Rick Crandall, 64, is a director and advisor to a number of companies ranging from large to small, public and private. He was the founder of Comshare, Inc. in 1966 originally as a pioneer of computer timesharing services. He took Comshare through one of the earliest public offerings in the tech industry, and then guided it through one of the few total transformations to enterprise software products. Crandall had one of the longest tenures (28 years) as CEO in the enterprise software industry; he grew Comshare to $130 million in revenue and expanded into 20 countries by the time he vacated that position in 1994 for his present activities.
Crandall is non-executive Chairman of Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL).
He is the founder and (since 1995) continuing chairman of the Enterprise Software CEO Roundtable, consisting of the CEO's or COO's of the industry's top 35 software firms focused on enterprise software.
During the period 1995 - 2003, Crandall helped Gideon Gartner create Giga Information Group, one of the nation's premier technology research and advisory firms that went public in the late 1990's. From 2002 - 2003 he was Chairman of Giga until it was sold to Forrester Research.
Mr. Crandall is a founding partner of Arbor Partners, a tech-focused venture capital firm.
He served as Chairman of ITAA, the association for the computer software and services industry. He served on the ITAA Board for over 20 years and chaired its strategic planning committee for 12 years.
Crandall was the technology advisor to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 2003 to 2008.
In 1986, the year of the 25th anniversary of the birth of the software industry, Crandall was selected as "One of the 5 Leading Pioneers of the Computer Industry" (ref.: ICP Business Software Review; Oct. 1986).
Crandall received the 1992 Outstanding Entrepreneur Award from the University of Michigan Business School and Harvard Business School Alumni groups.
He is one of two developers of Fox Crossing Aspen, a luxury residential development of 20 homes in downtown Aspen, Colorado. He presently serves on the Board of Directors of:
Crandall attended the University of Michigan where he received a BS Electrical Engineering, BS Mathematics and a Masters in Industrial Engineering, 1966.
Crandall lives in Aspen, CO; he is married with two sons.
References, in addition to those connected with current activities listed above, can be found here
