Benetech® is led by a highly motivated team of engineers and professionals, all committed to working collaboratively to bring critically important technology to social applications.

• Jim Fruchterman, Founder and CEO
   
• Patrick Ball, PhD, Chief Scientist and Vice President, Human Rights Programs
   
• Betsy Beaumon, Vice President and General Manager, Benetech Literacy Program
   
• Betsy Burgess, Director, Marketing
   
• Gerardo Capiel, Vice President of Engineering
   
• John Crossman, Director, Engineering
   
• Nicole Gnutzman, Director, Literacy Operations
   
• Ann Harrison, Communications Director
   
• Jane Simchuk, Vice President, Human Resources and Administration
   
• Tom Stephenson, Chief Development Officer
   
• Teresa Throckmorton, CFO and Vice President, Finance
   

Jim Fruchterman

Founder and CEO

A technology entrepreneur, Jim Fruchterman is a former rocket scientist who has founded two of the foremost optical character recognition companies and developed successful social enterprises. Jim co-founded Calera Recognition Systems in 1982. Calera developed character recognition that allowed computers to read virtually all printed text.

In 1989, Jim founded Arkenstone, a nonprofit social enterprise, to produce reading machines for the disabled community based on the Calera technology. Following the sale of the Arkenstone product line in 2000, Jim used all the resulting capital to fund Benetech, with an explicit goal of using the power of technology to serve humanity.

Jim has also been active in public service, with two stints on U.S. federal advisory committees. In 2006, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Jim was named an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in 2003 by the Schwab Foundation and continues to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Benetech received the Skoll Award for social entrepreneurship under Jim's leadership. Jim also received the Robert F. Bray Award from the American Council of the Blind in recognition of his outstanding efforts to make literary works accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired.

Jim believes that technology is the ultimate leveler, allowing disadvantaged people to achieve more equality in society. "I'm an advance scout for social applications,” notes Jim. “I find exciting technology waiting to be turned into non-commercial tools for disadvantaged groups."

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Patrick Ball, PhD

Chief Scientist and Vice President, Human Rights Program

Patrick Ball is a leading innovator in applying scientific measurement to human rights. He has spent twenty years designing databases and conducting quantitative analysis for truth commissions, non- governmental organizations, international criminal tribunals and United Nations missions in El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Chad, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Kosovo, Liberia, and Perú.

Patrick began this work with a human rights NGO in El Salvador in 1991. From 1993-2003, he worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the Science and Human Rights Program where he began recruiting colleagues to build the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.

Patrick has received several awards. In April 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation presented him with their Pioneer Award. In August 2002, the Social Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association gave him a Special Achievement Award. In June 2004, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) gave Patrick the Eugene Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics.

Patrick is currently involved in HRDAG projects in Guatemala, Colombia, the DR Congo, and others.

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Betsy Beaumon

Vice President and General Manager, Benetech Literacy Program

Betsy Beaumon has served for more than twenty years as a technology executive and entrepreneur. She is a former Senior Director for BEA Systems, Inc. and managed international e-business initiatives for Cisco Systems, Inc. In 1995, she founded Social Online Service, the first web-based information and referral service for social service organizations. As Executive Director of the company, Betsy was an early supporter of Web accessibility standards.

Betsy was also one of the founders of TradeBeam Inc., a provider of global trade management software services. She began her career in engineering, then moved into product management for GTE and Lam Research Corporation.

Betsy brings an extensive background managing high growth organizations to her leadership of the Benetech Literacy Program. Her past experience in operations, marketing, product management, services, training and strategic partnerships supports the ongoing expansion of Benetech's Bookshare and Route 66 Literacy projects.

Betsy earned a BSEE from Northwestern University. Active in volunteer work, Betsy has taught English classes to adult students in Tanzania.

Betsy Burgess

Director, Marketing

Betsy Burgess joins Benetech with a combined background in both education and high tech marketing. She has over 15 years of experience in various marketing and public relations capacities for software startups, most recently serving as Senior Director of Marketing Communications. A former teacher herself, she has developed and taught computer and Internet training seminars, and delivered those seminars to educators around the country.

In the early days of the Internet, Betsy launched a small business focused on helping schools and educators use the Internet in the classroom. She also published two books and six CDs designed to help educators integrate the Internet into the curriculum.

After completing her BA at Wellesley College, Betsy earned a Master's degree in Education with a specialization in Learning Disabilities. "In recent years, one of my most rewarding experiences was helping a 5th grade student with severe learning disabilities learn to read. Unfortunately, I didn't know about Benetech and Bookshare® at the time. My student would have greatly benefited from the Bookshare library."

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Gerardo Capiel

Vice President of Engineering

Gerardo Capiel has over 15 years of experience leading the development of innovative Internet and enterprise software. Prior to joining Benetech, he was Co-Founder, Director and CTO of Digital Impact, a publicly traded e-marketing software vendor. Gerardo was also Co-Founder and CEO of Gydget, which created social network marketing products for the entertainment and non-profit sectors.

In addition, Gerardo has worked at MySpace, Altro Solutions (IT services), BroadVision and HP. His software industry experience spans SaaS, data mining and analytics, e-marketing, e-commerce and social networking. Some of his pioneering achievements in e-marketing included being awarded a key patent related to web measurement.

Gerardo has a B.S. from M.I.T. in Engineering Systems and Computation and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Gerardo has traveled extensively through the developing world and has served as a volunteer in the Dominican Republic and Cambodia. At Benetech, he feels he is now able to apply his entrepreneurial experience and technical creativity to give back to humanity every day.

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John Crossman

Director, Engineering

John Crossman has a decade of experience working in the Internet industry, serving as both a senior engineer and technical manager. At Benetech, he provides tactical leadership to the engineering department.

Before joining Benetech, John was Director of the Systems Integration group at CNET Networks, a global Internet media company that serves in excess of 100 million page views per day.

John has a B.S. in Computer Science from U.C. Santa Barbara, and graduated from the Master's and Credential in Science and Mathematics Education program at U.C. Berkeley. Prior to his career in the high-tech industry, John worked as a high school teacher, a curriculum specialist at the Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose, CA), and an exhibit engineer at Zeum, an art and technology museum in San Francisco, CA.

At Benetech, John is able to combine his expertise in software engineering with his passion for social causes in order to build technology solutions that serve humanity.

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Nicole Gnutzman

Director of Literacy Operations

Nicole Gnutzman has served for more than twenty years as a production operations and content management leader and systems thinker. After being introduced to system modeling as a strategic organizational tool, she joined the management consulting firm Innate Strategies as Principal Consultant. While serving in this position, Nicole engaged leaders in the non-profit world to think systemically about solving complex problems related to the environment, social justice and education that have defied other approaches.

Before leaving consulting to join Benetech, Nicole was Vice President of Content & Media Production at Cengage Learning, one of the foremost higher education publishers in the U.S. While at Cengage, she co-designed and led the strategic reengineering of production operations and implemented an XML-based, enterprise-wide content management system.

Nicole has an MA in Rhetoric and Professional Writing from the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her commitment to literacy and educational opportunity extends beyond Benetech to her ongoing fundraising efforts to build a school in Malawi, Africa.

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Ann Harrison

Director, Communications

Ann Harrison is a former journalist who spent more than twenty years covering the intersection of technology and civil rights. She worked as a reporter for a wide range of media organizations including Wired News, The Nation, National Public Radio, Security Focus, ComputerWorld, Agence France Presse, Fast Company, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Business 2.0, Software Magazine and the Boston Business Journal.

While working for Wired News, Ann covered the release of a 2006 report by Benetech’s Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) which analyzed data on more than 102,000 civilian deaths in East Timor. She subsequently traveled with the HRDAG team to document its first analysis of the estimated 80 million documents in the Guatemalan National Police Archive. Inspired by this work, Ann joined Benetech later that year.

Ann earned a B.A. in political science from Hampshire College and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is a volunteer ranger at the Burning Man arts festival and serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Jane Simchuk

Vice President, Human Resources and Administration

Jane Simchuk brings over 15 years of administrative management experience in both the high tech and banking sectors.  Her previous experience includes executive staff assistant at the Portland Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank as well as managing the administration function at Calera Recognition Systems. Jane received her B.A. from Stanford.

Jane has always enjoyed the broad challenges found in two distinct areas of business: managing the day-to-day affairs of busy office environments, and helping to set strategy for ongoing growth. As an early member of the Calera team, Jane ran the office, managing everything from facilities to personnel during years of rapid growth. Later, Calera's foundation OCR product became the inspiration for Arkenstone and helped to germinate the idea of Bookshare, a successful Benetech initiative.

From 1996 to 2000, Jane served as Executive Administrative Assistant to the Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank (Portland, Oregon branch). In this capacity, Jane balanced a wide range of duties, including administration, Board relations and special projects. Today, Jane oversees Human Resources and office functions, serving as ad-hoc marketing communications manager, and participating in fund raising and management.

"My work at Benetech has helped me to understand a primary rule where non-profits are concerned," says Jane. "Accountability is the key. We owe it to our user communities and our donors to push out the best possible products and, at the same time, manage dollars aggressively to the last penny. My job is to continually revise our processes toward that goal."

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Tom Stephenson

Chief Development Officer

Thomas L. Stephenson is a native Californian who has worked in both the private and not-for-profit communities over the last two decades. During his early career he worked in sports television production with ABC Sports and in the public affairs group for a major land development company, The Irvine Company of Newport Beach, California. Tom led fundraising, strategic planning and marketing efforts for several non-profit organizations including the SETI Institute, the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, Project Concern International and the Neuroscience Group of the University of California, Irvine's School of Medicine.

As a consultant, Tom has worked on several political campaigns, advising candidates and managing various regional and statewide initiative campaigns, as well as serving as counsel to a diverse portfolio of nonprofit organizations and private businesses.

Tom is a graduate of California State University, Fullerton with an undergraduate degree in Political Science and a Master's degree in Administration. A resident of San Jose, Tom is also a graduate of Western State University School of Law and is licensed to practice in the state of California.

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Teresa Throckmorton

CFO and Vice President, Finance

Following experience in banking audit and management, Teresa Throckmorton provided financial management at Calera Recognition Systems and has spent the last 15 years as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance for high tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Later, also in the roles of VP Finance and CFO, Teresa helped to start up two technology companies in Silicon Valley. Through this experience, Throckmorton learned all about careful financial management — where every dollar matters — as well as the factors of risk and reward. In the process, she was part of the culture of innovation that is still so important in developing the best in technology.

At Benetech, Teresa's role includes day-to-day management as well as the development and implementation of an overall strategy for building a sustainable social enterprise. Teresa is excited by this challenge: "This work is so important. The balance here will be to keep an eye on reality, but to not lose sight of the dream."

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