Executive Team
Doug Van Riper: President & CEO
Doug has over twenty-five years of sales management experience and has held CEO positions in 2 companies as well as executive positions in Fortune 500 corporations. His expertise in sales covers many industries including software, financial services, mortgage, executive search and staffing, and marketing/advertising. Prior to founding Sales Resource Group, he was president of a national sales consulting firm where his team developed sales strategies, built sales infrastructure and processes and recruited, trained and deployed hundreds of proven sales professionals for national and international clients.
Early in his career, Doug was responsible for the generation and execution of Rockwell International's (Fortune 27 at the time) Strategic Business Plan and Annual Operating Plans. Doug also led the sales and programming divisions of a national accounting software company distributing through over 200 VAR's. With complete P&L responsibility and full executive empowerment, Doug also opened the Northwest Region for a national employment services organization and generated revenue from $0 to $4 million in less than 3 years. Doug also introduced a leading IT staffing service into the Northwest.
He has received numerous sales and advertising awards and has hired and trained over 600 salespeople, recruiters, programmers and business support staff. Doug also held executive marketing and advertising positions at American Honda Motor Co., where his teams were responsible for the creation and execution of marketing, advertising and merchandising campaigns for all 1400 Honda and Acura dealerships in the US.
Doug has degrees in both Economics and Finance and also attended Western State University College of Law. Doug earned his MBA from Pepperdine University.
Ross McLaughlin: Vice President of Business Development
Ross has over 18 years of experience encompassing product development, marketing, business development, and sales. He brings executive expertise in successfully managing teams to: develop viable business plans, identify market and client needs; build an effective sales, market, and product strategy; develop creative and compelling product solutions; and market and sell these solutions. He has a proven track record in financial services, software services, consumer products, and electronics.
Most recently Ross was Vice Presdent of Sales and Marketing for Auctionpay, a growth stage financial services company that provides fundraising solutions to the non-profit industry. While at Auctionpay, Ross managed a team of 17 people to successfully develop and implement an effective market and sales strategy. His leadership helped to grow sales nationally to over 800 Clients, raising over $45 Million in non-profit donations.
Prior to Auctionpay, Ross was Vice President in several roles at Qsent, Inc., a venture-backed enterprise information services company that provides services to Fortune 500 Companies like FedEx and Citigroup. Ross was instrumental in successfully building the Qsent business by playing a senior role in business development, sales, product development, and marketing. His leadership helped to grow the company to over 200 Clients, bringing in over $5M annually in revenue. Qsent was named the Entrepreneurial working capital stage company of the Year (2002) in Oregon (Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum).
Prior to Qsent, Ross managed footwear product development efforts for Nike, Inc., working worldwide with athletes, manufacturers, and suppliers. He had a hand in numerous successful products delivered to the marketplace during his 9+ years at the #1 Sports and Fitness Company in the world. Ross holds 8 patents for innovative solutions in product development and design.
Ross received a BS Degree in Engineering from Oregon State University. He spent his initial career in the electronics industry, designing and developing automated assembly systems for Tektronix, Inc., including an ex-patriot assignment working in Japan.
Web Barth: Vice President of Marketing
Web has 30 years of marketing and business planning experience in developing and funding new products and companies and has served in a variety of line and board management, marketing management and brand management roles. He also has management experience with two east coast ad agencies and has solid credentials in advertising, public relations, sales promotion and research disciplines.
His breadth of experience with nationally marketed products and services includes Stihl Chainsaws, JVC Consumer Electronics, John Hancock, Pioneer Financial Services, Dunhill, Adidas, Holly Farms Chicken, Eskimo Pie, Welch's Grape Juice Bars, York Peppermint Patty and Nestle's Crunch ice cream novelties, Hilton Head Plantation, Columbia Yachts and several software, e-commerce companies and healthcare technology ventures.
His new business/company experience includes; the introduction of the first Universal Life Insurance product (First Penn/Lincoln National), the first suite-hotel (Guest Quarters Hotels), the first catalogue merchandiser (Best Products), the first water jet cutting machine for the glass industry (CGI), first senior healthcare network (Senior HelpCare) and the first non insurance LTC product (AllRisk, Penn Treaty).
He has had affinity marketing experience; Christian Children's Fund, The American Small Business Association, Small Business Institute, Home Business Institute, The Special Olympics and the Signature Group and various other consumer associations.
Web holds an undergraduate marketing degree and two master's degrees (Marketing Management and an MBA). He retired after 24 years of Destroyer and reserve service as Commander, US Navy.
James H. van Wagenen: Vice President of Sales
Jim is an experienced corporate executive who has held senior management positions in Fortune 500 firms, Consulting firms and Technology firms. His experience includes assignments in the US, Europe, South America and Australia. Jim is best known for building highly productive and profitable sales teams and sales channels. Over the past five years his sales teams have consistently exceeded financial and production targets in the software development and services markets.
As CIO for the Esmark, Jim had worldwide responsibility for all Information Technology and communications. He also served as the Esmark representative to the Uniform Product Code Council, the developers of the standardized bar coding used throughout commerce and industry today.
Jim was Founder, President and CEO of Cogna Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of a Fortune 100 company, providing consulting, software development and remote computing services to the Fortune 1000 markets. Under his leadership, the company grew from $0 to over $15 million, in less than two years while moving to profitability in under 6 months. The software development team provided services to Fortune 500 firms and built two commercial financial applications sold to Big 8 accounting firms and Fortune 500 corporations.
As Executive Vice President and COO of Medical Development Systems, (a software application developer for the Pharmaceutical, Chemical and Petroleum industries), he managed the turnaround, venture funding and market expansion of the company. In this effort he took over and directed the software development team and stabilized the software offerings, built a circle of influential Partners and established an international distribution and services network. The company was sold to a consortium from Europe.
He is the Founder and CEO of Neilson, Fuller & Co. a consulting firm providing process redefinition, organization development, IT strategy and financial control systems to worldwide firms such as M&M Mars, Duracell, GTE and United Technologies among others.
Jim received his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Wisconsin - Madison where he also did his MBA work in Marketing at the Business school, while also enrolled in the University of Wisconsin Law School. He has been a guest lecturer and panelist at the University of North Carolina, University of Virginia Executive Program, the IBM Applications Institute and other industry and trade organizations. Jim served on the ITAA Software Piracy Committee and Contracts Committee, has published several papers on Current Value Accounting and Related Systems and been a contributing editor to several books on Organizational Behavior. Currently he is a member of the Technology Executives Club, Chicago Software Association and Executive's Club of Chicago.