Dirk Elmendorf – Rackspace Hosting
Dirk Elmendorf is one of the co-founders of Rackspace. Dirk spends time promoting the technology and services that makes Rackspace unique, focusing on the advantages of Rackspace products to industry leaders, customers, technology and business partners. Dirk is also a thought leader at RackLabs where he works on process innovation that will help Rackspace continue to lead the field in service and innovation.
Dirk received a B.A. in International Economics from Trinity University.
Pat Condon – Rackspace Hosting
Pat Condon is one of the co-founders of Rackspace. Pat spends most of his time with customers learning about what Rackspace does well, what might be improved upon and how to expand products and services to better serve Rackspace customers. Pat also spends time determining how to better match the company’s service offerings with the changing IT landscape.
Throughout his tenure at Rackspace, Pat has held numerous leadership positions in marketing, customer care and business development and has helped champion Rackspace’s unique flavor of customer service, Fanatical Support®.
Richard Yoo – Rackspace Hosting and ServerBeach
Richard Yoo is the founder, and was previously the CEO, of Rackspace Hosting, Inc (NYSE:RAX). Through his vision and influence, Rackspace has become a powerhouse in the web hosting industry, leveraging its bullet-proof infrastructure and “Fanatical Support” offering. With revenues exceeding $400 million annually and a market cap north of one billion dollars, its customer list now includes names like Sony Music, GE, Hilton Hotels, Delta Airlines, Virgin, and Miller Brewing.
Yoo also set out and founded the perfect “Self-Managed Server” company. Built from the customer up, ServerBeach (TSE:PIX) used custom proprietary technology to tailor the hosting product for a more technical and scrappy user. “The Beach” (as its often called) has become popular with influential internet hipsters such as Nick Denton of Gawker and Evan Williams of Twitter.
Travis Schaffner – FastServers, Inc.
Travis Schaffner, Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of FastServers.Net. He’s been in the trenches with Ian Andrusyk since the beginning. Many late nights and absences from high school became a normal routine for Travis when he helped found the company (formerly PowerSurge) back in 1996. “It was a ton of work and required a tremendous amount of multitasking. Some nights I only got about three to five hours of sleep, but I made up for it on the weekends with about twenty hours of sleep each night.” Travis said balancing school, athletics, farm work, and an Internet company was not the easiest thing to do at the time. He was obsessed with learning the technology and put forth the effort until the company became self-sustaining without his attention.
Ian Andrusyk – FastServers, Inc.
Ian Andrusyk, President & CEO of FastServers.Net. This is not your ordinary executive and business owner. As a 50% co-founder of FastServers, Inc., Ian has been building his hosting service company since he was 15 years old. Dating back to 1996 with the introduction of PowerSurge Technologies, Ian started the company while he was still in high school. When he wasn’t studying math and science, he was studying how to build what is known today as one of the top twenty hosting providers in the world. Not bad for a high school student running a business out of his parents’ basement. Ian’s late nights working on servers and providing support to customers on the phone is a thing of the past.
Clarence E. Briggs III – Advanced Internet Technologies (AIT)
Clarence E. Briggs III is world renowned for being both a military man and web hosting entrepreneur. An ex-infantry officer and veteran of the first Gulf War and Operation Just Cause in Panama, Briggs established Advanced Internet Technologies, Inc.
(AIT) in 1996 – an organization that remains 80% “Prior Military” owned. His past military connections and an understanding that it can be difficult for veterans in civilian life manifests in promotions such AIT’s regular “Veterans Day Special”. His overwhelming sense of fair play has manifested in a number of lawsuits, the most ambitious, an action against Google who, he suggested, was not doing enough to fight click fraud.