Sandpiper Software Management

Elisa F. Kendall - Founder and CEO
In 1995 Ms. Kendall realized the potential of semantic interoperability as a true breakthrough in software systems and founded Sandpiper Software. With her extensive experience in applying knowledge sharing to complex engineering and data integration problems, she has guided the team through the early product visioning and product development enabling Sandpiper Software to be at the very edge of the semantically enabled systems market.

Ms. Kendall’s formal training in Situation Semantics coupled with extensive systems integration experience led her to architect Sandpiper's innovative, standards-based approach to knowledge sharing through the use of ontologies. She is an active participant in the Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment effort of the W3C and a key contributor to standards such as the Object Management Group’s Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM).

Prior to starting Sandpiper Ms. Kendall consulted for Lockheed Martin where she drove the reuse strategy for the DARPA/TRI-Services RASSP program. Ms. Kendall served as product development manager for Aspect Development, a provider of component and supplier management systems. She started her career in development, integration, and deployment of ground-based communications, signal, and data processing systems at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space. She holds an MA in Linguistics from Stanford University and a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Deborah McGuinness - Chief Scientist
Dr. Deborah McGuinness is a leading expert in knowledge representation and reasoning languages and systems and has worked in ontology creation and evolution environments for over 20 years. Most recently she was co-director and senior research scientist at the Knowledge Systems, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University. She has done important foundational work in the area of ontologies and is a leader in ontology tools and applications. She has built and deployed numerous ontological environments over the course of her career from AT&T Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies and now Stanford University. Her work on languages (including OWL, DAML+OIL, OIL, CLASSIC) is aimed at providing languages that enable the next generation of web applications. She is a co-editor of the Ontology Web Language (OWL) that has now achieved W3C Recommendation status. She is a co-author of the current Ontology Evolution Environment from Stanford University.

Mark E. Dutra - VP, Engineering & Chief Architect
Mr. Dutra has over 20 years experience in large-scale software architecture design, software modeling, object-oriented analysis and design, and component-based development. As chief architect of Sandpiper’s Visual Ontology Modeler, he bridges the gap between research-oriented ontology modeling languages and environments such as Stanford’s Ontolingua and the Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) and commercial software engineering. He has been an active participant in a number of current standards initiatives at the Object Management Group, including the Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM), Reusable Asset Specification (RAS) and Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM).

Susan M. Root - President and COO
Ms. Root brings 20 years experience in high technology management, marketing, strategic and business planning to Sandpiper. She came to Sandpiper from Lucent Technologies where she served most recently as Director, Worldwide eBusiness. Prior to that she was Director, Marketing Information Systems at Lucent where she envisioned and led an integrated program to bring a 360° view of the customer to the sales and marketing headquarter and field organizations. Prior to that she was at AT&T, as Director Global Marketing Communications where she led all facets of internal and external marketing communications. She has brought many new technologies to market including the first enterprise IVR and integrated computer telephony systems. Her educational background includes an MBA from Colorado State University and a BA in Experimental Psychology from the University of California, San Diego. She is currently on the Board of the NJ Chapter of the American Marketing Association.

George J. Haytko - Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Haytko brings over 30 years experience as a finance and accounting professional to Sandpiper. His prior experience includes senior financial positions with PRx, ASIX Systems, Acurex, 3H Industries, and American Clipper. Mr. Haytko started his finance career as an audit manager with Arthur Andersen & Co. and is a CPA. He holds an MBA and a BA in Economics from Rutgers University.

Sandpiper Technical Advisory Team

Pat's current research interests include knowledge representation and automatic reasoning, especially the representation of space and time; the semantic web; ontology design; and the philosophical foundations of AI and computer science. He also restores antique mechanical clocks, remodels old houses, draws portraits and enjoys arguing with anyone about almost anything. Pat is a charter Fellow of AAAI and of the Cognitive Science Society.

Dr. Sheila McIlraith - Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Sheila McIlraith joined the faculty of the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto as an Associate Professor in November, 2003. Her research is in artificial intelligence, specifically knowledge representation and automated reasoning (KRR). Her work focuses on developing principles and systems that are self-describing, self-diagnosing, and self-reconfiguring. Her principal areas of research include knowledge representation and reasoning for the Semantic Web, diagnostic problem solving of dynamical systems, model-based programming of next-generation web agents, and complex NASA space systems, and reasoning about action and change mathematical foundations of knowledge representation and reasoning.

Sandpiper Software Management Advisory Team

Bruce H. Kendall - CFO, Pinnacle Bank Online

D. Kirk B. Westbrook - Managing Director, International Venture Fund (IVF)

Dr. Josephine Yuen - CEO and President, Triformix