Frank Helle, CEO
Over a career spanning 29 years (10 of those in Europe and Asia), Frank's understanding of business principles comes from diverse experiences in R&D, marketing, sales, manufacturing, engineering, supply chain, P&L general management, change management and employee communications.

Frank's skills include:

• Creating new business models and the strategic and tactical plans to implement them
• Targeting new value spaces by creating new products and services for existing markets, and accessing new markets and clients with existing products and services
• Creating new value propositions
• Creating new markets by working upstream and downstream in the value chain
• Pursuing international markets
• Managing sales, marketing, businesses and the organizations created by growth
• Leading business transformations and associated change management for the people involved

Steve Bissell, President
Steve has an MS degree in electrical engineering, and has served as president of Axian since 1994.

From 1984 to 1994, he was a vice president and business unit manager at two semiconductor capital equipment companies, first ATEQ and then Cascade Microtech. Steve's responsibilities at both companies included managing engineering groups with electrical, mechanical and software engineers, in addition to product marketing and operations groups. Steve joined ATEQ as a start-up company developing laser-based semiconductor lithography systems, and later joined Cascade Microtech to work with analytical wafer probing systems.

From 1978 to 1984, Steve held a variety of technical management positions at Spectra-Physics' Laser Scanning Division, including engineering, production, manufacturing engineering, product marketing and human resources. He managed groups including electronics, software, optical, mechanical and documentation specialists and the management information systems department.

During the mid-70s, while completing graduate school at Stanford University, Steve was an R&D engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where he developed software for HP's first microprocessor, and he was the manufacturing engineer for HP's first DRAM-based minicomputers.

Scott Davis, Vice President of Educational Services
Scott holds an MBA and a BS in physics. He is Axian's lead instructor, and his expertise in programming languages and application programming interfaces has grown during 20 years of developing and teaching courses. He has also spent considerable time consulting with companies on their leading-edge software projects. Scott has developed and teaches the Axian programming language courses for use with Linux, including C, C++, object-oriented programming and Java, and he is Sun Certified in Java. He is a Microsoft Certified Professional and is an expert in Microsoft API technologies, including Win32, MFC, COM, OLE, ActiveX and ATL. He is also involved in litigation consulting on cases involving software technology and intellectual property.

Pat Kostol, Human Resources Director
Pat has worked in human resources and operational management roles within the high-technology community for the past 19 years. Her span of experience ranges from small start-up firms to larger distributed development and multi-divisional technology environments. Her broad set of HR capabilities specifically targeted to engineering and IT work environments includes staffing and staffing processes, general HR management, organizational development and effectiveness, and general business operations. Pat has as BS degree in Business Education and MS in Teaching.

Dave Moser, Vice President, Business Development for Software Engineering
Dave has held a wide range of professional and management positions during his 30+ year technology business career. These include software and hardware design, project and program management, and engineering, marketing, manufacturing, and general management positions. He has worked for start-ups, mid-size, and Fortune 500 companies, and has extensive experience with domestic and international customers and development programs.

Dave started writing software professionally for Project Apollo in the late 60s while he was a student at MIT. In the 70s, he developed real-time operating systems and optical character recognition algorithms for companies in Massachusetts and California, and helped found an early data communications company in the Bay Area. He came to Tektronix in Beaverton, Oregon in the late 70s to lead the development of digital test equipment, which became the logic analyzer division. Dave held engineering, engineering management, and division general management positions in his 14 year career with Tektronix. In the early 90s, Dave moved to Electro Scientific Instruments (ESI) as the general manager of their vision products division. Subsequent positions included director of manufacturing, director of business development, business unit general manager, and international marketing manager.

Lawrence Jacobsen, Vice President, Business Development for Rich Media
Larry is responsible for leading the business development efforts of Rambunctious Digital Studios. Rambunctious is a new Axian business unit that specializes in the development of rich media titles – applications that combine code, animation, art, sound, gameplay, and storyline to create a complete user experience. This category includes, but is not limited to, games, edutainment titles, and software for electronic toys.

Larry’s previous position was with ImageBuilder Software, the behind-the-scenes developer of some very popular children’s and family software including titles marketed by Disney, Broderbund, Activision, Infogrames, Atari, Hasbro, and Mattel.
Larry also held key positions at Apple Computer and Basis Applied Technology. Larry has almost 20 years’ experience doing business development in the marketspace where technology intersects with entertainment and edutainment.

Larry holds a Master of Arts degree in Mathematics from the University of California, San Diego.

Russell Morley, Chief Technology Officer
Russell has been developing software for the last 11 years, most recently focusing on developing scalable, multi-tier applications and providing executive technology consulting services for Axian clients. Russell was recently the chief architect and designer and led successful implementation efforts for both a multi-channel enhanced TV content distribution platform as well as the entire ASP infrastructure surrounding a new Web technology product. He has developed object-oriented frameworks that resulted in improved productivity for his development teams, and he consistently demonstrates that a quality design results in a product that is flexible to changing requirements, is maintainable and can be completed under budget and on time. Russell is experienced in a wide variety of Web, middleware and component technologies, and he has a passion for meeting client objectives with real, tangible results.

Kay Norin, Training Director
Kay has a broad educational background. She's worked with Axian for seven years, and during that time she has coordinated our training activities, which includes scheduling training classes, interfacing with the instructors and coordinating with clients regarding courses. She also provides support in the office environment with facilities and system administration.