Team

Chas Emerick, Founder

Snowtide Informatics Systems is led by President and Founder, Chas Emerick. Chas designed and implemented PDFTextStream in 2003, and remains its primary architect. He continues to direct ongoing PDFTextStream development, but is more often found working on ways to leverage PDFTextStream's capabilities to solve extremely difficult mission-critical content extraction and conversion problems for Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

Chas dropped out of Hampshire College to found Snowtide in 2001 after studying artificial intelligence, neural networks, and philosophy of mind for 3.5 years. While Chas' track record is not quite as good as Bill Gates or Michael Dell (who also dropped out of college to start companies), he is nevertheless glad to serve as a good example that success can still be found on the path not usually taken.

Joe Brandt, Software Enabler

Joe takes care of much of what makes PDFTextStream a rock-solid product, and not just a fantastic project. He touches testing, web development, documentation, and accounts and license management, thereby making sure the trains run on time and arrive in one piece. He's also started working on PDFTextStream proper of late, improving its text layout engine, thereby making it easier for all of us to extract structured data from the sea of PDF content out there.

Joe is a recovering Perl programmer, living in Western Massachusetts. He went to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to study Political Science and never left. Primarily a web applications developer, he also dabbles in data munging and Java application development. Lately, Joe has become a Python convert and wishes he had drunk the koolaid much earlier in his programming career.

Ed Gandia, Marketing Communications Manager

As Marketing Communications Manager for Snowtide Informatics, Ed Gandia is responsible for the company's marketing materials, advertising, and public relations efforts. (We actually believe he went for the job because he ended up having the most impressive title of all of us.)

Also a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant specializing in software and technology, Ed helps high-tech companies write direct-response and marketing communications pieces that help feed pipelines and drive revenue. His focus on producing results-oriented campaigns and materials stems from a successful 11-year career in IT and industrial sales.

Ed earned a B.A. in Finance from the University of South Florida. He is an active member in Georgia's technology community, and is a member of the board of directors of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Marketing Society.