well as refill kits for inkjet, laser, and fax printers. Pacific Ink continues to aggressively market online but is also making advances in efforts to sell to larger companies, schools, and government agencies.
Nepi Ilgaz (MBA '01) and Pala Serhat (MBA '00) founded TestCountry (www.testcountry.com) in 2002 to develop direct-to- patient technology-based solutions to address one of the most pressing issues in healthcare today; the inability of consumers to obtain fast, convenient and confidential information about their health via instant or convenient lab based testing solutions. The company offers quality, mostly FDA approved drugs of abuse and infectious disease tests kits to both consumers and businesses. The company has offices in Florida and Chicago and annual revenues are into the high seven figures.
Lucia Romanov-Stark (MBA '98) founded UniversityCash, Inc. (www.universitycash.com) in 2003. UniversityCash.com is a loyalty-reward college fundraising company which will launch in fall 2004 with over 300 merchants and service providers, including Walmart, Macy's, Verizon Wireless, Dell Home, Netflix, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and StartLogic.com. UniversityCash.com will launch with targeted marketing to San Diego State University alumni and student groups. The company's goal is to expand its reach to other CSU and UC campuses by the end of 2004 and roll out nation-wide in 2005.
vAudit Group, Inc. (www.vaudit.com) was founded by Robert Schulte (MSBA '05) and Marc Staheli (MSBA '05) with the intent of relieving corporate tax departments of the time-consuming and costly effort required to report sales and use tax across multiple jurisdictions. vAudit provides an alternative to the administrative burden of state and local tax compliance, enabling corporate tax departments to shift their resources to value-added activities and strategic tax planning, while minimizing compliance costs and risks.
