Intermission

If you are here, you probably know who we are.  But maybe you are an old friend who Googled us, and are wondering if this is the SAME Michelle or Tom…

About Tom Berend

It’s been a strange and wonderful journey so far.

Grew up in Montreal.  Engineering degree from Carleton University in Ottawa.

Then some consulting (Micom and others).  Tried to start a small computer company in Montreal (Quadrex), ran into the 1982 recession.  Went to work at Canadian Pacific where I met Dale Jeffries (who would remain a friend, business partner, and best man at my wedding - and had the distinction of firing me TWICE).

Moved to Toronto, met and almost immediately married Michelle (the smartest thing I’ve ever done).

Was involved in a startup funded by early Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.  More consulting.  Did a stint at Telxon (another company that fired me twice).  Some work with Les Crisp at Datatek, who mentored me on how to succeed as a small business and started me in a software integration business.

in 1994, Datatek Software Integration morphed into Radio Beacon, a developer of Warehouse Mangement Software (WMS).  It quickly got too big for me to manage, and Dale Jeffries stepped in as President.  We assembled a group of wickedly good programmers and had an awesome wonderful time.  In 2006, RB was acquired by a group of executives from Denver, and I left in 2007.

Founded another company - Cheese+Crackers - as an innovation boutique.  That lasted about 6 months, and was acquired by Reddwerks, where I spent a year helping in pre-sales.

Along the way, I ran a marathon, biked my first 100-mile race, took ballroom dance lessons (i’m terrible at it - no sense of rhythm - but Michelle puts up with me and I love dancing with her).

And now we’re off on our ‘Intermission’.