Who We Are Herb Zydney, Chief Executive Officer; Co-founder Don Tydeman, President Dr. Phillip M. Neches, Chairman Lawrence Jacobs, VP Marketing & Business Development Steve Rummel, VP Engineering Operations Nancy Clark, Chief Financial Officer Herb Zydney, Chief Executive and Co-founder is a pioneer in the development and marketing of communications technology. Herb leads the eCall.com team after serving as a senior technology and product development executive at AT&T Bell Laboratories. During his distinguished career with AT&T Bell Laboratories, Herb led the development and deployment of the market-leading Merlin and Partner business office telephone systems, which introduced the first in-building wireless communications. He directed the team responsible for the technical planning for digitizing the Bell System communications network. He also led network evolution studies as part of the divestiture of the Bell System. In 1990, Herb was named an AT&T Bell Laboratories Fellow for his significant contributions to the advancement of communications technology. He is immediate past Chairman of the MultiMedia Communications Forum, an international consortium of leading technology companies developing specifications to standardize multimedia communications on broadband platforms. Herb holds many patents and has published a number of technical articles on data communications, telephony and the Internet. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia College and both a bachelor's and master's degree in engineering from the Columbia University School of Engineering. Don Tydeman brings to the eCall team over twenty years of leadership experience in sales, marketing, business development and management for new media and publishing ventures. A co-founder of i-80 Ventures, an Internet venture consulting firm, Don played a key role in the early development of eCall prior to joining as President. Before his consulting work with i-80 Ventures, Don was a senior marketing executive and member of the Executive Committee (one of five members) at CMP Media, Inc. CMP Media is a Fortune 500 company and a leading information resource and publisher covering the computer and Internet industries. At CMP, he helped launch such brands as InformationWeek, InternetWeek, TechWeb, Computer Reseller News, Windows Magazine and CMPnet (www.cmpnet.com), and he was publisher of NetGuide Magazine. An expert in building sales, marketing and administrative operations for new ventures, he co-founded a successful Internet communications technology firm, V-Cast, which served major media partners such as The New York Times, Dow Jones and Time Warner, and was later sold to USWeb. He also is a founding director of AlleyCat, the trade association of New York City's high tech business community ("Silicon Alley"). Don is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. An expert in the development and application of computer and telecommunications technology, Dr. Phillip M. Neches most recently served as Group Technical Officer at AT&T Multimedia Products and Services Group (now Lucent Technologies, Inc.), where he was appointed to the Bell Laboratories Executive Committee. Before Lucent, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist at NCR Corporation. At NCR, Phil led their transition to open, scalable, Intel-microprocessor computing platforms. He also co-founded and served as Vice President and Chief Scientist of Teradata Corporation, which pioneered the commercial parallel computing market with systems designed for large-scale relational database management. Phil received his BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees from California Institute of Technology, where in 1995 he was named a Young Alumni Trustee. Lawrence Jacobs brings to eCall over 20 years of varied and successful experience in the telecommunications and computer industries. Before joining eCall, Larry was President, US Operations for PhoNet Communications, a small start-up that was sold to VCON, Inc. Prior to this, Larry was General Manager, Small Business Systems at Lucent Technologies where he managed a business portfolio that generated $750 million in annual revenues. Under his leadership, Lucent's Small Communications Systems business captured leading market share position, achieved best-in-class cost of goods and became a significant "cash cow" for Lucent. In previous assignments at Lucent and AT&T, Larry led the development and launch of the industry-leading TSAPI computer-telephony specification and had overall leadership responsibility for the Versit initiative—a partnership between Lucent, IBM, Siemens and Apple. Larry also has experience managing Business Development, International Operations, Product Management and Financial analysis activities. Additionally, Larry represented Lucent on the Board of Directors of the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC). Larry has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Lafayette College and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Steve Rummel has served in engineering and business management roles for almost 18 years. Most recently he was Director of Strategic Planning and Business Development at Lucent. Among his accomplishments, he managed AT&T's participation in the Versit CTI Project, a technology partnership between AT&T, IBM, Apple and Siemens. At Bell Laboratories, where he was a lead engineer, he managed the definition, planning and development of several innovations in audio, video and data communications. Prior to that, Steve worked in engineering and project management roles for Panasonic Industrial Company and RCA Astroelectronics. Steve also has entrepreneurial experience as the founder of a computer systems development and integration services firm. He has an undergraduate engineering degree from Rutgers University, completed coursework toward a graduate engineering degree and has attended the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School "Mini-MBA" course. Prior to joining eCall, Nancy Clark was a partner and Chief Financial Officer of Bullock Associates, a start-up benefits outsourcing company spun off from General Electric Company in 1990. She and several other partners created a total benefits outsourcing firm from this start-up venture, adding many Fortune 500 clients including Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Bell Atlantic, AlliedSignal, and Warner-Lambert. The privately-held firm was acquired in late 1995 by ABR Benefits Services of Palm Harbor, FL, known mainly as the provider of CobraServe benefits. Nancy remained with the combined entity for nearly four years, assisting in the transition to a public company and helping to seek out other acquisition candidates. Prior to this experience, Nancy was Vice President/Controller for a large mortgage banker and savings bank in central New Jersey. Nancy, a CPA, began her career with Deloitte and Touche after graduating cum laude from Bucknell University. back to top