Michael Ditmore, Executive Director of Novim, began his business career with IBM as a systems engineer. After receiving an MBA from Stanford in 1970, he relocated to Germany as Director of European Operations for Canberra Industries. Following the sale of his division in 1972, he returned to California, joining a startup–ROLM Corporation, where he served as regional manager for marketing and sales. The company was sold to IBM in 1979. Michael subsequently founded and sold 2 high technology medical device companies.
In 1995 he co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of the Systems and Software Consortium, a non-profit association of 150 companies whose first project was the creation of the Pacific Technology Center in Goleta, the largest high tech incubator in southern California at the time.
Professional Associations - Michael currently serves on the Director’s Council of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB, and is a life member of both the USAF Academy Association of Graduates and the Stanford Alumni Association. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement of California; the Executive Board of Santa Barbara Partners in Education; and the Stanford Business School Alumni Association. He served on advisory boards for the NASA Ames Incubator and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
George Ittner served President of the direct marketing company Territory Ahead from 2004-2010. Prior to that he was Chairman, CEO and President of Newport News, Inc. a division of Spiegel, and earlier held numerous management positions in marketing, merchandising and business development at Avon Products, Inc.
While Director of new markets for Avon, he managed a joint venture in China to successfully manufacture and market the first western product since 1949 to be sold in the local market in local currency, leading to Avon's full scale national door to door business in China.
George has extensive experience in the direct marketing industry having held senior level marketing and general management positions for over 20 years.
He is a graduate of the University of Missouri and the American Graduate School of International Management.
Professional Associations - George serves on the advisory board of Levenger, Inc. and served on the board and executive committee of the Direct Marketing Association Inc.
Jim Knight, Novim’s Executive Vice President, was a co-founder in the start-up of Amber Engineering, Inc. in
December of 1981. Over twelve years the company grew to 200 people and was acquired by Raytheon Company in 1992. He retired as Senior Vice President in 1994.
Jim and three other partners subsequently started Indigo Systems Corporation in March of 1996, which grew to
230 employees before being acquired by FLIR Systems in January 2004.
Professional Associations - Jim served for 5 years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce beginning in 1993 and later in a supporting role with the Government Relations Committee.
Jim currently serves on the Director’s Council of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB, and is co- chair of the Government Relation Committee for the Goleta Chamber of Commerce. He served on the Board of Directors of UCSB’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management, and currently serves on the steering committee for the South Coast Business and Technology Awards dinner sponsored by the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara.
Simon Raab, Non-executive Chairman of Novim, holds a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, (Fracture Theory in artificial joint fixation), a Masters of Engineering Physics from Cornell University (Surface Physics), and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
In 1981, Simon co-founded Faro Technologies (NASDAQ: FARO) and served as CEO and VP of product development until 2005–he remains its Chairman. Faro is the world leader in portable 3D measurement devices, having designed, developed and marketed systems that allow manufacturers to perform 3D inspections of parts and assemblies, as well as design and reverse engineer products.
As a pioneer in the development of CAM2 systems and services for automotive, aerospace, industrial and consumer products, Dr. Raab holds over 80 patents in the fields of industrial measurement, bio-materials, medical diagnostics and computerized surgical assistance.
Professional Associations - Simon serves as a board member of TrueVision 3D Surgical, which develops 3D surgical vision and computerized surgical assist tools and Cynvenio Biosystems, specializing in technology for individualized cancer treatment. He is also an active professional artist working in the medium of Parleau.
Doug Troxel attended Iowa State University with a major in mathematics and minor in physics. In 1966, as a senior, he crossed over to the college of Engineering to take a Fortran course and immediately chose programming as a career. His first job was Programmer/Analyst at Consumer's Power Company in Jackson, Michigan where he learned COBOL, Assembler and the newly emerging IBM product called C.I.C.S.
He moved to San Francisco, and formed SERENA Consulting in 1980, developing a product called COMPAREX for the mainframe world. It quickly became an industry standard. Working with the Bank of America, he began building a program called Change Man.
Doug retired from SERENA in 2001 but serves as a director and consultant on product strategy. He and his wife Deborah split their time between Kona, Santa Barbara and SFO for SERENA functions.
Professional Associations - President of the family foundation Change Happens, Doug currently serves on the Director’s Council of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB, and enjoys pursuing life long interests in physics, astronomy and politics.
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