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The Rootstock Management Team brings together decades of industry experience and software innovation to deliver the leading SaaS manufacturing enterprise software serving Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) discrete manufacturers.

Pat Garrehy - Founder, President, CEO and Board Member

Prior to Rootstock, Pat was the founder and CEO (for over twenty years) of Relevant Business Systems, an ERP software provider whose customers are discrete manufacturing companies, with a niche specialization in the Defense market.  Relevant was sold in 2006 and remains the most profitable division of the acquirer.  Relevant software is still used at major divisions of Lockheed and Solectron, both with sales of over one billion dollars, and is also used at many smaller manufacturers.  

Prior to Relevant Business Systems, Pat founded a business software consulting company whose most notable customer was FMC Ordnance.  Before that, Pat held a number of management positions at Martin Marietta Corporation, in their Aluminum and Data Systems Divisions.

Pat combines his years of executive management and sales experience with an extensive background as a software architect and engineer. In his position as CEO, Pat is initially focused on the architecture of the Rootstock software, closely managing the software team in the development of the Rootstock proprietary SaaS software.  Pat also leads the current sales effort and has developed close relationships with a number of the key sales and executive staff at Netsuite.

Pat holds a BS degree in business and mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA in finance from the University of Southern California.

Alex Hehmeyer – Chairman of the Board, Advisor, and Chief Financial Officer

Alex is a private equity investor in several enterprises, including two SaaS companies. He is a consultant to one of those companies whose software is used in auto and equipment lending companies.  He is Chairman of the Board and active in the workout of a defined benefit plan financial services and software company.  

Previously, Alex was the co-founder and President of Career Choices, Inc., a successful company in the for-profit postsecondary education business.  Career Choices, Inc. was sold to a major NYSE-traded company in 2003.  Before that, Alex was the CEO of the California Culinary Academy, which was a publicly traded (NASDAQ) for profit company.

Alex has extensive experience in investment and merchant banking. He served as a Managing Director, General Counsel and CFO for several years of Richard C. Blum & Associates, which grew from $10 million to over $450 million under management. He also participated in several partnerships that acquired companies and was active in investing in several public companies.  Alex held the position of First Vice President, General Counsel and a director of Sutro & Co. Inc., a NYSE member broker dealer and investment banking firm.  Earlier, Alex was an associate with the law firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro.

Alex holds a BA degree from Yale University, and a JD degree from The University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall), where he was an editor of the California Law Review.

Chuck Olinger - Senior Executive Vice President

Chuck’s background includes more than 35 years in the development, sales, marketing, and successful implementation of manufacturing systems for a wide range of companies. With recent experience as West Region Manager with Glovia Services Inc. (an established ERP offering that moved to the SaaS model), Chuck brings extensive knowledge about today’s market and current buyer demands/trends.

Previously, Chuck served as Chief Operating Officer for MCBA, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for True Data Corporation, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Relevant Business Systems, Managing Director of TRW’s Baan Practice, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for RedKlay Web Solutions (now known as FullScope) and Vice President of Sales & Marketing for nMetric, LLC. Educated at Youngstown State University with a major in Accounting, Chuck brings a strong management background coupled with a practical vision regarding the future of manufacturing systems.

Michael Dreimiller - Senior Implementation Consultant

Prior to Rootstock, Michael served as a consultant, account manager and educator for Relevant Business Systems. With more than 30 years as an ERP professional, Michael has managed major implementations for customers within the aerospace and defense industry. His experience has included business analysis, system re-engineering, consulting, education, training and process documentation.

In addition to his work with Relevant, Michael has served as a veteran IBM MAPICS ERP professional and has been positioned as the lead consultant for C3, a government contractor systems integrator based in northern Virginia. His implementations have encompassed all financial, cost accounting, engineering, sales, master planning, capacity planning, shop floor scheduling, inventory and acquisition applications, as well as migration of data from legacy ERP systems.

Michael holds a masters degree from The John Hopkins University. He has written numerous articles for manufacturing trade journals, has authored ERP software training manuals and has served as a speaker and presenter at software user conferences.

Richard Vann- Director of Programming

Rich was responsible for the high level technical architecture of the Rootstock system and is currently directing all programming efforts and managing all contractors involved in the development of the Suiteflex component of the system. With 25 years of successful software development, including substantial java application, his background includes software architecture design, consulting, project management and professional services experience.

Prior to joining Rootstock, Rich served as IT Director for Auctio LLC for eight years and was responsible for development of their real-time web/phone auction platform. He was also Director of Engineering for several web startups at Digital Ventures, a venture capital/incubator company.  Rich also held various technical management positions for Microsoft, Data Storage Systems/Modalis, Edify, Octel, and Rolm.

Rich graduated from the University of California at Davis with a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.