Where Are They Now?
From time-to-time, I receive emails from former employees of
Zytron/First Image, or friends of people captioned on my web pages. (Most
find my website from internet search engines.) Most of the time they want to
know if I know how to contact so-and-so. If I know how to contact the
person of their query, I pass the request along. After a recent reunion
of "ex-Zytronites" (06/11/2008) in Dallas it occurred to me that
asking about former employees could be expedited by posting contact information
for those that
1.) I have such information
and
2.) are willing to share this information with the
world-wide-web.
Here is the information on former employees that I can share
with the "internet world". As always, if you desire information
about other employees, contact me at tom.baker21@verizon.net
and if I have additional contact information I will pass your request
along. If not, I will reply to you directly.
If you are a former Zytron employee and would like your
information included here, email me at tom.baker21@verizon.net.
Without further delay, my "Where Are They
Now" roll call, in alphabetical order by (most-prominent) last name.
Click on the name below for the
latest contact information or on the thumbnail for a larger picture.
Who? |
Name |
Post-Zytron History (in Texican, "Whatchabeenupto?") |
I left Zytron/First Image/Anacomp in December, 1998. I immediately joined Systemware, Inc. Purchased a house in Carrollton, Texas in January, 1999. Still in that house and working for Systemware. |
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"Greetings from
Rancho Bogue in Chico. Terry and Meg have been here for over 9 years.
Our business is Interquest Detection Canines of North Valley Counties. We
provide a deterence program by bringing kid friendly dogs to school.
Indy, our black lab, can find all illegal drugs, abused meds like vicodin,
alcoholic beverages and gun powder."
|
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I left First Image in August 1995 and was a founder of Xpress Data Imaging Corp.; we later changed the name to Xpress Data, Inc (XDI). We are in the document composition and delivery (real mail and e) business, mostly for credit unions. Current Zytron count at XDI is six or seven if you count Sid Smolen (our contracts lawyer). We frequently reminisce about the “good-ol-days” and how good we were back then. I’m still living in San Diego, with my wife (ReNae) of 33-years. Our two kids (Erin and Ross) still live in the area, although they aren’t kids any more. Erin is married (5-years now) and works at XDI as our Client Support Manager. I play golf from time-to-time, although I continue to be a duffer. I still go deep sea fishing, when I can get away; a 6-day trip to Guadalupe Island is planned for October ‘08 where I hope to catch some large tuna and maybe see some White Sharks. One of my favorite pastimes is driving my Corvette on race tracks; not wheel-to-wheel racing, just racing the clock and trying to drive the perfect race line. |
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My last assignment at First Data was in 1998, helping divest First Image to Anacomp, ACS (Endata data entry business) and Southern Micro (print & mail that wound up as Regulus). Since then, I worked at Lason in Detroit as the CTO and EVP of Ops for a corporate turnaround, and then commuted to Rochester NY to run manufacturing and launch a service bureau in automated book scanning. Since 2006, I've been one of the Zytron alumni at Xpress Data in San Diego. I've also been involved editing a couple books and doing change process consulting with a small firm called Innovation Labs (in California and Florida).
Our family still lives in San
Francisco; Jan's a busy neuropsych clinician and associate
professor at UC Berkeley, our oldest son
Kellan did ChemE at Tufts and works in a SF start-up
that creates molecular and biological collaboration databases, and
baby Carson graduated from NYU in music / sound engineering. We
still do wild family vacations; recent trips were to I miss Zytron, still -
dozens and dozens of great people made a permanent, and
wonderful, impression. |
||
? |
After the demise of the
Product Sales Team at First Image I decided to try going out on my own. I ran
a successful product sales company of 1 for about 3 years. As with all small
business', I wore all hats to manage a business and realized that I had a natural
talent for accounting. With that, I decided to leave the document imaging
industry and began working temporary positions in accounting for a number of
local large companies. |
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Retired, from 7000 employees to 0, and following in the steps of Larry Whitaker (now driving a school bus.) Diana (x-Zytron employee) and I live in Keller, Texas. I retired from Lason, an outsourcing company that processes data off shore. I had offices in India, China, Mexico and Barbados. I retired as EVP of International Operations. Diana and I have been married 29 years. Leslee, our oldest daughter, has graduated from college and got married in October of 2009. She is a neonatal ICU nurse Taryn is living in Austin, doing office work. We have a dog, Madi, and a Grandog, Calvie, both poodles. |
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"I left Zytron/First Image/Anacomp in Feb. 2001. I am currently with Mike Cooper’s company in San Diego…Xpress Data Inc. There are several former Zytron folks there…it’s as close to a “Zytron” as you’ll find anywhere. Judy and I live in Burleson, TX…a small community just south of Ft. Worth, TX." |
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Still living in Half Moon Bay (12 years) with my
German Shepherd Mia. I work for a mortgage bank
in In 1999 Mel and I ended our marriage after ten years, though we are friends and still communicate from time to time. Around this same period I was recruited by a start up in San Francisco, and I rode the dot com roller coaster. It was wild, but fun, and the company folded after 2 years. Then I went to work for Grant Long who was working for Elixir Technologies in Santa Barbara – he was recruited by Diane Merzel who was one of the Senior people there. I didn’t stay long, the company is privately held, Pakistani, and very interesting…. That’s when I returned to the mortgage world, in the peak of the refinance boom. As you can imagine, my world has been rocked, however I am sticking it out. Still, it’s not the same as the old days at Zytron, and I seriously doubt that culture exists anywhere. For fun I volunteer at a local wildlife sanctuary in Half Moon Bay, and hang out with my friends in our community garden. |
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I live in Rocklin, Ca. After leaving Zytron where I was site manager of the Sunnyvale location, I worked as a courier for FEDEX and went back to school and earned my degree in Computer Science. I spent 8 years with DHL in their IT department doing many different jobs. I managed Network Operations and Network Implementation for the last few years. DHL took me to Arizona. My wife and I missed California so we moved to Rocklin just over a year ago. In the process I started working for an IT consulting firm called Dimension Data and I Manage Service Delivery for the west coast and a few customers in New York and New Jersey. Working from home gives me great flexibility and I am fortunate in being able to spend a great deal of time with my family and that is absolutely the most important thing in my life. It is great seeing all the folks from those years at Zytron. That period of time shaped my professional career and I’m truly grateful to many of the folks that helped me
|
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When I left Zytron/First Image, I went to work as Regional Sales Manager for a medical transcription software company until the Y2K bug caught up with them. I left there and went to work for MIDCON Data Services. I am presently the Director of our Customer Service and Client Development department. MIDCON is a commercial records storage and data management company. I’ve been here for 8 years. I’m still married to Karen, my wife of 36 years, and proud to say she is a cancer survivor 3 years running with no sign of any re-occurrence and a great prognosis for full recovery. My son Dustin is one of our supervisors here at MIDCON, married with his first child on the way. My daughter, Heather, is a very successful hair stylist at the largest salon chain in Oklahoma City, not married but probably not far off. I spend my time when I’m not working playing golf and woodworking. |
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"All is great with
me. I tried to retire in 2006 but after 6 weeks and all my project were
complete I got bored. I kept saying I just needed time to adjust. but
after 3 months Al told me I need to Volunteer somewhere cause I
was driving him crazy with my non stop talking when he got
home since I had no other outlet. I decided I would go back to work. I'm
working for MAXIMUS which is a sub contractor for the state signing
people up for state programs. I'm in HR, mainly payroll for the entire
project of 1200+ people. We went to Europe for a 2 week WWII tour in October. This May we took our mom's on an inner Alaska passage cruise for mother's day."
|
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I am still in the
"imaging" business after all these years, now with IBM through
their acquisition of FileNet. I specialize in their IBM records
management software. I continue to be very active in AIIM
(www.aiim.org) where I have done voluntary standards development over the
last 25 years, though I have cut back a lot. For many years I served as
the chief US delegate for international standards in the ECM space.
Scary, isn't it? I also currently (2009) serve on AIIM's
international Board of Directors and have been honored to received most, if
not all, of AIIM's industry awards, including the top one, the Award of
Merit. I am also a member of the AIIM Company of Fellows along with
other Zytonites like Truitt Airhart and Terry Bogue. |
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Buddy retired from our
"Real World" in 1998 and moved to Editor's note July 14, 2008 - Buddy's contact link will take you to the home page for his desert bar. There is a phone number here but also if you click on the "Take a virtual tour" link, then select "Main Web Page" > "Contact" you will get a local address, phone number and various email addresses including, buddy@tapasdelmundo.com. |
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? |
It took me about 10 years to figure out just how spoiled I was while employed at Zytron. What a great person to report to as a green horn "Terry Lyons’! What a great business! I have often thought to my self I was in the right place at the right time and I could not believe how much fun it was to work for such a great company. I remember many times being on vacation and couldn’t wait to get back to work. After 9 years I resigned from Zytron/First Image in August of 1993 to join forces with Terry Lyons again at a company called COPI. We figured that we would be able to win all the COM business in Houston, but boy where we wrong. After First Image moved out of Houston in 1998 we moved into their production facility (Terry designed the facility prior to leaving First Image in 1992). In October of 1998 I decided that it was time for me to break out on my own and try to sell with someone other than Terry, so I took a sales slot with a company call Quantum. They changed their name to Regulus Group shortly after I started. They had a few old Zytron employees working there, so I felt good about leaving Terry. The new love affair didn’t last but two years, because they acquired another one of the old Zytron companies Accudata. Too many sales people to fill current sales slots and I was sent packing. This was about the time I was searching for another Zytron and low and behold an old friend called me and said "hey we need you in Houston". I started reporting to Warren Hoppe in December 2000 for the third time, but now we were working for Anacomp. I figured this was going to be just like the past, but I had the wind taken out of my sails when Warren was RIFed a little over a month after I started. I only stayed around until June of 2001! I called Terry Lyons and he told me he had bought COPI and changed the name to Zytron. I started assisting him in building his company in July 2001. He was marketing COM, CD storage, laser printing and mailing services. We worked together for 4 years, before I got burned out on the commute into the office each day. I decided I would work from home on commission only, and during that time at home I had many recruiters calling and ultimately took a sales position with Lason, and then with SourceLink. I took some time off after SourceLink to be able to travel with my middle son Kevin. He was playing in some junior golf tours and the only way to be recruited to play NCAA golf he needed to be able to travel all over the US. While working for other companies doing the same type business, I would from time to time direct some new business back to Terry at Zytron. Today is January 5, 2010 and I’m still selling for Terry Lyons and after 25 years he is still spoiling me. I’ve been married to Lisa for the past 23 years and we have three sons, Sean a sophomore at Auburn University, Kevin a freshman at University of Arkansas (on the golf team, look out PGA) and Steven a junior in high school. |
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Larry left Anacomp in 1998 and then spent time as VP of Sales and consultant for MSI. He now considers himself retired, (Marquita, his wife of 50 years, says he’s retarded not retired), however he spends part of his day driving an Edmond, Oklahoma Public School Bus and the rest of his time with his Therapy Dogs visiting Schools, Nursing homes, Hospitals and special needs children. You can find more about Larry and his TDI-certified Therapy Dogs, Bentley and Sterling, on his webpage, http://larrysb.googlepages.com/ |
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White, John P. |
One of the last Zytron Hold outs at the Big A. Left
with a package in in 2004. I'm Working at a small print and mail company in
Farmers Branch Texas with an old client of mine from the Zytron days. Like
Warren this is as close to the old days as I can remember. Just the 2 of us
in sales ( He's the president and owner ) and all the rest women. No pressure
with sales reports and such, just having a great time. Susan and I will
celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary soon and our two children are married
or engaged. *** <update by Tom, 06/08/2011> Sadly, John left us just before Memorial Day this year. Thanks to Warren and others for “spreading the
word” as quickly as possible. Services
were May 31st. Many of the
Texas “Zytron; where are they now?” members in attendance. I wish I could offer more to all of you
that could not attend. The link to his
obituary is: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/obituary.aspx?n=john-white&pid=151407854 but I’m sure it will not last forever. Here is the text of the entry:
White,
John Philip "Johnny" Loving and devoted son, father, husband, and
beloved friend to many, born June 27, 1953 at Central Methodist Hospital,
passed away on May 28th, 2011 at the hospital where he was born. Johnny and
Susan have been residents of Cedar Hill for 27 years. He graduated from </update by Tom, 06/08/2011> |
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