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The Partners
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First Aura was founded in early 2001 by
partners Mark Harwood, Dean Hiller, Ray Holland, and Jim McCrossin.
First Aura's founders are adept at building large systems and have
a proven record of achievement while working together. This same
team founded Telleo, Inc. (originally named Abra, Inc.) in 1999,
building a system that launched more than 100 million Web
sites, one for every listed telephone number in
the United States. Though Telleo was the first time all
four partners worked together on a single project, the various
partners have a proven history of collaboration on the building
of earlier large systems.
Dean and Jim worked together in the 1970s at
Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, and later at IBM's
Thomas J. Watson Research Lab in Yorktown Heights, NY. At
IBM, they worked on the world's largest timesharing systems of
the day: TSS and TSO. Later, the two participated in the building
of the earliest corporate networking system, VNET, which eventually
grew to interconnect all of IBM.
Jim, Mark, and Ray first teamed up at
IBM's West Coast research laboratory, known today as the Almaden
Research Center, in San Jose, CA. Together they built a computer
fax system used throughout IBM to send and receive approximately
50,000 fax pages per month.
While at Almaden Research Center, Jim
and Ray built the IBM Patent Server Web Site, launched in 1996 as
one of the largest databases on the Worldwide Web. The Patent
Server offers more than 4 terrabytes of data online, free. It is
assessed daily by millions of scientists, inventors, and students
worldwide.
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Dean Hiller is a skilled technical
architect, having a breadth and depth of technical expertise in
networking and computer systems that make him invaluable to First
Aura clients.
As a founding partner of Telleo, Mr. Hiller was responsible for
the overall architecture of the Telleo system and designed the
software that provides the core functionality for the site. Mr.
Hiller also designed Telleo's patent strategy. From his
perspective of understanding the entire Telleo system, and as an
executive participating in Telleo's business planning, he
identified and filed five key patents for Telleo.
Previously with Cisco Systems, Mr. Hiller developed the
kernel and channel interface for Cisco's Channel Interface
Processor (CIP) and was responsible for the overall software
development of its first release. While at Cisco, he was active in
providing Cisco patent protection for his work.
Earlier, Mr. Hiller was with IBM, where his responsibilities
ranged from software development, to directing production of the
IBM TCP/IP for MVS product, to research at the Thomas J. Watson
Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY.
Mr. Hiller received numerous Outstanding Technical Achievement
awards for work accomplished at IBM. In 1992, he received IBM's
Corporate Excellence award for directing production of the IBM
TCP/IP for MVS product. He co-authored two patents for the Cisco
CIP processor and has numerous patents pending for his work at
Cisco Systems.
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Several years ago, Jim McCrossin
envisioned a new and different internet--the Local Wide Web--an
internet dedicated to serving the local needs of people and
businesses in neighborhoods nationwide. In 1999, Mr. McCrossin
realized his vision with the founding of Telleo, Inc. As Founder
and President of Telleo, and a member of the Board of
Directors, Mr. McCrossin led the way in establishing
company vision, while growing the company to more than 80
employees, all aimed at creating the Telleo network and fine
tuning the Local Wide Web for soft launch on January 1, 2001. At
the founding of Telleo, Mr. McCrossin already possessed a
distinguished record of achievement in the computer
industry.
As CIO of IBM's Almaden Research Center,
San Jose, CA, Mr. McCrossin directed the design and deployment of
the IBM Patent Server Web Site in 1996. Today, the Patent
Server is one of the world's largest Web sites and is
accessed daily by several million scientists, inventors, and
students worldwide.
Earlier, with IBM's Thomas J. Watson
Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, Mr. McCrossin designed
and built one of the world's first windowing systems--the TSO
Session Manager--which is still used today.
Before joining IBM, Mr. McCrossin was
Assistant Director of Carnegie-Mellon University's computing
center, Pittsburgh, PA, where he managed systems
programming, having responsibility for IBM and Univac mainframe
systems programming and operations.
Mr. McCrossin holds a B.S. from the
University of Pittsburgh and has completed M.S. course
requirements in Computer Science there. He holds several
patents--including one for the Patent Server Web Site--and
has numerous patents pending for work completed at
Telleo.
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Ray Holland is a founding partner of
Telleo, Inc. As Telleo's Vice President of Engineering and
Operations, he was responsible for the various teams
delivering high-speed information management, high-end database
systems, quality assurance, and customer service. Mr. Holland
maintained a 24 x 7 operational infrastructure for these services
through the Telleo network of Web sites.
Formerly, Mr. Holland served as
Executive Director of R&D Enterprise Management Products at
Fujitsu Software Corporation, managing technical and partner
relationships in the U.S. and internationally.
As Lead Architect on the IBM/Boeing
Aircraft account in Seattle, Washington in 1996, Mr. Holland
designed and led implementation to re-engineer a distributed
management system for managing work stations used by Boeing to
design and manufacture aircraft.
Earlier, as Senior Manager of the
Network Development Group at IBM's Almaden Research Center,
San Jose, CA, Mr. Holland designed and implemented
high-speed networks within IBM, including Cisco Routers, ATM (25
and 155 mbps), ethernet and token ring using multi-vendor
high-speed switches and intelligent hub
technology.
Mr. Holland received IBM
Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards in 1985, 1989, and 1996.
In 1998, he received the Fujitsu Software Corporation President's
Award.
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Mark Harwood was a member of the founding
team at Telleo. As Telleo's Director of Operations, Mr.
Harwood designed and built a $3 1/2 million data center,
capable of serving four thousand pages per second from a terrabyte
database. His team was responsibile for redundancy,
physical and logical security, network infrastructure, monitoring
systems, clustered system management, staging environments, product
deployment, and system performance.
Before Telleo, Mr. Harwood worked at
IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA. He was a key
team member in the wireless networking deployment within IBM
Research. Mr. Harwood designed, built, and maintained Web services
for management of domain name services. He designed and built
network monitoring tools, security tools, and system penetration
tools.
Mr. Harwood was responsible for new
network technology integration, security, security audits, change
control processes, escalations, and troubleshooting of corporate
network infrastructure. He designed, developed, and supported
corporate-wide printing and publishing solutions, while introducing
new technologies on several platforms.
Mr. Harwood has received numerous
IBM Outstanding Technical Awards, IBM Group Technical Awards, and
IBM Research Division Awards. He studied Computer Science at Oral
Roberts University, Tulsa, OK.
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Copyright © 2001-2008
First Aura, LLC. (ny1)
All rights reserved.
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