Authors

Alex Gammelgard

Alex joined Arena in 2011 to manage social media marketing. Although new to Arena and the manufacturing industry, Alex has spent the last six years with her engineer fiancé and is well aware of the frustrations that come with product revision and materials management! Through social media, Alex hopes to be instrumental in helping engineers and manufacturers solve their problems, and discover new ways to move their products and business forward. An online extrovert, Alex is looking forward to interacting with Arena customers daily on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the blog, and learning more about the cool products they create.

When Alex isn’t online (which isn’t that often) she is probably hiking with her dog, road-tripping up and down the California coast, drinking a glass of wine with her friends or making an over-the-top meal while watching the Food Network.

Alyssa Sittig

Alyssa joined the Arena team in the summer of 2011. With a background in public policy, Alyssa is interested in the challenges that manufacturing companies face both domestically and overseas. By writing on topics that span the manufacturing experience, Alyssa hopes to help manufacturers keep a closer pulse on today’s business landscape and successfully bring products to market.

Besides blogging, Alyssa gets great joy from receiving feedback from readers tapped into the manufacturing world. So please, share your thoughts on recent blogs, trending topics and manufacturing issues of the day. What should she cover next? Connect with her on LinkedIn to start the conversation.

Eric Larkin

Eric is co-founder and chief technology officer of Arena Solutions, overseeing product strategy, design, development and operations. He first realized the importance of managing product information well in the early 1990s as CTO of Light & Motion Industries (LMI), a vertically integrated manufacturer of underwater video equipment, where superior information management helped LMI become the leader in its industry. Subsequent product design and manufacturing roles strengthened his conviction that better information management enables better engineering, and in 2000 Eric reunited with several colleagues to architect Arena, a bill of materials (BOM) and change management system in the cloud, and start delivering it to manufacturers everywhere.

Eric loves engineering: electrical, mechanical, firmware, software, manufacturing…he’s a sucker for pretty much any kind of engineering. He very much enjoys being part of a world-class engineering team building products that help manufacturers make their own products better and faster.

Victor Gill

As the product manager for PDXViewer at Arena, Victor is focused on helping companies streamline communication and management of their product data.

With 10+ years of experience in manufacturing and engineering within the telecom, aerospace and valve industries, Victor is well versed in the world of business operations management. He has deployed and managed business systems such as ERP and PLM for several companies and directed lean initiatives such as 5S and Six Sigma.

Victor holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in information systems from the University of Utah.

Michelle LaVery

Michelle’s focus at Arena is online marketing, including managing pay-per-click programs and helping more manufacturers find Arena on the worldwide web. She has worked at Arena since 2001 and loves the work hard/play hard culture.

Some of the other great things about working at Arena, according to Michelle: The fun and creative marketing team, of course! The amazing view of the San Francisco Bay. And the annual basketball and football pools (even though she has yet to win).

Outside work, Michelle is an avid Denver Broncos fan. She enjoys reading, running, yoga and exploring the world underwater.

Kathy Davies

Kathy has worked at Arena since 2007, as both Validation Manager and Product Manager. She has a background in mechanical engineering, product design and medical device manufacturing, so she likes variety.

She interfaces daily with the engineering, design, product management and marketing teams and loves being involved in all aspects of developing the Arena product, from assessing initial requirements to driving the release schedule to helping promote the final product. Kathy also enjoys helping medical device manufacturers as they begin to use Arena. 

Her not-so-secret agenda? To promote growth of the Arena product for all customers, especially those in the medical device industry. Kathy’s other big dreams: To run a 50-mile trail race…to find a use for the 1000 lemons that her lemon tree produces…and to help all Arena medical device customers pass their audits with flying colors.

Marc Escobosa

As the lead designer for nearly all major releases of the Arena application since 2001, Marc plays the chief role in crafting the user experience for all Arena product offerings. A consummate perfectionist with a passion for design, he’s never met a hyperlink he hasn’t followed, especially when it comes to product and interaction design, photography, travel and food.

Chris Vickery

Chris woke up one day and realized he had been at Arena since 2005, creating all of the user manuals and written content in the Arena application. He can usually be found fussing over the Arena help system and has a terrible fear that somewhere in the hundreds of pages, there may be a typo.

In previous jobs, he has written technical and marketing content for a variety of manufacturers, whose products range from disk drives to heating valves.

Chris enjoys distance running, soccer, pinball machines, slow foreign films and chasing his toddler daughter around the house. He tries out each blog post on her before publishing it, and is still waiting for comprehensible feedback.

Christine Wolter

Christine has worked in the marketing department at Arena since 2007, and during this time seems to have had her hands in just about every aspect of it. A confessed geek, she will eat up anything related to marketing, social media or technology and figure out how it all comes together to help current and future customers of Arena.

Before Arena, Christine spent a number of years in the semiconductor industry where she got up close and personal with the challenges of manufacturing a product. Looking for a change of pace, she found her match at Arena. Her favorite things about the company are the opportunity to work with an exceptionally talented group of people and the underlying energy and enthusiasm. (Her rationale: “Because we all actually like what we do!”)

Outside of Arena, Christine is an avid amateur photographer and reader of…anything really. She wishes she had more time to experiment in the kitchen, go on road trips with her husband and puppy and travel just about anywhere.