SEPATON Management Team

Mike Thompson, President and CEO

Mike Thompson is responsible for management, execution and strategic direction of the company. With more than 25 years of sales and marketing experience in technology companies, Mike joined SEPATON after serving as president, CEO and chairman of the board at Egenera Corporation. Mike joined Egenera originally as COO and was instrumental in driving growth to $100m annually after just four years from the first product shipment. Before joining Egenera, Mike was senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing and a member of the board of directors at Stratus Technologies, where he managed a 400-person operation that generated more than $700 million in annual revenues through direct and indirect channels. Prior to Stratus, he served as director of U.S. sales operations for the financial line of business at Tandem Computers.

Mike holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Southern Connecticut University.

Paul McDermott, Chief Financial Officer

Paul McDermott is responsible for finance, legal, human resources, and administration functions at SEPATON. He has twenty years of management experience at high technology companies, both public and private. Before joining SEPATON, Paul held chief financial officer positions at three high technology companies, Network Intelligence (now EMC), Firepond, and ServiceWare Technologies. He has also held controller/chief accounting officer positions at Sonus Networks and Legent Corporation (now Computer Associates). Paul is a licensed certified public accountant (CPA) and holds both a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Duquesne University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jeff Tofano, Chief Technology Officer

Jeff brings a wealth of experience and technical depth to this position, which he earned over his thirty-year career in the data protection, storage, and high availability industries. Before joining SEPATON, Jeff was Chief Technology Officer at Quantum Corporation where he established the technical vision and direction of the company, led the advanced development team, and played a key role in new market development and sales activities.Prior to this role, Jeff was Technical Director for Decru/Network Appliance, where he managed the architecture, performance, platform, and security design of all NAS and SAN encryption/compression appliances. He also served as the Chief Architect for Onstor Inc., where he was responsible for their NAS gateway product and led every major product release.

His experience also includes senior architect roles with a variety of leading companies, including Oracle Corporation, Tandem Computers, and Stratus Technologies. Jeff earned a BA in computer science and mathematics from Colgate University.

Joe Forgione, Senior Vice President Product Operations and Business Development

Joe Forgione is responsible for all aspects of the product life-cycle, including strategy, development, quality, product management and product marketing, for all SEPATON products. In addition he provides focused leadership in identifying, negotiating, and executing strategic alliances, OEM relationships, and technology partnerships to enable SEPATON’s continued growth and to further strengthen its position as an industry leader. Forgione brings to this position extensive senior management experience in large high technology companies. He served as CEO of mValent, a data center applications management software company, where he formed a major reseller partnership with HP and subsequently negotiated mValent’s acquisition by Oracle in 2009. He also served as CEO for Eprise, a leader in enterprise content management, where he led the company’s successful IPO and subsequent acquisition by Divine. Forgione has also held senior executive positions in general management and solution and product management with Novell, Lotus/IBM and Data General. Forgione holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of business and a BS in engineering from MIT.

Al Lanzetta, Senior Vice President of Operations and Services

With a wealth of knowledge and experience from over 30 years in operations, finance, manufacturing and customer service, Al Lanzetta oversees SEPATON’s operations and services on a global basis.  Lanzetta joined SEPATON from Egenera where he served as executive vice president of operations and worldwide services.  While there he built out the Egenera technical support and professional services staff, processes and tools, creating a superior customer experience while growing revenue and income for seven consecutive years.  Prior to Egenera, he served as vice president of global field operations and field support for EMC Global Services guiding a worldwide staff of 3,000 professionals responsible for customer service field operations, field support, logistics and contracts administration. Earlier in his career, Lanzetta held executive positions with Data General Corporation ranging from corporate manufacturing controller to director of the Manufacturing Services Division. After serving in the United States Marine Corps, Lanzetta earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Clark University and a master of business administration degree from Babson College.

Linda Mentzer, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing

Linda Mentzer is responsible for SEPATON product management and marketing activities on a global basis, including strategy development, messaging and positioning, lead generation, public relations, partner programs and product management/marketing. Linda has over 25 years of marketing and product management experience in storage and computer industries with prior roles as VP of Marketing, Marathon Technologies, EMC/Data General, and the DLT tape division at Quantum. Linda also held product management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation. She holds a BSEE degree from Boston University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.