Evaluator Group team members have an average of more than 20 years of experience in the information technology industry. Our knowledge base combines experience in the engineering, marketing and sales disciplines, though the core of our expertise comes from a thorough, hands-on knowledge of architectures and engineering of data centers and storage.
Camberley Bates
Camberley joins Evaluator Group as the Managing Director responsible for corporate strategy and business development. She brings over 20 years of sales and marketing experience as a former executive with VERITAS, GE Access and EDS as well as mid size companies – COPAN and FalconStor.
Most recently, she led her own consulting firm, Bates Strategy Group serving the Global 250 and startups with go-to-market strategies. She has established a new data storage category – MAID – a key technology for long term archive. At VERITAS she was VP Marketing for Field, Channel and Alliances at VERITAS where she led a 65 person worldwide team to restructure the channel program and strategic marketing with alliance partners such as Oracle, HDS and HP. As an executive with GE Access, a $2B distributor, she grew a new division from $14 to $500 million in revenues through a solution practice methodology for storage, web and security, winning awards from Oracle, Checkpoint and VERITAS.
Early-on in her early career, Camberley led her own IT Services company specializing in mnufacturing and dstribution implementation for mid-size businesses. She came into the IT field working with very large data centers as a director and management executive with EDS and IBM.
She holds a BS degree in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business. Camberley can be contacted at Camberley@evaluatorgroup.com .
A passion for the outdoors, when not IT driven, she can be found skiing, riding her bike around Colorado and hiking.
Russ Fellows
As a Senior Partner, Russ is a key contributor to Evaluator Group’s ongoing research into data storage technologies. His focus includes Data Center Transformation and virtualization, security, and data protection. Most recently Russ has been working on storage for VDI implementations and directing lab efforts within Evaluator Group. Russ has over 20 years of high technology experience including product design / development, systems engineering, competitive analysis and portfolio management. His experience encompasses a broad perspective of the storage industry and comes from roles as an IT data center engineer, storage product manager and storage analyst, Prior to joining Evaluator Group, Russ held strategic positions in Sun Microsystems’ storage division identifying key technology trends. He held several positions at Fujitsu ranging including IT management, engineering management and marketing strategy. Russ has also held high tech positions at Solbourne Computers, Qwest Telecommunications and the US Department of the Interior. Russ is a frequent contributor to InfoStor and Internet.com and speaks regularly within the SNIA community and at Storage Networking World events. A true Colorado native, a skier and outdoorsman, Russ holds BS degrees in Applied Math and Computer Science from the University of Colorado and an MBA in International Business and MIS, also from the University of Colorado. Russ can be contacted at Russ@evaluatorgroup.com.
Randy Kerns
In his role as Senior Strategist at Evaluator Group, Randy Kerns brings expertise that ranges from virtualization everywhere to very long term archive. He draws from over 35 years in the computer industry helping storage companies design and develop storage system products for their markets as well as advising technical professionals on how to build the best storage infrastructures to streamline their business processes. Prior to joining Evaluator Group, Randy served as CTO for ProStor where he brought products to market addressing long term archive for Information Technology and the Healthcare and Media / Entertainment markets. He was vice president of storage strategy and planning at Sun Microsystems; led engineering organization in designing disk and tape systems for mainframe attachment at IBM and StorageTek; he designed disk systems for attachment to open systems and proprietary computer platforms at Fujitsu and Tandem Computers; and he developed tape and disk systems for two VC-backed companies. Randy Kerns earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Missouri at Rolla and a master’s degree in engineering computer science from the University of Colorado. An educator and presenter, Randy Kerns has written numerous industry articles and papers and is the author of Planning a Storage Strategy, a book that offers step-by-step guidance on how to build an information storage strategy as part of a larger business process and most recently is the author of Information Archiving – Economics and Compliance, the first book of its kind to explore in depth the archiving of digital information. He also contributes regularly to the TechTarget blog, Storage Soup. Randy Kerns teaches classes on storage technology regularly in the United States and Europe. Currently he is the presiding Chairman of the Board for the Triangle Education Foundation.
Leah Schoeb
Leah joins Evaluator Group as a Senior Partner bringing expertise ranging from cloud infrastructure and virtualization to storage performance. She draws from over 20 years of experience in the computer industry helping systems companies with performance optimization, marketing positioning, benchmark evidence creation, and guiding industry standards development for server, virtualized, and storage solutions. Prior to joining Evaluator Group Leah has served in several leadership roles both on the engineering and marketing sides for performance for companies, such as, VMware, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Intel, and Amdahl. Recently she has developed and executed long-term plans for the generation of new cloud computing performance evidence and used novel means to disseminate it to the industry. Leah has also participated and provided thought leadership for industry groups such as, Transaction Performance Council (TPC), Storage Performance Council (SPC), and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). She currently serves the SNIA as the Vice Chairperson of the Technical Council and the Chair of the Green Storage Initiative. Leah earned a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland (College Park) and a MBA from University of Phoenix. She can be contacted at leah@evaluatorgroup.com .
John Webster
John Webster is a Senior Partner and contributes to Evaluator Group’s ongoing research into data storage technologies including hardware, software and services management. His specialties include storage and data management, virtualization, cloud computing, and analysis of storage infrastructure acquisition alternatives.
Mr. Webster has over 30 years experience in IT and is the author of numerous articles and white papers. He is also the co-author of a book entitled “Inescapable Data – Harnessing the Power of Convergence,” published in April, 2005 by Prentice Hall. He contributes regularly to CNET.com and is often quoted in business and trade publications. Mr. Webster has also been a featured speaker at Storage Networking World and Storage Decisions events.
Mr. Webster has held the positions of Principal IT Advisor, Illuminata, Senior Analyst and Founder of Data Mobility Group, Director of Computing Research with Yankee Group’s Management Strategies Planning Service, and Senior Analyst with International Data Corporation. He is a member of the Storage Networking Industry Association and founded the SNIA’s End User Council. He is also past Chairman of the Greater Boston Regional Computer Measurement Group. He is a graduate of Boston University. See John’s blog, “Data – driven” on CNET. Follow him on Twitter. John can be contacted at John@evaluatorgroup.com.
Kate Gerfen
As Marketing Coordinator for Evaluator Group, Kate Gerfen is responsible for the development, coordination, and implementation of vendor projects. Kate also is responsible for product and client services. Prior to her role as Marketing Coordinator, Kate handled the development of social media, expanding Evaluator Group’s outreach throughout the online IT community.
She holds a BS in Marketing from University of Colorado at Boulder. A native of Colorado, she is an experienced hiker and snowboarder. Kate can be reached at kate@evaluatorgroup.com
Dennis Martin
As Evaluator Group’s Lab Director, Dennis brings 30 years of information technology experience in software development, project management and marketing with expertise in mainframe, UNIX and windows environments. His experience expands from small to large companies such StorageTek. He is a highly respected analyst publishing and speaking for SNW and TechTarget. Today he is founder and president of Demartek, a company that provides lab validation and performance testing of storage and related hardware and software products.
Dennis is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group in Denver, and served as its President for its first six years (1994-2000). Dennis was re-elected President of the group in May 2008. Dennis is a Microsoft Storage MVP for calendar years 2005-2010.