Vocera Communications, Inc.
Vocera Communications, Inc. was founded in March 2000 by a team with many years of experience in the design of complex, network-based software and hardware systems.
Robert Shostak, principal founder and acting CEO has been forming successful start-up companies in the Valley for more than fifteen years. His most recent is Portera Systems, of which he was principal founder and CTO. Portera is funded by IVP, Kleiner-Perkins, RRE Ventures, Hambrecht & Quist, Stanford University, and Oracle Corporation, among others. Portera is a supplier of web-hosted services and applications to the professional services industry. It now has nearly 200 employees. Dr. Shostak also co-founded Ansa Software, where he authored the Paradox database. Paradox has sold millions of copies, and is still sold today, fifteen years later, by Corel. Ansa merged with Borland International in 1989, where Shostak spent several years developing new database technology. Shostak previously conducted basic research in computer science at Stanford Research Institute, and holds BA, MA, and PhD degrees in computer science and applied mathematics from Harvard University.
Paul Barsley, founder and Chief Operating Officer, has more than 25 years of product development and operations experience. Prior to Vocera, Barsley held COO and Head of Engineering positions at IDEO Product Development. IDEO is a leading design and product development consultancy that provides expertise to both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. Barsley was responsible for building IDEO into a multi-branch, international company from a group of 15 to over 300 professionals worldwide. Before IDEO, he held the position of interim VP of Engineering at Presentation Technologies, and earlier at Bytec-Comterm, developer of the Hyperion portable. Barsley's product development experience includes several years in the telephony industry. He holds a BSC degree in Electrical Engineering from Brighton University, UK.
Randy Nielsen, founder and Director of Software Engineering, has been involved in start-ups for over twenty years, and has managed both software and embedded hardware systems engineering. He has worked with Dr. Shostak on several efforts, including the development of Paradox at Ansa Software. More recently, Nielsen was a co-founder of Portera Systems, where he managed the engineering team and worked on hosted server applications. Prior to Portera he spent seven years at Borland International, where he managed groups of engineers. Mr. Nielsen holds a BA in Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley.