My name is Will Herman and as a result of the hand I was dealt and the path I have followed, I’ve been afflicted with only two speeds; fast and stop. As it turns out, I’m not even that good at the stop part. Officially, I’m retired, having sold my last company in 2002, but I seem to have no time for the classical retiree activities. I end up spending all my time on a variety of true passions - helping young entrepreneurs; working with small companies; taking everything apart to try to either improve it or figure out how it works; cycling; photography; woodworking and playing with anything with a motor.

This blog is about all of those things, but my primary goal is to put my thoughts and experiences about running a business, in general, and entrepreneurial leadership and management, in particular, into bits and bytes. Ultimately, I’d like to build a place that contains the small bits of wisdom I’ve garnered over the years so that I can point people to it when they feel compelled to ask me questions. Actually, I’m just tired of repeating myself constantly and this seemed easier than writing a book.

Hope you find things interesting and maybe even useful.

Here’s the formal bio:

Will was most recently CEO of Innoveda, Inc, a supplier of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software tools and services which was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 2002.  Innoveda, a public company, was created through the mergers of Viewlogic Systems and Summit Design, another EDA provider.  Will co-founded Viewlogic Systems in 1984 and left the company in 1992, a year after the company’s IPO.  He rejoined the company 1995 initally as President, then as CEO.  Viewlogic Systems was acquired by Synopsys in 1997.  One year later, most of the assets acquired by Synopsys were re-purchased by Will and his team via an MBO reforming Viewlogic as a private company.  Confused yet?

During his hiatus from Viewlogic,  Will was first the President of Scopus Technology, Inc. a supplier of software automation tools in the customer information systems marketplace.  He later joined startup Silerity, Inc., a developer of high-performance logic and physical synthesis tools where he was President and CEO.  Silerity was purchased by Viewlogic in 1995, thus completing the great career circle of life for Will.

Prior to founding Viewlogic, Will held management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and was involved in two other software startup operations, Dataware Logic, which he founded, and Health Care Computer Systems. He currently is a director of five private companies; AccuRev, Carbon Design, StillSecure, TrustPlus and ZiPix. He’s also a mentor at TechStars. Previously, he served as a director of several other public and private companies including, Template Graphics Software, Hall Kinion, Rebar, Lexra, Quintus, Viewlogic Systems, Innoveda, Silerity, ChannelWave and Bionaut Pharmaceuticals.