REvolution Management Team

 

Norman Nie

President and Chief Executive Officer

 

Norman H. Nie is the co-inventor of SPSS, the predictive analytics product and company he co-founded in 1967 and which he led as president and CEO through 1992. From 1992 through 2008, Nie served as chairman of the SPSS board and as a product design innovator for the company, which was sold to IBM in 2009.  Professor Emeritus from the University of Chicago, and currently research professor of political science at Stanford University is  a nationally recognized scholar in the fields of survey research, quantitative social science, and political behavior. Nie is a two time winner of the Woodrow Wilson award for the best book published in political science (1976, 1997).  In 2007, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for his contributions to survey analytics as well as his works in political behavior.  He was recently appointed a fellow of The American Academy of the Arts and Sciences (AAAS).  Nie was educated at the University of the Americas in Mexico City, Washington University in St. Louis and Stanford University, where he received a Ph.D. in political science.

 

David Champagne

Chief Technology Officer

 

David Champagne is a top software architect, programmer and product manager with over 20 years experience in enterprise and web application development for business customers across a wide range of industries. As Principal Architect/Engineer for SPSS, Champagne led the development teams, created and led the text mining architecture team and was responsible for a variety of open source initiatives. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Software Engineering for LexiQuest, in charge of software development, quality assurance and publications for the entire product line. Earlier in his career, Champagne was a systems engineer for Honeywell and, and was also a free-lance software consultant. David is a 1984 graduate of Southern Illinois University.

 

Jeff Erhardt

Chief Operating Officer

 

Jeff Erhardt is an executive with more than 11 years of diverse experience at Fortune 400 companies in technology, operations, finance, strategy, and M&A.  Erhardt began his career at Advanced Micro Devices where he was responsible for the development and commercialization of leading edge semiconductor devices, eventually authoring more than 30 United States patents.  In this capacity, Erhardt was an expert user of numerous statistics and analytics tools (including R) and directed the creation of a cutting edge, fully integrated analysis infrastructure to accelerate the development and introduction of new semiconductor technologies.  Most recently Erhardt played a central role in the multi-billion dollar restructuring effort at Spansion, where he advised on operational and performance improvements as well as structured, negotiated, and led numerous complex, multi-national transactions.  Erhardt graduated with a B.S. in Engineering Cum Laude, from Cornell University and an M.B.A. with Honors from The Wharton School.

 

Lee Edlefsen
Vice President, Engineering

 

Lee is responsible for the overall development and quality of REvolution Computing’s products. Before joining the company he was CEO and co-founder of ExaMetrix, the producer of ExaStat, an open source environment for analyzing huge data sets. Previously, he served as Vice President of Development for the Data Analysis Products Division at MathSoft (currently Tibco Software Inc.) Lee co-founded, grew, and sold two successful software companies, Aptech Systems – the producers of the GAUSS Mathematical and Statistical System, and TriMetrix – the creators of the Axum technical graphics and data analysis package. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

 

Sue Ranney
Vice President, Product Management

 

Sue oversees REvolution Computing's product planning and execution throughout the product lifecycle.  A co-founder of ExaMetrix, a company that specializes in the analysis of huge data sets,  Sue also is a previous Vice President of Development for the Data Analysis Products Division at MathSoft  (currently Tibco Software Inc.), where she co-managed S-Plus releases, and the co-founder of TriMetrix which produced technical graphics and data analysis software.  She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

 

David Smith
Vice President, Marketing

 

David has a long history with the statistical community.  After graduating with a degree in Statistics from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, David spent four years researching statistical methodology at Lancaster University (United Kingdom), where he also developed a number of packages for the S-PLUS statistical modeling environment. David continued his association with S-PLUS at Insightful (now TIBCO Spotfire) where for more than eight years he oversaw the product management of S-PLUS and other statistical and data mining products. David is the co-author (with Bill Venables) of the tutorial manual, An Introduction to R, and one of the originating developers of ESS: Emacs Speaks Statistics. Prior to joining REvolution, David was Vice President, Product Management at Zynchros, Inc.