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Mr. Ruda is leading the green revolution with Wingpower, a company that develops small vertical wind turbines: a market whose installed capacity in the US alone is projected to grow 10 fold by 2015. Previously, Mr. Ruda was CEO of Desktone, Inc. an early stage provider of an end-to-end virtual desktop platform that enables desktop computing at large enterprise to be delivered, on demand, as a network-based service.

Mr. Ruda’s career spans over thirty years in the information and communications technology marketplace. Mr. Ruda co-founded Softricity as its CEO in June, 1999 when the company was still in the business planning stage and continued in that role until March, 2006, when he assumed the role of Chairman. In April, Softricity agreed to be acquired by Microsoft and the transaction completed in July. This was considered one of the most strategic acquisitions Microsoft has ever made and it was one of the largest software transactions in New England, valued at greater than 17x previous year’s revenue. Since Softricity’s inception, Mr. Ruda had raised over $60 million from top-tier venture funds all of whom realized significant returns on their investments.

Prior to Softricity, Mr. Ruda was President and CEO of ITS, a manufacturer of video access equipment for IP and ATM networks. ITS was acquired by Artel Video in March 1999, just prior to the closing of its first round of funding. Mr. Ruda also co-founded and was VP Sales and Marketing for a VC-backed start-up, Network Switching Systems, a manufacturer of integrated voice and data switching equipment which was later acquired by BBN Communications. Post-acquisition, Mr. Ruda served as BBN’s VP for Integrated Network Sales, responsible for worldwide deployment of integrated T1 networks to enterprise accounts. Mr. Ruda also founded and operated a global telecomm consulting business, Global Technologies, whose clients were composed of many of the world;s leading telecomm service providers; including, Bellcore, NYNEX, France Telecom, PacBell and GTE Services.

Mr. Ruda has also held the following positions: VP Field Operations for Bell Atlantic (a NE public communications carrier), VP Sales and Marketing for Bridgeway Corporation (a network management software company based in Redmond, WA) and President and CEO of Glyph Systems (an Andover-based software company specializing in international software and typefaces).

Mr. Ruda serves on several private company boards as an Independent Director and also sits on several Advisory Boards for early stage companies.

Mr. Ruda holds an MBA from Boston College, and MS in Operations Research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and a BS in Management Science from RPI.