The Team
Ian Straub, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder
Ian is a technology evangelist who has spent his career inventing, creating, and applying innovative solutions to complex problems. Having been involved with Internet based solutions before the "Browser" existed Ian learned early on that enabling real time access to relevant information is tremendously valuable and desirable from both a business and a personal use perspective. Over the last 15 years Ian has applied this understanding to create production systems in the areas of catalog management, electronic commerce, searching, reporting, analytics, data mining, knowledge management, on-line training, interactive learning, gaming and communications; for organizations such as NASA, TRW, Requisite Technology, IHS, University of Missouri, Qwest, Oracle and SAP.
In April of 2008 Ian Straub and Ben Bruckhart founded Ontomni with the belief that mobile computing has truly come of age and over the next several years we will see a dramatic shift of people becoming less dependent on their "Computer" and more dependent on their "Mobile Device". As GPS, Wireless, Cellular, Camera and large storage capacities become standard features of all mobile devices, real time access to relevant information takes on new meaning, enabling the convergence of social networking and location based services to Enrich the Moment.
Ian holds three patents in the areas of content management, syndication and distribution. Ian received his bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Missouri, along with a Minor in Spanish. He is an avid fly fisherman and loves any excuse to spend a day on the river.
Ben Bruckhart, Vice President of Engineering and Co-Founder
Ben has over 10 years in the software industry. This experience includes four
years an independent technical consultant providing services to several software
companies both in the United States and abroad.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Ben was a lead developer for
Requisite Technology. While at Requisite, he helped deliver the company's
flagship search technology to over 100,000 end users.
Additionally, Ben has considerable experience with language analysis in software. At Requisite
he headed up the internationalization of the catalog search capabilities for Japanese and German,
and more recently has completed contracts to analyze electronic content and extract textual
information from large information stores.
Ben began his career at Space Imaging in 1997. He holds a BS in Computer Science and a BA in
Studio Art from Colorado State University.
Joanie Straub, Vice President of Marketing
Joanie has over 15 years in marketing communications. Since 2004, she has worked as an independent
marketing consultant providing a variety of marketing and public relations expertise. This includes
marketing program development, managing content on corporate intranet projects, market research,
writing and creating Web sites, developing corporate graphic standards and writing collateral materials (newsletters,
fact sheets, brochures, advertisements, articles, DVDs, radio advertisement) for both government and corporate clients.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Joanie worked at Qwest Communications as a senior manager
in Competitive Intelligence. Her responsiblities included working with the Business sales force
to assess and advise on competitor activity to help Qwest win sales.
Additionally, Joanie has considerable experience planning and managing
programs for high level sponsorships, events, promotions and incentives from inception to completion.
Joanie's first venture on the Internet was working on a NASA Website,
the Observatorium, in 1997.
As curator of the site, she was responsible for the content. At the time, the Observatorium
averaged 1 million hits a month. Joanie holds a BJ in Broadcast Journalsim and a BS in History from
the University of Missouri and a MS in Technical Communication from Colorado State University.