Moore & Gasperecz Global Inc. is very excited to welcome Dana to the Board of Directors. Dana has been an important asset to our executive team and we are very pleased to be formalizing his involvement.
Dana W. Kammersgard is a retired technology executive who currently serves as board director, advisor and angel investor in a number of seed and small cap companies in the US and Canada. He serves on the board of Imageware Systems (IWSY) and TZOA and as an advisor to companies including Open Ocean Robotics, Greencoast Media, Bright Marbles, Sequitur Labs among others. He is a member of the Campbell River Area Angel Group which is sponsoring a number of technology focused challenges that can be found at www.nexstream.is
Prior to retirement, Mr. Kammersgard was the Executive Vice President of Cloud Systems and Solutions for Seagate Technology (STX), where he was responsible for all storage systems related products and strategies. Prior to joining Seagate Systems in 2015, through the acquisition of Dot Hill Systems (HILL), Mr. Kammersgard, served as the President, CEO and a director of Dot Hill Systems Corp. ("Dot Hill") since March 2006. He served as President of Dot Hill from August 2004 to March 2006. From August 1999 to August 2004, Mr. Kammersgard served as Dot Hill's 's Chief Technical Officer.
Mr. Kammersgard was a founder of Artecon and served as a director from its inception in 1984 until the company's merger with Box Hill Systems Corp. in August 1999. At Artecon, Mr. Kammersgard served in various positions since 1984, including Secretary and Senior Vice President of Engineering from March 1998 until August 1999, and as Vice President of Sales and Marketing from March 1997 until March 1998. Prior to cofounding Artecon, Mr. Kammersgard was the Director of Software Development at Calma, a division of General Electric Company. Mr. Kammersgard holds a B.A. in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego.
Margery Moore, the CEO of ehsAI, sat down with Dana to ask him a few questions about joining the team.
Margery: At this time in your career, what led you to being an investor in start-ups?
Dana: I am in a position to give back in terms of wisdom and experience and happy to do so. Over a 40 year startup to public company executive, I have lived through a lot of things that these young CEOs are going to experience and I believe I can help.
Margery: What do you excel at? What do you love about start-ups?
Dana: At my core I am a problem solver. And an articulate leader and motivator of people. I have been involved in all aspects of business from R&D to supply chain to sales, marketing, customer service and finance. I love the passion and conviction of the startup mind set.
Margery: You are doing very interesting work in rural Canada, what is the program called and your goal?
Dana: We are building a technology incubator in the Strathcona region, anchored by Campbell River. It is time that tech innovation diversifies beyond Vancouver and Victoria in BC. We have created TechHatchery and the NexStream series of contests to bring technology to bear on traditional industries of aquaculture, forestry/land management, energy and food.
Margery: Why invest and be on the board of ehsAI?
Dana: The key to any startup is the competence, passion and conviction of the management team ad ehsAi is very deep in these area. I think I can help guide this team through the innumerable hurdles they will inevitably face
Margery: Where do you see this company going?
Dana: Disruptive ground breaking technology applied to an ‘old guard’ industry is almost always a great growth story. ehsAI already has traction and the sky is the limit. It is important at this early stage that everyone understand and embrace the culture.
Margery: Why is company culture so important to you?
Dana: I used to say (and everyone in the company could say it too) that we were ‘a 30 year old startup with a Midwestern Ethic’. Every word of that sentence was important and everyone in the company understood why. I also used to say to folks that unless they:
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Understood the Vision
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Believed in the Strategy
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And Trusted Leadership to deliver on both…
Then they should find a place they affirm all 3 of those tenets. But to be in a position to understand, believe and trust, they need to be exposed to all 3.
Thank you, and welcome, Dana!
