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EVP, Sales and Services; Optiant Inc.
A Honda Civic. 200K miles later - that is still the car that I drive. My wife, on the other hand has not been that consistent
No great favorite here - but I will tell you my favorite wine bar "Cru" in Plano, TX.
What are three things most people don't know about you?

1. That I play tabla - Indian drums (I’ve played for 25 years and still do)

2.  That I took up running as a bet with a friend - and still run 30 miles a week (btw, I lost the bet that day - I could not run a mile at noon on a Dallas summer day)

3.  That someday I want to be a stand-up comedian

What's been your greatest adventure in life?

Marriage!!

What's your best childhood memory?

Meeting this girl who was barely 3 years old when I was 6. Well 25 years later, a few separations, years of dating and zillions of arguments later, she agreed to marry me!!! Evidently some people never learn.

If you could have a conversation with a person of your choice, past, present or future, who would that person be and why?

My best friend from my school days. He was the funniest guy I knew and was my role model. 

What's the hardest thing you've ever done in your life?

Giving my first daughter her first time out. It broke my heart but she was fine after a minute.

Tell us about your favorite hobby.

Messing around with cool technical gadgets. If you can name the latest electronics gadget, I probably have it in my den. Don’t ask me what I do with them after another month.

What are you currently reading? What is your favorite book?

I’m currently reading “New Solution Selling” by Keith Eades.
My favorite book: The Collected works of Ogden Nash.

Is there a particular place or thing you want to see?

Yes.  A million bucks!

If you could give $10,000 to a charity, what would that charity be and why?

The one I am involved with, The Family Place.

If you weren't on the professional services career track, what would you be doing?

Probably teaching people how to follow a professional services career track.

What is the path that led you to Professional Services/Consulting?

I was managing a global product development center in i2 Technologies. As part of my career growth (and the fact I took a keen interest in customer projects while running development), I was asked to run a services/consulting team. I then quickly rose to run global services.

What advice would you give to a recent graduate who just took a job in professional services?

Build life-long relationships with your customers. That will outlive almost anything in your professional life.

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Netsuite On-Demand Business Applications First with Native Support for Google Chrome™
Trusted Computer Solutions Names Gabby Wong, Vice President of Professional Services
OpenAir 2008 User Summit Website Leverages Collaboration Features to Foster Networking
Merkle Hires Two New Executives to Lead Client Database Groups
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Discussion Forum
Initial Requirement/Validation/Proposal Fee

My team supports a slice of the company’s products. The emphasis is on data, less on technology, Thomson Reuters is a data vendor. To
date we have been the functional experts supporting the pre-sale and do the implementation (ranges from relatively easy set-ups to quite
complex, where we write some of the code for customer); there is also a on-going maintenance piece outside of break-fix.

Never charged for services, now moving into consultative space. We have an opportunity to solve a specific customer problem with our
content. We are at the stage where we are about to visit the site for the customer to lay out their objectives and requirement. We
will then owe them analysis, outline of solution, which product can deliver the data, and timelines.

What is the range of fees for this type of engagement that you have charged or seen in industry? Understood that should this turn into a
sale, this initial fee will be deducted from the outright sale or the recurring subscription fee.

Thank you,

Tom R.

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