Benetech is led by a highly motivated team of engineers and professionals, all committed to working collaboratively to bring critically important technology to social applications.

• Jim Fruchterman, Founder and CEO
   
• Patrick Ball, PhD, CTO and Director, Human Rights Programs
     
• John Crossman, Engineering Manager
   
• Lisa Friendly, Senior Product Manager
   
• Peggy Gibbs, Vice President, Business Development
   
• Jane Simchuk, Director, Human Resources and Administration
   
• Teresa Throckmorton, CFO and Vice President, Finance
   

Jim Fruchterman

Founder and CEO

A technology entrepreneur, Jim Fruchterman is a former rocket scientist who has founded two of the foremost optical character recognition companies and developed successful social enterprises. Jim co-founded Calera Recognition Systems in 1982. Calera developed character recognition that allowed computers to read virtually all printed text.

In 1989, Jim founded Arkenstone, a nonprofit social enterprise, to produce reading machines for the disabled community based on the Calera technology. Following the sale of the Arkenstone product line in 2000, Jim used all the resulting capital to fund Benetech, with an explicit goal of using the power of technology to serve humanity.

Jim has also been active in public service, with two stints on U.S. federal advisory committees. He was named an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in 2003 by the Schwab Foundation and continues to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Benetech received the Skoll Award for social entrepreneurship under Jim’s leadership. Jim also received the Robert F. Bray Award from the American Council of the Blind in recognition of his outstanding efforts to make literary works accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired.

Jim believes that technology is the ultimate leveler, allowing disadvantaged people to achieve more equality in society. "I'm an advance scout for social applications,” notes Jim. “I find exciting technology waiting to be turned into non-commercial tools for disadvantaged groups."

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Patrick Ball, PhD

CTO and Director, Human Rights Programs

Patrick Ball is a leading innovator in applying scientific measurement to human rights. He has spent more than 20 years designing databases and conducting quantitative analysis for truth commissions, non-governmental organizations, tribunals and United Nations missions El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, South Africa, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and Perú.

From 1993-2003, he worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the Science and Human Rights Program. His most recent work is an estimate of the total deaths in Peru, 1980-2000, conducted on behalf of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Patrick has received several awards. In April 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation presented him with their Pioneer Award. In August 2002, the Social Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association gave him a Special Achievement Award. In June 2004, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) gave Patrick the Eugene Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics.

Patrick is currently involved in HRDAG projects in Sierra Leone, Chad, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Colombia, and others.

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John Crossman

Engineering Manager

John Crossman has a decade of experience working in the Internet industry, serving as both a senior engineer and technical manager. At Benetech, he provides tactical leadership to the engineering department.

Before joining Benetech, John was Director of the Systems Integration group at CNET Networks, a global Internet media company that serves in excess of 100 million page views per day.

John has B.S. in Computer Science from U.C. Santa Barbara, and graduated from the Master’s and Credential in Science and Mathematics Education program at U.C. Berkeley. Prior to his career in the high-tech industry, John worked as a high school teacher, a curriculum specialist at the Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose, CA), and an exhibit engineer at Zeum, an art and technology museum in San Francisco, CA.

At Benetech, John is able to combine his expertise in software engineering with his passion for social causes in order to build technology solutions that serve humanity.

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Lisa Friendly

Senior Product Manager

Lisa Friendly has a strong background in technology management. She was the director of software technical publications for the Java project at Sun Microsystems where she began as an original member of the 25 member Java team which began its work in 1993. She remained with the Java project for over 10 years, designing their first public website and going on to create and manage the highly successful Java Series books published jointly by Sun Microsystems and Addison Wesley.

While at Sun, Lisa designed the user interface for the well-known and broadly utilized JavaDoc tool which is used to publish API documentation directly from Java source code. In 1995 she presented a seminal paper on the development of the JavaDoc tool at an international conference on hypermedia design. ( L. Friendly, The design of distributed hyperlinked programming documentation. In Proceedings of the International Workshop on Hypermedia Design, Montpellier, France, pages 151--173. Springer, 1995.) For all of these achievement she was recognized in 1999 as one of The Top 25 Women on the Web by www.women.com and ZD.net.

Lisa holds a BA in Psychology with honors from Washington University in St. Louis and a Ph.D. in Behavior Research from Adelphi University's Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies in New York.

Lisa’s philosophy of software management is to tightly integrate the engineers, testers, writers and operational staff who support a software project. In her leadership role for Benetech’s literacy programs, Bookshare and Route 66, Lisa sees a rare and exciting opportunity to bring the experience and discipline she has gained working with large and successful software products at Sun and Macromedia to the world of social entrepreneurship. “I am honored to have this opportunity to contribute to the greater needs of our society and will work very hard to see that our projects are successful in meeting their goals.”

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Peggy Gibbs

Vice President, Business Development

With a strong background in the creation, development and deployment of initiatives in health care and education, Peggy Gibbs brings more than 20 years experience in resource and partnership development, program start-up and implementation, and community outreach.

Prior to coming to Benetech, Peggy was Senior Development Officer at The Health Trust, where she oversaw the resource and partnership development of community programs and the creation and launch of four county-wide initiatives, aimed at children’s health care and literacy. Prior to that, she held senior development positions in health care for Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, the arts with Cincinnati Opera, and public television with stations WPSX in State College and KTXT in Lubbock.

Peggy received her B.A. from University of the Pacific.

When it comes to business development, strong communications skills are a must. Peggy brings that kind of experience. From early work in public television, to a long record of public speaking engagements, Peggy has learned to connect with people from all walks of life. In the process, she's learned to reach out with messages, encouraging support and involvement.

And in a tactical sense, Peggy's mission is to ensure that the right things happen in every single engagement. "It's more than just selling the idea of Benetech," she says. "It's really about being the best ambassador for the idea, to bring the donor in as a true partner."

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Jane Simchuk

Director, Human Resources and Administration

Jane Simchuk brings over 15 years of administrative management experience in both the high tech and banking sectors.  Her previous experience includes executive staff assistant at the Portland Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank as well as managing the administration function at Calera Recognition Systems. Jane received her B.A. from Stanford.

Jane has always enjoyed the broad challenges found in two distinct areas of business: managing the day-to-day affairs of busy office environments, and helping to set strategy for ongoing growth. As an early member of the Calera team, Jane ran the office, managing everything from facilities to personnel during years of rapid growth. Later, Calera's foundation OCR product became the inspiration for Arkenstone and helped to germinate the idea of Bookshare.org, a successful Benetech initiative.

From 1996 to 2000, Jane served as Executive Administrative Assistant to the Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank (Portland, Oregon branch). In this capacity, Jane balanced a wide range of duties, including administration, Board relations and special projects. Today, Jane oversees Human Resources and office functions, serving as ad-hoc marketing communications manager, and participating in fund raising and management.

"My work at Benetech has helped me to understand a primary rule where non-profits are concerned," says Jane. "Accountability is the key. We owe it to our user communities and our donors to push out the best possible products and, at the same time, manage dollars aggressively to the last penny. My job is to continually revise our processes toward that goal."

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Teresa Throckmorton

CFO and Vice President, Finance

Following experience in banking audit and management, Teresa Throckmorton provided financial management at Calera Recognition Systems and has spent the last 15 years as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance for high tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Later, also in the roles of VP Finance and CFO, Throckmorton helped to start up two technology companies in Silicon Valley. Through this experience, Throckmorton learned all about careful financial management — where every dollar matters — as well as the factors of risk and reward. In the process, she was part of the culture of innovation that is still so important in developing the best in technology.

At Benetech, Teresa's role includes day-to-day management as well as the development and implementation of an overall strategy for building a sustainable social enterprise. Teresa is excited by this challenge: "This work is so important. The balance here will be to keep an eye on reality, but to not lose sight of the dream."

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