officers

Ken McElrath

chief executive officer and cofounder

Ken is an entrepreneur, professor, author and artist with a passion for education, technology, and authentic key lime pie. Prior to launching Skoodat, Ken founded CAZABBA, Inc., a creative and technology services firm where he serves as CEO. Before CAZABBA, he led marketing and product management as a vice president for RetailersMarketXchange (RMX), a startup near San Francisco funded by Chevron, Oracle, Phillip Morris and McLane Company. His experience with these and many other tech startups has somehow left him unphased by his confrontations with “entrepreneurial terror.” Must be something in the key lime pie.

Earlier in his career, Ken spent seven years with MicroAge, Inc., a publicly traded Fortune 500 technology distributer and systems integrator, where he most recently led marketing for the $1.2 billion systems integration division. Ken also served on the board of Teacher’s Pal, Inc., an education software company, and currently serves on the board of The Art Factory in Kandern, Germany.

You can read Ken’s best-selling book, The Ascent of a Leader by purchasing it (please) on Amazon. Proceeds from this and his other book, Beyond Your Best, go to support Leadership Catalyst, a nonprofit Ken helped launch about 10 years ago. Ken’s fine art has been displayed in numerous shows. You can view his recent work online at kenmcelrath.com.

Ken earned two bachelor’s degrees (Art and Teaching) from Grand Canyon University and his Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He is an adjunct professor at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA, where he now lives with his wife of 27 years, Donna, a former teacher who makes all sorts of great baked goods, including a killer key lime pie.

Tim Youngblood

chief technical officer and cofounder

Tim is a technologist, developer and business owner who, in addition to being an expert in cloud computing, could be the world’s foremost authority on where to eat in Atlanta. His roots in cloud computing were established as the lead Technical Solution Architect for Bluewolf Group, the number two Salesforce.com consulting partner, where he spent five years implementing the Force.com platform for numerous clients such as Dupont, The Hartford, BusinessWeek, Salesforce.com, Citizen’s Bank, CNN, Manhattan Associates, Nuance Communications, Visa, and Unisource.

Tim is an authorized Force.com consultant and instructor, certified to teach all Force.com developer course offerings. In addition to Force.com implementation, custom solutions and complex data migration experience for Fortune 500 companies, Tim has expertise in just about everything that warrants strings of indecipherable capital letters. Tim also founded a financial software company that is now owned by Intuit.

Tim earned a Bachelor of Science degree in health information systems from Emory University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Drury University.

Ben Birdsell

vp education alliances and cofounder

Ben has been involved in education for a very long time. He is the Yoda of Skoodat, with less wrinkles. As a recognized leader in educational reform, Ben has worked everywhere from the classroom to the state board. Although he has tried for years to resist, he cannot turn down a good bread pudding.

In 1989 Ben founded the Association for Effective Schools, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving public education. Through his leadership as Board President and CEO, he established the only state and nationally validated Effective Schools Research model of comprehensive school reform in the nation. In pursuit of this endeavor he created staff development programs, authored training manuals and materials, trained consultants, managed implementation projects, and designed and developed comprehensive web-based support services.

Prior to his work in the nonprofit sector, Ben served in numerous administrative capacities with the New York State Education Department. He represented the Commissioner of Education in successful interagency negotiations and co-authored Article 81 of New York State Education Law. His efforts ensured that all children “in care” would receive a free and appropriate public education. During his 16-year tenure Ben managed an $11 million budget for state-supported private schools, administered various Federal programs for children with special needs, conducted research on delivery of services on behalf of the Board of Regents, and monitored local district services. Prior to his state service Ben began his career as a teacher of the deaf.

Ben holds a Master’s Degree in Education of the Deaf and a Bachelor’s from Goddard College. Ben and his wife Denise celebrated their 32nd year of marriage this year. They currently reside in upstate New York where they enjoy a fabulous view of the Hudson River.

Jeff Swanson

vice president of sales

Jeff likes to make things grow, and he’s very good at it. Jeff most recently grew and sold a global application software firm focused on the animal nutrition industry. Before that he nurtured sales and marketing for three small, information technology product and services firms, including 2 start-ups. Prior to these projects Jeff was the President of MicroAge Technology Services, a national IT infrastructure services company. Under his leadership the company grew from a $180 million regional organization with 8 offices to a $1.8 billion national player with 45 offices. Earlier in his career, Jeff was the Executive Vice President of Sales and Services for AmeriData Inc., where again, he drove phenomenal growth.

Jeff was awarded a degree in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota. He is a board member at AbeTech. His community involvement includes being a board member of the Minneapolis North Community YMCA and previously being on the Grant Committee of the Minnesota Chapter of Social Venture Partners. Jeff and his wife, Paula, are avid fans of Minnesota sports teams and were wondering if you have heard that Brett Favre has joined the Vikings.

Frank Pazera

chief financial officer

Frank has extensive public and private financial management experience in the technology, media and telecommunications sectors. He has orchestrated and completed a number of fundraising (debt & equity) merger, acquisition and divestiture transactions.

Most recently, Frank was Chief Financial Officer for Neomedia Technologies, a publicly traded mobile marketing enterprise, while he was a partner with Tatum, LLC. Previously he was CEO and director for the publicly traded telecommunication service provider, Covista Communications, Inc. Frank has held a variety of executive positions at companies that include AirGate PCS, Inc., a publicly traded wireless services company; Network One, a rapidly growing three time Inc. 500 award-winning privately held regional competitive local exchange carrier; Turner Broadcasting, Inc., a publicly traded media and entertainment provider; and, MCI, a publicly traded international telecommunication service provider.

Frank is a Certified Public Accountant and began his career at Arthur Andersen & Company. He earned a BBA in accounting from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and holds an MBA in finance from the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University in Atlanta.