Mr. Schrader brings over 18 years of management, marketing and product management experience to the Viga team, where he is responsible for advising the company's software products distribution strategy. Mr. Schrader is the current President of eSignSystems. Wave's eSign Systems was formed to empower enterprises and agencies to manage business processes and transactions entirely online. Prior to Wave Systems, Mr. Schrader held executive positions with Zions Bancorp owned Lexign and Digital Signature Trust where he was Vice President of Global Sales and President of Financial Services. Prior to joining Zions Bancorp, Mr. Schrader was Corporate Vice President of Sales for Caredata where he managed the company's global sales and business development efforts. Prior to Caredata.com, Schrader was Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Zynx Health Incorporated, a subsidiary of Cedars-Sinai Health System where he directed the company' growth from 15 clients to over 300. Prior to joining Zynx, Mr. Schrader was Vice President of HBS International of Seattle WA, where he helped HBSI achieve record sales and revenue growth. Prior to HBSI, Schrader held management positions at Johnson & Johnson and Citicorp. Mr. Schrader attended the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he earned a B.S. in Personnel Management and completed his graduate education in Psychology.
Mr. Kandler provides strategic direction and consulting in support of Bunker Buster, Viga's unique direct mail – web lead generation system. Kurt was previously Vice President of Marketing for Cedar Document Technologies, a leader in providing high-volume interactive PDF documents for automating business processes. Prior to Cedar, Kurt founded Paradigm Marketing where he served as the CEO & President. In this role, Kandler set the company's strategic direction and oversaw the company's four marketing groups -Internet Media, Permission Marketing, Traditional Media, and Alliance Development.
Kandler's experience included the development of strategic marketing partnerships for Paradigm's major clients, including First USA Bank, Wingspan Bank, Metris Companies, Talk America, and others. Some of Paradigm's premier clients included MasterCard International, Phillips Publishing, Sears, Metris Companies, Staples, Nationwide Insurance, Quill Corporation, Draft Worldwide, North American Membership Group and Simply Wireless.
Kandler has been a speaker at Comdex, Internet Commerce Expo, Visa's International's Conference on Latin American Internet Marketing, and the American Telemarketing Association Conference. He is a charter member of the Internet Advertising Bureau, a past member of the Direct Marketing Association and Association for Internet Marketing.
Eric Helman is a visionary, aggressive and proven builder of technology companies which deliver exciting growth and shareholder return. Known as an execution-oriented strategist, he has real-world experience creating, managing and growing companies that accelerate the adoption of high technology solutions.
Prior to Viga, Eric has served as the CEO of CEDAR Document Technologies, a turnaround/early-stage company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Eric was recruited to transform the company from small seller of electronic document software into a leading provider of high-volume electronic document processing in a managed services business model. After joining CEDAR in April 2001, Eric moved quickly to reorganize the existing software assets and create the vision for the CEDAR Electronic Document Factory, an integrated technology platform for the creation, enhancement, delivery, archival and response processing of high-volume business documents (statements, invoices, bills, etc.). After successfully selling and deploying pilot applications at The Hartford, Ford Motor Company, The Federal Reserve, Fleet Bank, Civil Service Employees Insurance, Celina Insurance and ConcordEFS (now a division of First Data), This led to expansion into property and casualty insurance (Western Reserve Group, MEMIC, Citizens Property and Casualty and Imperial Fire and Casualty) and Business-to-Business Statements (Global expansion for Ford and Card Systems Solutions). In order to preserve capital for rapid growth, Eric recruited highly productive sales channels to penetrate new industries including healthcare (HealthPlan Services, Reliance Standard and Aetna) Business-to-Consumer Billing (South Jersey Industries), and retail banking (Financial Institutions Inc. and Chittenden Bank). 2004 revenues grew 133% and backlog grew 386%.
Prior to CEDAR, Eric Helman was the CEO and President of SourceTrack, an early-stage company based in Tampa, Florida. Mr. Helman created SourceTrack in 1999, with the vision of reducing the barriers to adoption in e-procurement. In addition to growing the company to over 70 employees and establishing a network of marquis customers (Washington Mutual, Citistreet, WS Atkins, etc.) channel partners (Unisource, Perot Systems, Jamcracker, etc.) Eric led the efforts to raise over $22M in venture capital and expand operations to the UK through a series of channel relationships.
The years prior to SourceTrack prepared Mr. Helman as an experienced executive with a proven track record in delivering tremendous revenue growth. Rapidly rising through ranks at IBM, Eric learned the basics of "customer intimate" sales by working closely with industry leading clients (Publix Super Markets, Talbots, etc.) in applying technology to their business processes. Eric was named one of IBM's first "Certified Professionals" in Client Relations. As the Business Unit Executive responsible for IBM's operations with middle market clients in Florida and Senior Location Executive in Tampa Bay, Eric honed his general management skills by leading a multi-channel sales force of face-to-face direct sales resources, call center professionals and channel partners to deliver over $500M in revenue from this geography, with a customer base ranging from divisions of Fortune 1000 companies to startups.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Helman was a commissioned military officer, specializing in the use of military intelligence in rapidly changing operational environments. His variety of overseas assignments honed his strong execution focus while developing operations expertise that he continuously draws upon in current roles. Mr. Helman earned a Bachelor of Arts in Soviet Studies from Vanderbilt University and completed Harvard Business School's executive education program while at IBM. He has applied formal post-graduate education in the area of Strategic Planning from Babson College and Information Technology Alignment from the Yale School of Management.
Eric has been actively involved in high-leverage community activities throughout his career. His commitment to work-life balance and gifts of organization and execution have propelled him to key leadership positions in several community organizations, including High Tech Ministries, United Way of Hillsborough County (past campaign and board chair), University of Tampa Board of Trustees, Tampa Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100, InRoads, Council of Growing Companies, Tampa Bay Internet Forum (founding member) and Sales and Marketing Executives (past president). He and his wife, Joellyn, live in Marietta with their three boys.