Authors
Meet the authors and contributors behind Cobalt Iron’s perspectives on technology, data protection, and business. Explore their roles and experience below.
Michael Sanders
Advisor
Michael Sanders is an advisor to and champion of Cobalt Iron. Michael is President and Principal Consultant of Sanders Cybernetics, doing business as Technology & Business Fusion, Inc., a Kansas City-area consulting practice that transfers systems, process, and metrics skills to client staff. Michael previously served as CIO at Transamerica Life Insurance, Commerce Bank, Dodson Group, and Kansas City Life Insurance. Michael began a career in technology as a member of technical staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories, and later spent eight years as Entrepreneur in Residence at the Block School of Management at UMKC, mentoring new business founders.
Richard Spurlock
CEO and Founder
Intellectually curious entrepreneur, Richard is recognized as a global expert on data protection and recovery. After spending 15 years designing and delivering the world’s largest data protection applications, Richard harnessed that expertise to build a disruptive, software-defined data protection solution: Compass®. Compass is the industry’s first enterprise-class data protection and analytics software designed to natively run in hybrid and public cloud environments. An experienced speaker and subject matter expert, Richard is a frequent industry spokesman and an avid Formula 1 racing fan with his family.
Robert Marett
Chief Technology Officer
Robert is a 20-year veteran of the storage and data protection industries. Robert spent the past decades leading specialized SWAT teams solving complex, critical technology challenges for enterprise product vendors such as IBM, EMC, and Hewlett Packard. He has been responsible for designing and delivering solutions to Fortune 1000 customers, including Coca-Cola, IBM, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Commerce Bank, Mayo Clinic, US Federal Reserve, Sprint Corporation, Union Pacific, and Whirlpool. He architected a diverse set of storage management, backup, and disaster recovery solutions for these companies internationally, and is recognized as a key technical leader in the enterprise data protection space. Rob holds two US patents in the data protection space.
Mark Pougnet
Chief Financial Officer
A seasoned “get stuff done” executive, Mark joined Cobalt Iron after revamping Wazee Digital into a profitable leader in the cloud media asset management space. A CPA and a Chartered Accountant, Pougnet has also held senior leadership roles at Front Porch, Avaya, and Micron. Mark was instrumental in the sale of the storage archive business, Front Porch, to Oracle. He was the director of accounting firm Arthur Andersen’s Business Process Outsourcing Practice in the Rocky Mountain region. During his more than 30 years in the media and entertainment, outsourcing, and technology industries, Pougnet has founded a software business, taken a company public, and sold two companies as the CFO. Away from the office Mark is passionate about cycling, traveling, and writing.
Greg Tevis
VP of Global Strategy
With over 35 years of experience in storage hardware and software development, Greg is a globally recognized expert in data protection and backup. Prior to joining Cobalt Iron, Greg was Storage Software Technical Strategist and Customer Solution Architect at IBM, where he was responsible for leading the technical strategy for IBM’s storage software, driving portfolio technologies, roadmaps, and integrations. Greg worked extensively with IBM partners and clients worldwide designing strategic storage infrastructure, data management, and cloud strategies. As an IBM Master Inventor for over 15 years, Greg has 35 patents issued or pending. Greg is an avid sports fan and outside of work he can be found enjoying the great outdoors with his family and dogs.
Paul Linder
Product Development Manager
Paul Linder is Product Development Manager at Cobalt Iron, where Paul has worked since 2017 and led product development since 2020. Paul joined as a software engineer, focusing on user interface design and product delivery. Before Cobalt Iron, Paul built a career in interactive design and web development at Kansas City agencies such as Two West and VML, and as an independent developer and illustrator.
Ron Hess
Customer Enablement Engineer
Ron Hess is a Customer Enablement Engineer at Cobalt Iron, helping customers get the most from the Compass platform since 2016. Before joining Cobalt Iron, Ron spent 16 years at Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System in Kansas, ending as Director of Operations. There, Ron led infrastructure and help desk teams and consolidated seven separate backup solutions into a single deduplicated, disk-based Tivoli Storage Manager environment with off-site replication. Earlier roles include systems administration at Pioneer Balloon Company and managing communications and technical operations at Central Christian Church in Wichita.
Jack Perras
Customer Enablement Engineer
Jack Perras is a Customer Enablement Engineer at Cobalt Iron with a background in enterprise IT operations. Jack previously worked as a Unix Systems Administrator at Nemours, protecting data with IBM Spectrum Protect across AIX, Red Hat, Isilon, NetApp, Infinidat, and Pure Storage environments. Earlier roles include systems engineering at the University of North Florida and Advent Software, and IT management at Centex Homes.
Mary Spurlock
VP of Marketing
Mary Spurlock is Vice President of Marketing at Cobalt Iron, where Mary has shaped the company's marketing and partner communications since 2012. Mary's career in the Lawrence technology community began at Starfire Technologies in 1993, where Mary managed the Lotus Notes application services group, directed education and certification programs, and later led marketing as Vice President. Mary specializes in educational, event-based marketing that helps customers understand new technologies.
James Kost
Senior Director of Systems Engineering
James Kost is Senior Director of Systems Engineering at Cobalt Iron, leading the technical team that designs and deploys customer data protection environments. James joined Cobalt Iron in 2012 as a Senior Systems Engineer and was promoted to director in 2022. Before that, James was a Senior Systems Engineer at Starfire Technologies, providing technical leadership on mid-range to large enterprise projects. James also worked as a systems administrator at Sprint.
Neal Gronset
Director of Sales Desk
Neal Gronset is Director of Sales Desk, where Neal has worked since 2013. Neal brings more than two decades of storage and software sales experience, including IBM software sales at Arrow Electronics, where Neal helped partners build and execute sales and marketing plans. Earlier roles include central region sales leadership at Tek-Tools and sales at EMC.