We Work Hard to Make Simple Yet Powerful Software.
Having a good product alone is not enough: you need a great team behind it to make it work. We have gone to great lengths to assemble a dedicated team of designers, developers, and project managers. Let’s introduce you to the team.
Leadership
Chris McGrath
Chris McGrath is the co-creator of ThoughtFarmer and an intranet expert. Prior to ThoughtFarmer, Chris spent 10 years consulting on intranet projects for companies like U.S. Bank, Intrawest Corporation, TELUS, Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver Port Authority and BC Hydro. Chris oversees ThoughtFarmer’s sales and marketing activities and is closely involved in product development.
Chris lives with his wife and three children on the island of St. Lucia in the West Indies, which he claims is not nearly as luxurious as it sounds. In his spare time he windsurfs, golfs and enjoys fine espresso.
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Darren Gibbons
Darren Gibbons is the co-creator of ThoughtFarmer and the President of OpenRoad, since its inception in 1995. His hands-on approach has helped organizations like the British Columbia Supreme Court, Intrawest Corporation, and the Workers Compensation Board achieve success with innovative and powerful web applications. Darren is deeply involved in every feature developed for ThoughtFarmer and his creativity and attention to detail are evident in the finished product.
Darren majored in Applied Physics at Simon Fraser University. He has been a guest speaker on topics ranging from Java to network security, and is co-author of a book on JavaBeans 1.1, published by McGraw-Hill. In his spare time, Darren amuses the rest of the ThoughtFarmer crew by digging up and posting obscure YouTube videos to our own ThoughtFarmer intranet.
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Gordon Ross
Gordon Ross is an OpenRoad partner and the Vice President responsible for strategy and professional services for ThoughtFarmer. An 18 year veteran of the web development industry, Gordon has led numerous web strategy, user experience, and intranet projects for clients such as BC Hydro, the City of Vancouver, Mountain Equipment Coop, the Government of British Columbia, and the World Bank. He’s spoken at Enterprise 2.0, OpenGovWest, Social Intranet Summit, SXSW, and World IA Day conferences, and is a frequent blogger on the theory behind social intranets.
Gordon earned a BA in Communications at Simon Fraser University, has taught IT project management and e-business courses at SFU and lectured at BCIT and the Vancouver Film School. He’s passionate about the ideas surrounding communications, complexity, ethnography, service design, social network analysis, theory of technology, urban planning, and the how the collision of these ideas can help make work better and organizations thrive. Gordon is a certified Cognitive Edge practitioner and an active member of the Vancouver cycling community.
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Amanda Bremner
Amanda Bremner joins ThoughtFarmer as part of the User Experience team. Amanda holds a Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology, concentrating in Ergonomics and Human Factors, from Simon Fraser University. Her experience in the Kinesiology program extended to courses at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts + Technology. Her exposure to usability and user experience through these opportunities ignited her passion for user centered design. A current member of the Vancouver User Experience (VanUE) Group, Amanda is committed to advocating for the user and creating great user experiences.
Outside of work, Amanda’s fascination with how people interact with the world around them doesn’t wane. She loves people watching, whether this is done while exploring new places, riding her bike through the city or cooking with friends.
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Amol Gill
Amol Gill is ThoughtFarmer’s Director of Sales for North America. Prior to Thoughtfarmer, Amol spent over 6 years working in the High-Tech industry with companies like eBay and Maximizer CRM. As part of management teams, Amol has been instrumental in improving sales processes, increasing revenue and improving the customer experience.
Amol demonstrates strong leadership skills combined with a strong ability to communicate with people from various backgrounds. ThoughtFarmer utilizes Amol’s ability to work closely with clients, ensuring their vision is top priority.
Amol majored in History and minored in Philosophy at University of British Columbia. Amol lives with his wife and two children in North Vancouver, BC and enjoys reading, running and working on his garden.
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Andrea Tam
Andrea Tam is a project manager at ThoughtFarmer with a strong background in web marketing project management, including her work for clients like the Canadian Tourism Commission, Nike, BC Hydro, Travel Yukon, Silverbirch Hotels, Electronic Arts, TEDx and Vancouver Convention Centre.
Andrea has managed a wide range of web technology projects from Drupal-based CMS, to custom .NET development, Facebook applications, and mobile integration projects. Prior to her career in software project management, Andrea honed her business skills doing brand management, production management, and international development for a fashion design and distribution company.
Andrea has visited over 20 countries and 60 cities. She obsesses about learning everything and does not believe in limitations.
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Bryan Robertson
Bryan Robertson has 16 years of internet industry design and management experience, where he has championed user-centered design techniques and usability testing.
Since joining OpenRoad in 2007, Bryan leads its Web Analytics and Performance Measurement practice. He has done a wide range of web analytics, performance management, and dashboard design work for clients such as BC Hydro, ICBC, The World Bank and Vancouver Public Library. He has helped clients get the most out of measuring their ThoughtFarmer intranets with our Intranet Statistics package as well as by designing custom dashboards.
Bryan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from Simon Fraser University and is a member of the Digital Analytics Association and is a signatory of the DAA Code of Ethics. He is a voracious reader and loyal subscriber to the Vancouver Sun.
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Carolien Dekeersmaeker
Carolien Dekeersmaeker brings 9 years of experience in customer service and account management as ThoughtFarmer’s Client Services Manager. She’s known for her exceptional follow-through, a strong customer focus and methodical work ethic as she guides new customers from their ThoughtFarmer installation to their intranet launch..
As Client Services Manager, Carolien acts as the first point of contact for all our customers and manages the ThoughtFarmer support and documentation team. Carolien also brings some great multilingual support as ThoughtFarmer continues to explode internationally. Her French, English, Dutch and Spanish language skills have been an asset, most recently with Fokker, a Netherlands based company.
Carolien has a Masters degree in French Literature and completed a post-graduate Communications program at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). She firmly believes in the power of checklists. When Carolien is not busy with ThoughtFarmer customers, she is kept busy by her feisty 3-year old daughter, trotting around the city with a camera, running and dreaming about a trip to Japan.
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Ephraim Freed
Ephraim Freed manages ThoughtFarmer’s marketing and provides professional services to help clients plan, build, launch and love their intranets.
Ephraim has managed and consulted on intranets since 2005. Directly prior to joining ThoughtFarmer he oversaw Oxfam America’s internal communications and intranet which, coincidentally, were powered by ThoughtFarmer.
Ephraim’s work focuses on how people-centered intranets can create engaged and empowering work environments. He speaks fluent intranet governance talk and can act as a translator between IT and business teams. Ephraim also is proficient in the realms of information architecture, internal communications, user adoption and project planning.
Ephraim earned a BA in Liberal Arts in the Hutchins program at Sonoma State University (SSU). When he’s not thinking about, writing about and speaking with people about intranets, he can be found scouting out great food trucks and burning off the calories by trail running.
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Jeff Pennal
As one of the Senior Developers working on our ThoughtFarmer product, Jeff Pennal is a skilled developer that enjoys solving complex problems. Armed with a degree from BCIT in Computer Science specializing in Artificial Intelligence, he helps to refine the vision for the product offering. Jeff has the ability to work well with clients is able to communicate complex development problems in simple easy to understand terms making him a valuable asset on the ThoughtFarmer team.
Jeff has been a member of the OpenRoad team since 1998, with a brief hiatus when he moved to Prague for two years with his family. To compliment his talented development skills, Jeff plays hockey, loves taking his family on long road trips and traveling around the world.
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Jennifer Gerth
Jennifer Gerth has 10 years of experience ensuring software product Quality.
Before coming to ThoughtFarmer in 2008, she worked with Global Market Insite, a Vancouver start-up company, where she concentrated on Release Management and software as a service. Previously, Jennifer built a wealth of experience at Raytheon Canada writing and executing test procedures, requirement traceability matrices and auditing software.
ThoughtFarmer utilizes Jennifer’s ability to work closely with business analysts, software developers and other quality assurance engineers and agile development teams to strengthen the quality of our software. In her spare time, you can usually find Jennifer outside or in the velodrome riding one of her many bikes.
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Lawrence Chan
Lawrence fills multiple roles at ThoughtFarmer including software development & architecture, database design, business analysis and acting as ThoughtFarmer’s system administrator. Lawrence has been a member of the OpenRoad team since 1999. With a degree from Simon Fraser University in Computer Science and Economics, he brings strong analytical and architectural skills to each project.
Although he does like anything hardware and software related, outside of the office Lawrence serves as personal shopper to many and is a self-confessed foodie and lover of fine scotch.
Mark Johnston
Mark Johnston is an Applications/Systems developer with 10 years of Object Oriented experience in software development. His past roles have included Senior Developer, Technical Team Lead, Designer and Software Developer on teams ranging in size from two people to 100+ members.
Mark’s project experience encompasses numerous Internet Applications for various clients such as TELUS, BC Hydro, Future Shop, The Brick, EMI Records. His expertise is wide ranging and includes areas such as Java Development, Internet Applications Development, Databases and Content Management Systems.
Mark recently completed a course on programming apps for the iPhone and iPad using Objective C and XCode at BCIT. Mark’s iPad app allows you to find out information on any Canadian Member of Parliament. Mark has no plans to recreate the success of the “Angry Birds” franchise with this app. Mark also enjoys taking photographs and is an avid Vancouver Canucks fan.
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Martyn Braithwaite
Martyn Braithwaite has 10 years of experience working as a Software Developer and IT consultant covering the entire software lifecycle from requirements gathering, architecture and design to implementation and support.
Martyn previously worked as a consultant for Accenture where he was a senior developer working in the Futureshop / BestBuy IT department specifically in the Ecommerce team. He was responsible for designing and implementing highly scalable features for 2 of the busiest Canadian retail websites (www.futureshop.ca and www.bestbuy.ca).
Martyn has a Bsc(Hons) in Computer / Management Science and is also a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer. Before moving to Vancouver he lived in England where he was a senior consultant with a number of IT firms in the London area. Martyn is our resident expert on all things British, from cricket to fish ‘n chips.
Michael Olund
Prior to joining the ThoughtFarmer team, Michael Olund acted as a business analyst, architect, and lead developer on several large projects at OpenRoad, for clients including the BC Courts, Intrawest, and Kernaghan Adjusters. Michael excels at database design, .NET web development, and back-end server development, with a strong aptitude for web-based financial and accounting systems.
Michael has a degree in Business Administration, with a finance concentration, and a joint major in Economics. Prior to becoming a web developer 13 years ago, Michael worked in financial roles at Coast Capital Savings, and the Government of Canada. Michael is a father of four and a sporadic triathlete.
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Sara Redpath
Sara is ThoughtFarmer’s intrepid Sales Coordinator – from juggling schedules to drafting proposals, she works closely with both clients and the ThoughtFarmer team to keep things running smoothly.
Sara has a professional background in legal administration and small business. Sara came to ThoughtFarmer after 6 years on Vancouver Island where she founded Sarandipity, an artisan manufacturer of organic chocolates.
Originally from New Jersey, Sara holds a degree in Political Science from Boston College where she also studied Faith, Peace, and Justice and spent a semester abroad in El Salvador. When she’s not working, she loves exploring the “big city”, eating her way around the world, and providing her ThoughtFarmer colleagues with “s’mores” and other goodies.
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Selma Zafar
Selma Zafar has 12 years of experience designing innovative and usable software and hardware. She ensures that the needs of the end-user remain at the heart of the research, design and development process. With ThoughtFarmer, Selma contributes to the user centered design practice and philosophy by bringing a breadth of experience and knowledge from a multitude of industries. She leads clients through the process of getting the most from their Intranet through defining user-centred information architecture, intranet content strategy and content migration approaches. She also coaches the importance of intranet governance – from launch to ongoing use.
Selma has given talks on mobile intranet design, intranet information architecture and user experience design techniques. She was an instructor with the Langara College teaching courses in Human Factors and Information Design, is an active member in the Vancouver User Experience Group (VanUE), and helped to plan World Usability Day 2009 for Vancouver. Selma loves to travel and is thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with ThoughtFarmer clients around the world.
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Steve Calvert
Steve Calvert is one of the key Software Developers for ThoughtFarmer. He is an expert in Microsoft’s .NET framework, specializing in architecting and implementing solutions in the C# language. Steve possesses a high degree of skill in object oriented programming, and has a deep understanding of solid coding practices. In addition, he is an expert in front end coding, including technologies such as CSS, XHTML, and most importantly, JavaScript. He has used a diverse range of client side libraries, such as mootools, YUI, prototype, and jQuery.
Steve graduated with honors from the British Columbia Institute of Technology in 2005 with a diploma of technology in Information Systems. Steve had nothing personal to add to his profile, but we’re pretty sure he’s still an interesting guy.
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Tim Schiller
Since 2008, Tim Schiller has been an integral part of the ThoughtFarmer Development Team. Tim works with clients to ensure the smooth installation and upgrades of ThoughtFarmer. A natural instructor, Tim has led Administration training and has helped teams with their ThoughtFarmer questions. He feels that a project is a success when clients are able to utilize and understand the full functionality of the product and leverage those features to increase employee collaboration and relationships.
Tim’s technical expertise includes .NET web development, Microsoft Windows and SQL Server management, and SharePoint administration. Tim has a Bachelor’s of Computer Science from the University of British Columbia. Tim’s technical side is balanced out by his natural musical talent, as he enjoys recording music and singing/songwriting. He is also an active runner, hiker, and snowboarder, and loves all things outdoors.
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