Adrian Russell-Falla
President / CEO

The son of a former Royal Naval engineer officer, Adrian began sailing his Mirror dinghy single-handed at age 12, reveling in the challenge of the big tides, strong winds and open Atlantic waves of his native Channel Islands.

Before founding BigWake, Adrian founded RuleSpace, Inc., a developer of neural-network content recognition technology for Internet infrastructure applications. Recent investors include Millennium Technology Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, CoMotion Venture Capital, and strategic investor America Online [NYSE: AOL]. RuleSpace licenses its real-time, highly-scalable offerings to partners like Intel, Network Appliance, France Telecom, and other global technology and communications companies.

Bootstrapping RuleSpace from its beginnings, Adrian is the largest individual shareholder. He co-authored two of RuleSpace's core patent applications, recruited a highly-respected Board, and brought in key management team members to support the investment effort needed to implement his vision. The resulting strong valuation trajectory has now allowed Adrian to create BigWake, realizing a long-standing personal passion.

Previously, he was Consumer Product Line Manager at Now Software, Inc. where he managed several award-winning software products, and has over 14 years of technology industry experience.

Howard Wasserteil
Chief Operating Officer

As COO, Howard Wasserteil ensures "the trains run on time" at BigWake, Inc.

He founded his first start-up in 1975, a real estate development company that developed and operated full service athletic clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area. After building a leading name brand in that niche over 15 successful years, he moved to Los Angeles to lead the turnaround of a once-profitable 110,000 sq. ft. "mega-club." In 15 months, member levels increased 13%, and in 22 months, cash flow doubled.

In 1992, he co-founded Marsee Baking in Portland, OR. President for the 1st four years of Marsee's growth, Howard developed all operations infrastructure from the ground up, hired and managed key management personnel, and led all marketing initiatives as well as all real estate and FFE acquisition and financings. Howard also oversaw New Store Development, in addition to managing operations and rapid business expansion in Marsee's formative years.

John Gilman
Vice President of Business Development

As co-founder and VP of Business Development, John is responsible for defining the strategic direction of BigWake and developing key relationships with marine, technology and internet partners. John is a second-generation boating industry insider: his father Dave Gilman is universally known in the boating industry as a high-integrity smart businessman, whose acumen over the last 30 years has built Florida-based Gilman Yachts, Inc. into one of the largest yacht brokerages.

To his boating roots, John adds significant Internet and technology start-up experience. Previous to BigWake, as Market Development Manager for online transportation information provider DAT Services, he defined their B2B Internet trading-exchange strategy, developed new products and managed key product lines generating $15 million in early revenues. Prior to DAT, John was VP of Development for Infinite Music, building product development teams, establishing strategic relationships and negotiating key licenses with Lucent, U.S. Copyright Office, and Solana Tech, and pioneering manufacturing solutions for user-customized audio CDs and direct delivery of digital audio. His previous background includes Creative Multimedia Corporation, Starwave, and Continuum Productions. John is a crazed outdoor enthusiast, when he is not rock climbing, kayaking, ski-mountaineering, he likes to catch really big fish in very small boats - he currently holds the record with the West Palm Beach Fishing Club for the largest Blackfin Tuna - caught in the Gulfstream off Palm Beach from a kayak.

Henry Carstens
Vice President of Development

An entrepreneur from the beginning, Henry started his first technology company at 27 and sold it at 29. At 41, Henry is a past master at recruiting and motivating high-tech teams; he specializes in delivering better technology, faster and cheaper than anyone else. He has worked in Engineering, Marketing, Business Development and as a division General Manager. He has degrees in Math and Economics, with a minor in Physics and post-graduate work in Mathematics at Willamette University. His hobbies are weight lifting and designing commodity-trading systems.

Geoff Byler
Heavy Goods Transportation Logistician

Geoff has over thirty years experience in transportation logistics with senior management roles at UPS, Schneider National, and Superior Transportation. Geoff founded Transtech Associates in 1987 and Traffic Management Services in 1988 – a specialized freight forwarder that pioneered "on-board-consolidation" of volume LTL traffic.

Geoff has a track record of developing innovative solutions to complex transportation problems, and he is enabling BigWake to achieve unprecedented efficiencies in boat delivery and fulfillment.

Geoff is a member of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, and a past president of the Council of Logistics Management.

Daniel J. Merkle
Chairman, Board of Directors

With over 20 years of corporate leadership and governance experience, Dan Merkle has served as president of three companies in Oregon, Arizona and California, and executive vice president of Team Credit Services & Guerdon Financial Services, a nationally-known manufactured housing finance company.

He is currently a Senior Managing Director of Hunter Wise Financial Group LLC, an international investment and merchant banking group. Dan was formerly vice-Chairman of the Board of REI, Inc. for six years, during which time he oversaw the company's successful launch of REI.com.

Dan currently serves on several boards, including Ascolta, Inc., the 2nd largest Cisco training partner in the world. Dan also holds a USCG 100-ton Oceanmaster License, and is an accomplished round-the-world sailor.

Mari J. Baker
Board of Directors

Mari, senior vice president and general manager of BabyCenter, is the head of eToys' [NASD: ETYS] market-leading baby business. In May 1999 she joined BabyCenter as senior vice president of product development. By February 2000 she was named general manager, when eToys united its two baby businesses under the BabyCenter brand. EToys was recently recognized by Fortune magazine as #1 of the top 50 e-commerce Web sites. BabyCenter was also ranked as the Web site with the highest customer loyalty in a recent Dialscore study, placing it ahead of Amazon.com, Edmunds.com, and Outpost.com. And in May 2000, Media Metrix determined that BabyCenter had developed the second largest audience of pregnant women – in any medium, print or online.

Mari spent ten years with Intuit, Inc. [NASD: INTU], most recently as senior vice president of human resources and corporate communications. She was also a general manager for the Consumer Finance Division and International Operations, and was a key force in leading the company's Internet efforts, including the launch of Quicken.com. Mari also previously held marketing and product management positions with Now Software, Migent software and E.F. Hutton & Company. She is a graduate of Stanford University, and currently serves on Stanford's Board of Trustees.

Rob Mitchell
Board of Directors

Rob is President/COO of TrailWorks.com, an early-stage Internet company with a broad array of activity planning products and services designed to meet the needs of consumers who participate in recreational activities and those businesses that serve these consumer types.

Previously, Rob spent three years at Nike, Inc., becoming general manager for Women's Apparel. Prior to that, he was vice-president of marketing for Los Angeles-based International Management Group (IMG), the world's largest talent and intellectual property management company. Before IMG, he was CEO/COO of Mossimo, Inc. of Irvine CA, a NYSE-listed leading global sportswear company with revenues of over $100MM/year.

John Barrows
Board of Directors

John has over 20 years of senior marketing experience as a vice-president for the Merona division of Oxford Industries, the Avia division of Reebok, and the Winterland division of MCA. John has also accumulated significant startup experience, currently as founder and CEO of an as-yet unannounced Internet company, and formerly as president of the Blue Wolf Network, Inc., a developer and marketer of consumer-oriented Internet software products. He holds an MBA in Marketing and Organizational Development from The Darden School University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and a BS in Economics from Union College, Schenectady, NY.

William Kelly
Advisory Board

Bill is co-founder and CEO of Learning.com, which improves student technology literacy by helping teachers, schools, and districts interpret and fulfill K-12 technology standards.

Previous to Learning.com, he was co-founder and Executive Vice President of Sapient Health Network and then Vice President of Online Commerce for WebMD Corporation (NASDAQ: HLTH). At Sapient, Bill oversaw technology development, and product design, leading a 35-person development team. He secured key strategic partnerships with companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Amgen.

Previously, as Senior Product Manager with Creative Multimedia Corporation, developer and distributor of family oriented reference and entertainment CD-ROM software, he developed the marketing organization and grew the business with branded content partnerships.

Jim Mattingly
Blue Water Racing Advisor and Boat Sales Advisory Council

A former US Olympic Team sailor (Finn Class) and four-time America's Cup veteran, Jim brings extensive boat reseller experience and an enormous professional network to the BigWake team.

Currently, Jim provides exclusive sales and marketing services for Hunt and Huckins custom pleasure motoryachts. He previously served on the board of the Museum of Yachting and was the Commodore for the Offshore Ocean Racing Club of America. He co-managed the America's Cup Syndicate "Courageous" and America's Cup Campaign "Defender," and also served as Crew Boss and Watch Captain for Ted Turner's "Tenacious".