Lou Gray
President & CEO, Co-founder, Board Member

Lou brings over 18 years of entrepreneurial and operational leadership to DreamBox Learning. Previously, Lou was President of UIEvolution, a venture-backed middleware company. As President, he initiated and closed multi-million dollar contracts (e.g., Disney, ESPN, etc.), as well as pursued and successfully negotiated the acquisition of UIEvolution by Square Enix for $58M cash, thereby providing a substantial return for all shareholders. Post UIEvolution, Lou was an Entrepreneur in Residence at the venture capital firm Ignition Partners. Lou’s business experience also includes serving as the Strategic Development Officer for W.R. Grace & Co.; Director of Mergers & Acquisitions for JettAir Holdings (an ROI-producing LBO firm); and as a Marketing Associate for Hutcheson Shutze.

Lou holds a B.S. in Psychology from Emory University, M.A.s in both Economics and International Affairs from the Maxwell School, and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where he was both a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar and a Teaching Fellow in negotiations.

Sarah Daniels
Vice President of Marketing

Sarah brings more than 15 years of experience as a senior executive at successful start-ups, leading marketing, product management, and sales teams. Before joining DreamBox Learning, Sarah spent 6 years as VP of Marketing and Product Management at Aventail Corporation, an award-winning provider of SSL VPN solutions for secure remote access. Prior to Aventail, Sarah co-founded Scriptics Corporation, where she raised VC funds, led the development of a popular web portal, and built an innovative online revenue stream. The company was subsequently acquired by Interwoven. Before her role at Scriptics, Sarah co-founded Presidio Systems, a VC-funded provider of data collection software to help shorten pharmaceutical development time, then sold it after 5+ years of growth. In addition, Sarah spent 3 years at the strategy and management consulting firm Corporate Decisions Inc.

Sarah earned her B.S. degree in Mathematics from Yale University and her M.B.A. from Stanford University, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Daniel Kerns
Vice President of Engineering

Dan brings over 20 years of software development experience to DreamBox Learning. Previously, Dan was VP of Engineering for Pure Networks, a Seattle technology start-up, where he played a key role in identifying, securing and delivering their flagship AOL business. Dan was also the Director of Engineering for VMware, he has consulted for a number of large clients through his firm Sand Point Engineering, and he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Ignition Partners. Earlier in his career, Dan spent 9 years in a variety of roles at Pure/PureAtria/Rational Software, where he was the Chief Engineer on the Purify product for UNIX and Windows NT platforms, and where he played a significant role managing strategic partners. Prior to Pure Software, Dan spent 5 years at Multiflow Computer and Data General Corporation, working on microcode for computers including the DG MV/20000.

Dan earned his Bachelor of Technology in System Software in the School of Computer Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology, his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington, and certificates in management and finance from Stanford University.

Mickelle Weary
National Board Certified Teacher

Mickelle is a National Board Certified teacher who has 9 years of experience teaching in Grades K – 6, in both public and private schools on the west and east coasts and in Europe. While she was a lead teacher in Virginia, Mickelle wrote a curriculum that met local and statewide standards using History Alive strategies and Understanding by Design Methodology. Using a grant from the Library of Congress and primary resources, she co-wrote a Map Skills WebQuest, and she developed two courses using BlackBoard. Mickelle has effectively taught elementary school math using a wide variety of curriculum, textbooks, and software-based tools.

Mickelle holds a B.A. in English from the University of Washington and a M.Ed. in Elementary Education from Boston College. After 5 years of teaching, Mickelle earned National Board Certification as a Middle Childhood Generalist. She also holds a Washington State Professional Teaching Certificate.

Sue Cummings
Sr. Director of Marketing

Sue brings deep experience managing marketing and brand strategy and execution for early stage companies. As Aventail Corporation’s Director of Corporate Marketing, Sue helped shape a strong leadership position in a “tornado” market. She was accountable for global brand, marketing, and customer programs, and consistently achieved double-digit quarterly growth in demand generation and brand awareness. Prior to Aventail, Sue was SafeHarbor Technology’s Director of Marketing Communications. Her previous experience is in brand, marketing, and communications design. She built a successful design practice and national thought leadership in annual report trends as the principal of Cummings/Company, and prior to that with the Leonhardt Group. Sue has a BFA in Design from Washington State University, where she received President’s List honors.

Lorenzo
Software Design Engineer

Lorenzo brings well over 20 years of software development experience to DreamBox Learning. Previously, Lorenzo was Principal Architect for UIEvolution for 7+ years. Before that Lorenzo has been designing and developing software in three countries in a multitude of technical leading roles and working with a multitude of technologies such as large scale multi-tier server systems with nearly a thousand servers, mobile technologies, Television Audience Measurement systems (TAM), embedded systems, custom search engines for gaming applications, virtual machines, and vocal systems. In his spare time Lorenzo is an avid reader, wood sculptor, woodworker and, most important of all, a father. Although Lorenzo’s first language is Italian, he enjoys writing in English, regardless of the accent that transfers into his prose.

Benjamin W. Slivka
Chairman & Co-founder

With 20+ years of experience as a successful technology innovator, Ben has has spent much of the past 10 years helping non-profit and for-profit educational organizations. Ben is a Director of TeachFirst, and he previously served on the Advisory Board of UIEvolution (which was acquired by Square Enix) and as a Director of Vizrea and GroundSpring.org. Ben spent 14 years at Microsoft, where he worked on OS/2, MS-DOS 6, Windows 95, the Java VM, and MSN. He started the Internet Explorer team in 1994 and led it through the release of IE version 3.0 in 1996. IE 3.0 beat Netscape 3.0 in press reviews and achieved 30% market share by the time IE 4.0 released in 1997. Ben installed Microsoft’s first production LAN in 1985, proposed the FAT32 file system in 1990, led the team that wrote the Win32 API specification in 1991, and started and led the team that created CAB software distribution files in 1993. His work at Microsoft resulted in 18 issued U.S. patents. Ben also worked brief stints at Amazon and IBM.

Ben and his wife Lisa created the Wissner-Slivka Foundation in 1997, primarily focused on supporting education. His non-profit engagements include Bellevue Schools Foundation, Garfield High School Foundation, and Social Venture Partners, where he is the lead partner for Seattle MESA.

Ben earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and a B.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University, where he has served as a Trustee since 1998.

Byron Bishop
DreamBox Board of Directors
Expedia (retired), Senior Vice-President

Byron joined the DreamBox Learning Board of Directors in 2008, after serving as a consultant since 2007. Prior to DreamBox Learning, he co-founded Expedia in 1993 and served in numerous roles before retiring in 2003. As Senior Vice President and as an Executive Officer, Byron was responsible for all product development, led the air travel business, and created Expedia’s Corporate Travel division. Prior to the Expedia spin-out from Microsoft in 1999, he spent 13 years at Microsoft where he worked in various software engineering and management roles on software development tools, Windows for Pen, and a Windows CE precursor. He currently serves on the boards of The Nature Conservancy of Washington and Eastside Preparatory School. Byron earned a B.S. degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Washington.