Brand-Yourself - Meet the Team
Pete Kistler
Pete Kistler's passion is using technology to make life simpler, easier and happier. He is driven by creating tools that have a meaningful impact on the way we work and play, and that let us spend more time on the things we love. Before launching Brand-Yourself.com, Pete was a freelance web designer and graphic designer for a number of years. He also worked various technology jobs, including as a senior research analyst for Phoenix Business and Systems Process Inc., and in software development for EasyLobby Inc.
Pete has contributed to open source projects including the
GRC-GRID Project (Governance, Risk Management and Compliance Global Rules Information Database), been a finalist in logo contests, been a featured presenter on
SlideShare.net, and contributed to multiple career/personal success blogs including
Brazen Careerist (headed by Yahoo! Finance columnist Penelope Trunk) and
EmployeeEvolution.
Pete lives and breathes Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, social networks and crowdsourcing) and loves bleeding edge technology, entrepreneurship, Macs and graphic design. When he's not working on Brand-Yourself, he's either playing soccer, reading blogs, composing music or memorizing
Webster's Dictionary.
He is a member of the School of Information Studies’ student group, iVenture. Pete is an information management and technology major in the iSchool with a minor entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises in the Whitman School at Syracuse University.
Trace Cohen
Trace Cohen is a rising junior in the Syracuse University Whitman School of Management, double-majoring in entrepreneurship and marketing with a minor in information management and technology at the iSchool.
Trace's experience at Angelsoft gave him the opportunity to interface directly with its president, David Rose (also the President of the New York Angels). His work with Rose gave him unique insight into the needs of startups as well as effective marketing tools for growing small businesses. Trace has always been fascinated with technology and how stuff works.
Trace is a hands-on kind of guy whose first love was video games, which he continues to enjoy. To learn more about Trace, check out his site at
www.Traceacohen.com.
Robert (RJ) Sherman
For some people, the idea of launching their own business sounds risky, but at 15, Robert (RJ) Sherman thought it was the least risky thing he could do, especially when compared to his other interest—dirt bike racing. An avid off-road motorcycle racer, RJ has taken his share of risks. So founding his own web design and development company, Charles River Web Connections (CRWC), came easy to RJ.
As CEO of CRWC, he worked with over 40 small businesses around the county and doubled sales every year. His experience there laid the foundation of his business management and information technology system development knowledge - which colleagues now constantly call upon.
He graduated in May with a triple major in information management and technology at the iSchool and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises, and finance at Whitman. He won the iSchool’s Dean Scholar Award and the Weitzel Award for Information Systems Research at Commencement.
He was named a 2009 SU Engagement Fellow, a yearlong program supported by the Kauffman Foundation that contributes to his paid employment locally and arranges remitted tuition for courses at SU and professional and faculty mentors. He will continue to develop Brand-Yourself.com at the Syracuse technology Garden.