Craig Barnes , Founder/CEO   linkedin profile   blog: www.craigslemonade.com

Panels Network, Inc. is Barnes’ fourth high technology startup as President and Founder. With 23 years of technology management and leadership experience, Barnes has led three other venture-backed software companies. Honored at the local, state, regional and national levels with several entrepreneurial awards and commendations, these companies won numerous awards of recognition for financial performance, and the products produced by these companies garnered literally hundreds of industry awards, and are in use by millions of users all over the world.

Prior to Panels, Barnes was the Founder, President and CEO of Attensa, a venture backed enterprise software company developing an end-to-end RSS Network that automatically and intelligently delivers prioritized, relevant RSS information to anyone in the world and on any device. Raised $12 MM over three rounds from institutional investors, several products garnered numerous awards, and gained several F 500 companies as charter customers.

Prior to Attensa, Barnes was the Founder, President and CEO of Extensis (Creativepro.com) a graphics software publisher based in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1993, Barnes led Extensis through several years of record growth that made it repeatedly the fastest growing company in the State of Oregon - private or public - from 1993 to 1999. Extensis has been recognized for its record growth by Inc. Magazine 500 (top 100), Softletter 100 (#57), Deliotte & Touche Fast 50 (#1), and repeatedly by the Oregonian and Portland Business Journal (#1).

At Extensis, Barnes recruited and led a small team from approximately $330 thousand in revenue in 1994 to over 125 employees and $21 million in revenue in 1999. In mid-1999, Barnes repositioned and renamed the company Creativepro.com as a vehicle to deliver its technology through the Internet rather than traditional shrink-wrap software. The company grew to serve millions of customers in several countries, and in early 2000, Barnes led the negotiated sale of Extensis (Creativepro.com) to publicly held ImageX.com (NASDAQ: IMGX, acquired by Kinko’s) for approximately $142 million in cash and securities.

Prior to Extensis, Barnes was the founder of Portland, Oregon based Now Software, Inc., a leading networked calendar and contact manager software company. Now Software had become the largest Macintosh only software publisher in the world with millions of customers and garnered numerous product awards. After leaving to found Extensis, Barnes was later asked to rejoin the board of directors of Now Software where he served until the company was sold to Qualcomm.

Lastly, Now Software was the outgrowth of Barnes’ first software company, which designed and shipped the world’s first commercial “user interface builder,” a revolutionary software development and prototyping product that won numerous awards and technological commendations. In 1990, Barnes led the transformation of the company to go after a bigger market opportunity that became Now Software.

Barnes serves on the board of directors for the non-profit Software Association of Oregon and is an adviser to, and investor in, several startup companies in the Pacific Northwest. He has also been recognized as a business and civic leader by the Portland Business Journal as one of “40 under 40.” Barnes studied Graphic and Industrial Design at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Eric Hayes, VP R&D

Eric H. (EH) is a software pioneer with 23 years experience in software architecture, design, engineering and technical team leadership. His innovative work in networks, clustered server architecture, user experience, collecting user attention, and scaled analytics is at the foundation of new standards and technologies developed by Attensa.

An Apple Design award winner, Eric has led the development of numerous successful desktop and networked applications. As founder and CTO of Attensa, Eric was instrumental in all facets of the next generation of enterprise communication using RSS, AttentionStreams, and deep analytics to improve the timely flow of essential enterprise information. Prior to Attensa, Eric designed digital marketing infrastructure software to help Internet marketing agencies analyze and refine marketing campaigns in near real-time. As the Director of Engineering at Extensis, Hayes led the development of award-winning products including Preflight Pro and Suitcase Server.

Eric Barnes, VP Business Development

Eric B. (EB) manages strategic alliances, focused on partnerships that maximize the content quality of the Panels Network and distribution of the panels end user technology, including technology and database partners, publisher web sites and advertising networks. EB has experience in business and corporate development along with product marketing and management from fifteen years as founding employee or co-founder of several successful technology and entertainment start-ups, including Extensis Corporation, CreativePro.com, Casinopoly, You Software and Attensa. EB received his BA in Communication Arts & Sciences from the University of Southern California.

Kevin Fox, Product Manager

Kevin brings an extensive knowledge of community development and product management to the panels team. His area of focus is the panels product itself, monitoring people’s usage, gathering feedback and making sure the developers hear the useful bits and bytes. Kevin has worked in the internet technology field for several years, with a proven track record of growing vibrant communities around successful products.