The management team at Sand Castle Systems has extensive technical and product management experience. Our management team includes:

Garth Conboy
Executive Management, Project Management and Engineering

Garth most recently served as the General Manager and Vice President Software Engineering for the Gemstar eBook Group.  In this position he was responsible for the operation of the division: platform and server engineering, quality assurance, content acquisition, content operations, content engineering, and customer support.  The division had a staff of over 50 and an annual budget in excess of $8M.

In Garth’s engineering role, he led the Platform, Content Tools and Content Engineering groups for the Gemstar eBook Group. Garth is inventor or co-inventor of seven issued eBook patents; technologies include: cryptography and secure content distribution, eBook UI, resource/database dynamic conversion for cross-platform applications, and optimal paginated document presentation.  The Gemstar eBook Group was formed by Gemstar’s acquisition of NuvoMedia and SoftBook Press.  Garth joined SoftBook Press near its inception as Vice President of Software Engineering.

Prior to the eBook effort, Garth founded Pacer Software in 1981.  The company’s first products were minicomputer-targeted compilers and assemblers. Pacer subsequently augmented its compiler business with a PC to Minicomputer integration focus.  Products included terminal emulation, remote printing services, file services and mail services.  Pacer pioneered the Mac to VAX market with its PacerTerm and PacerShare products.  Pacer moved its desktop integration technology to UNIX with support for numerous host platforms, and was recognized as having the highest performance file server technology available. Garth was the architect and lead developer of Pacer’s Portable AppleTalk technology. This protocol suite was licensed to over 100 OEMs including Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, and Canon.

Under Garth’s stewardship as CEO, Pacer Software grew to a staff of 50 with annual revenue greater than $5M before it was acquired by AGE Logic in a stock transaction in 1995.  At AGE Garth managed the strategic relationship with Apple Computer and was closely involved in the M&A process that lead to NetManage acquiring AGE Logic.  Garth served as Engineering Director for NetManage prior to the launch of eBook efforts.

John Rivlin
Executive Management, Project Management and Engineering

John most recently served as the Senior Vice President of Technology for Gemstar-TV Guide. In this role he was responsible for the technology teams supporting Gemstar-TV Guide products with over $500 million in annual revenue. The products supported include: the TV Guide Magazine, the TV Guide Channel, www.tvguide.com, TV Guide Interactive Back Office and a wide variety of corporate systems. His budget responsibility exceeded $29 million annually.  In this role, he managed over 220 people. Prior to John’s promotion to Senior Vice President, he held the position of Vice President, Software Systems for the Gemstar eBook Group. In that role he was responsible for the design, development and operations of the Gemstar eBook server platform. The Gemstar eBook Group was formed by Gemstar’s acquisition of NuvoMedia and SoftBook Press.  John held the post of Vice President, Software Systems at Softbook Press.

Prior to joining SoftBook Press, John founded and managed Fusion Software which specialized in software development and licensing. Fusion developed a wide range of products including:  the editor for Collabra Share, an award winning collaboration product acquired by Netscape; Software Dispatch, a secure CD based software distribution system for Apple Computer; Windows and Macintosh reference implementations of Kerberos for Cygnus Solutions; and Teton Data System’s STAT!-Ref medical library.

John’s early career was spent as Vice President Engineering at MARC Analysis Research Corporation (acquired by MSC Software).  At MARC, John built and managed the software development and support team for Prime Computer of Japan, a wholly owned subsidiary that was the exclusive distributor for Prime mini-computers in Japan. Prime Computer of Japan grew to 100 people and $12 million in annual revenues before being acquired by Prime Computer in 1984.

John’s additional accomplishments at MARC included design and development of the WordMARC word processor on a wide variety of platforms. In addition to being marketed by Prime Computer, under the brand name Primeword, it was also available on Vax, HP, Unix, PCs, Harris, Dec 20. The WordMARC division grew to 50 people and sales of $5 million before being sold to Programmed Intelligence Corporation.

John is co-inventor and patent holder of a system to provide secure electronic book delivery. He is also a co-inventor of a patent-pending system to provide offline catalog shopping on an electronic book.

John holds an undergraduate engineering degree from Cornell University.

Lawrence D.  Rogers, PhD
Executive Management, Project Management, Technology Leadership

Lawrence Rogers has 30 years experience in the computer business as an executive, manager, researcher and developer of software and hardware products.  Laurie has managed all facets of product development, technology transfer (research lab to product development), engineering transfer to manufacturing, strategic planning, and product management.  He is currently, on a contract basis, serving as CTO of a start-up network based gaming company. 

Over the last 10 years Laurie has been the senior technical person in start-ups and mid sized companies.  He led product development and served as VP of Engineering for Message Media, a San Diego company providing automated internet messaging services. He served the same role at AGE Logic and when it was acquired by NetManage he assumed the VP of Engineering role there. In that capacity he led product development for an array of products with an emphasis in graphics and Internet communication software for PC, Macintosh and UNIX platforms.  He also served as CTO and VP Engineering at Emerald Systems. 

Prior to these positions, Laurie was Associate Director of HP Laboratories, where he was responsible for overall strategic and budget planning; for founding labs in Italy and Japan; conducting program reviews; and chairing the HP Labs Review Board, which made the Labs’ major decisions.  Earlier he was General Manager of Burroughs Corporation’s Advanced Technology Division, which had responsibility for both research projects and product development.  Laurie has a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, where he was an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department. He is the author of many technical articles and holder of several patents.