Trafficcast

An executive with over 20 years experience in both traditional and new media and a pioneer of traffic information content and travel services, Al was named CEO of TrafficCast in February 2011.

Most recently, Mr. McGowan was Chief Operating Officer (COO) and then CEO of Redlasso, a cutting edge web video search portal for media, bloggers and viewers.  In the 1990’s, Al was President of Shadow Traffic, an innovative leader in nationalizing the syndication of traffic reports heard on the radio.  The company was purchased by national radio network Westwood One, where he became COO of Traffic Services.  In 1999, Al was one of the founders of Traffic.com, corporately known as Mobility Technologies, which revolutionized the presentation of traffic information on television, particularly through the introduction of roadside sensor technologies to enable graphic representations of traffic flows.  Traffic.com was sold to Navteq, now part of Nokia, in 2006.

Al serves on the Boards of Tango Traffic, which delivers traffic information through cable-based platforms, and the Comedy Exchange Association, a broadcast performance rights organization for comedians and comedy writers. 

As COO, Connie focuses on operations and emerging technology areas for the company, for which she served the previous four years as CEO.

Before founding TrafficCast, Connie founded and served for several years as CEO of TranSmart Technologies, a traffic and transportation consulting business. She is coauthor of one of the leading traffic flow texts.

Connie received her Ph.D. in transportation engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago, her Master of Science degree in transportation engineering from the University of Tokyo, and her Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Tsinghua University, China. She is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Arizona. She has been recognized as an Outstanding Executive, Emerging Business, by Global EXEC Women.

Tim is leading the sales and marketing efforts in TrafficCast's next growth phase. He most recently was vice president of LCC International's strategy and business development efforts, and has more than 20 years experience in the telecom, wireless, and mobile markets.

Prior to LCC International, Tim held numerous executive sales, business development and sales management positions at Wireless Faculties Incorporated (WFI), a wireless engineering consulting company. His background also includes more than 10 years at Motorola, Inc. in system engineering, sales, sales management and operations, including leadership positions supporting location based services, hosted and non-hosted applications for the Motorola handset division. Later, as a vice president for Ericsson, Tim led the Sprint professional services/backhaul team. He began his career with General Instrument/Jerrold designing cable TV products.

Tim holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Bradley University. He is on the board of advisors for Brilliant Telecommunications.

Jerome is the principal architect of its software and has more than 15 years of experience in system and software engineering and geographic information system. Besides supervising the system design at TrafficCast as chief engineer, he did the same for TrafficOnline and FleetOnline.

He holds Master of Science degrees in computer science from the University of Oklahoma and in remote sensing and geographic information systems from the National Central University in Taiwan. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in Geo-Spatial Information Engineering Program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Nick formerly was senior vice president of Affiliate Sales for both the CBS Radio Networks and Westwood One, where he developed national program content and distribution. He was also chief marketing officer for Broadband Maritime, a world-wide telecommunications venture, and helped launch Wisdom Media as vice president of business development and general manager of radio operations.

Nick holds MBA and MS (Journalism) degrees from Columbia University. His Bachelor of Arts degree is from the University of Notre Dame.

Paul leads TrafficCast initiatives in the public sector, reaching out to city, state and county departments of transportation, consultants and Metropolitan Planning Organizations, along with managing the distribution network. His primary focus is the sales and marketing of BlueTOAD, TrafficCast's innovative system for monitoring travel times, road speeds and route behaviors by detection of Bluetooth signals from passing vehicles, as well as a range of data services supporting operations and planning.

Prior to joining TrafficCast, Paul was the National ITS Business Development Manager at Econolite, responsible for managing new business development in North America. Previously, Paul was a member of the technical sales and marketing team focusing on the Autoscope video detection system at Econolite. Paul graduated in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University and is based in Atlanta, GA.

James was vice general manager of SIIC, the biggest investment bank of the Shanghai government. He also has served as director and board secretary of DS Company, the subsidiary company of Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group, the owner of TDSCDMA.

James has a Bachelor's Degree from law school and a Master's Degree in economics, holding the Lawyer Certificate. He is a member in The Telecommunications Association.

Sona has more than 20 years of institutional venture investment experience, focusing on information technology, business services and healthcare. Since 1987, she has raised three Chicago-based venture capital funds totaling more than $100 million under management. They are Batterson, Johnson & Wang, INROADS Capital Partners and CERES Venture Fund LP. Previously, she was an investment manager with Allstate Venture Capital.

In addition to TrafficCast, Sona has served on numerous corporate boards including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, High Tower Software, SuccessLab Inc., Ultimo Enterprises, and IKOS Systems. Previously, she held key management positions in engineering, manufacturing and marketing at Intel Corp.

Sona graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering and received a Master of Business Administration degree, graduating magna cum laude, from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. She serves on Northwestern University's Board of Trustees.

An executive with over 20 years experience in both traditional and new media and a pioneer of traffic information content and travel services, Al was named CEO of TrafficCast in February 2011.

Most recently, Mr. McGowan was Chief Operating Officer (COO) and then CEO of Redlasso, a cutting edge web video search portal for media, bloggers and viewers.  In the 1990’s, Al was President of Shadow Traffic, an innovative leader in nationalizing the syndication of traffic reports heard on the radio.  The company was purchased by national radio network Westwood One, where he became COO of Traffic Services.  In 1999, Al was one of the founders of Traffic.com, corporately known as Mobility Technologies, which revolutionized the presentation of traffic information on television, particularly through the introduction of roadside sensor technologies to enable graphic representations of traffic flows.  Traffic.com was sold to Navteq, now part of Nokia, in 2006.

Al serves on the Boards of Tango Traffic, which delivers traffic information through cable-based platforms, and the Comedy Exchange Association, a broadcast performance rights organization for comedians and comedy writers. 

As COO, Connie focuses on operations and emerging technology areas for the company, for which she served the previous four years as CEO.

Before founding TrafficCast, Connie founded and served for several years as CEO of TranSmart Technologies, a traffic and transportation consulting business. She is coauthor of one of the leading traffic flow texts.

Connie received her Ph.D. in transportation engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago, her Master of Science degree in transportation engineering from the University of Tokyo, and her Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Tsinghua University, China. She is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Arizona. She has been recognized as an Outstanding Executive, Emerging Business, by Global EXEC Women.

Joe serves on the Board on behalf of Phenomenelle Angels Fund I, LP and DaneVest Tech Fund I, LP, where he is Co-Founder and Managing Director of both.

He is a Partner Emeritus at Foley & Lardner LLP where he was founder and chair of the firm's national Emerging Companies/Venture Capital Team and represented clients in more than 350 private placement offerings.

Joe has personally invested in more than 50 private companies, has been a vice president of a small investment brokerage firm, manager or co-manager of several small venture capital funds or partnerships, and active in the venture capital community for more than 30 years. Joe has served on several committees by appointment by the Wisconsin Securities Commissioner. He has served as chairman of the Wisconsin Secretary of State Improvement Committee; as a co-organizational committee member of the Governor's Summits on Venture Capital; and drafter of white papers for such conferences including 50 initiatives for the state, many of which have been adopted including the Wisconsin Act 255 investment tax credits.

He was co-organizer and president of the Wisconsin World Trade Center-Madison, Inc.; Invest Wisconsin, Inc.; co-founder, officer and director of Capitol Bank, Downtown Madison Partners, Inc., Wisconsin Harvest, Inc. and The Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, Inc. He has received many local and national awards for his charitable work.

Joe earned a Bachelor of Science degree in finance, investment and banking, and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received his Juris Doctorate degree from Harvard Law School.

Paul is responsible for new business development and pricing of more than $3.5 billion in annual revenue for Schneider National's global client base, supporting shipping and logistics worldwide. This work can be seen on the Interstates everyday, with the company's distinctively orange long haul trucks. He rejoined the family business in September 1998 as a supply-chain engineer.

From 1999-2003, he spearheaded Schneider's e-commerce efforts, and served as research director and general manager at Schneider Logistics, launching BidSmart, an Internet-based procurement product. In 2003, he led Schneider National's Midwest driver operations. Previously, he was a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley & Co.'s investment banking division.
Paul received a Bachelor degree in economics from Northwestern University and a Master of Science degree in information systems from the University of Wisconsin. He serves on the board of directors of Schneider National, Inc., and Family Services of Wisconsin.

A leader for more than 30 years in the development of innovative weather display and forecasting equipment, software and services, Terry has founded several successful technology companies, including ColorGraphics System, Inc., and New Star. He managed the Dynatech Video Group of companies from 1983 through 1993. He has been an owner of radio and television stations, and was named "2003 Entrepreneur of the Year" in Wisconsin by Ernst & Young. Terry also served as chairman and chief financial officer of Air America Radio.
Terry holds a degree in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He also received the American Meteorological Society's Seal of Approval and the AMS award for Outstanding Service By A Broadcast Meteorologist.

Neal was Chief Executive Officer of TrafficCast from September 2008 to January 2011.  He is a mobile industry veteran with more than 20 years of industry experience, including 16 years at Motorola Corp. in engineering, marketing and executive management roles. He led its emergence in software-based, location-based services offerings in their mobile device and Telematics business units, including oversight of product portfolio selection for its $10 billion-plus GSM cellular device business. Earlier, as Vice President, Location Based Solutions, Neal managed development and marketing of robust location and navigation solutions for mobile devices, marketed under the brand name VIAMOTO. Most recently, he served as executive vice president and general manager of Strategic Marketing and Next Generation Products at ISCO International, a leading supplier of software-based, adaptive filtering products for the wireless industry.  He currently Chief Marketing Officer of CDW, the technology products and services provider based in Vernon Hills, Illinois.

The Noel Group, LLC is a Madison-based holding company with hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and real estate. Prior to joining the Noel Group, Tyler was executive vice president of corporate development for AIG Travel Guard where he headed up acquisitions for Travel Guard International.

Tyler received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and his MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business. Tyler is a director on several foundation boards in Wisconsin and was recently named as one of InBusiness Magazine's Top 40 Under 40.

Barbara is a managing director of Women Angels in both Milwaukee and Florida. She also serves as general counsel and director of governmental affairs of PDM Bridge. She was the chair of the government relations department at Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. Barbara has substantial political experience at the local, state and national levels. Her clients include Fortune 500 companies, commercial developers, municipalities and a wide range of nonprofit organizations. She serves on the boards of numerous local nonprofit organizations.

Barbara earned a Master's Degree in public administration and a Law degree from Marquette University. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the Wisconsin State Bar and the Milwaukee Bar Association. In addition, she is a member of the Association for Women Lawyers and the Association of Wisconsin Lobbyists.